Compass invests in data with hiring of Altos Research’s Mike Simonsen
Simonsen, whose data company was bought by HW Media in 2022, will be the brokerage's first chief economist after getting "a very compelling offer" from its CEO.
While Compass has spent much of the last year wrangling with the residential real estate industry and pushing its private exclusives effort forward, the company announced on Monday that it is investing further into the real estate data business with the hiring of Mike Simonsen as its first-ever chief economist.
From author to in-house expert: Simonsen, an industry veteran, founded Altos Research in 2006 and has authored numerous stories for HousingWire since his company was acquired by HW Media in 2022. He has also provided data and research to the "largest Wall Street investment firms, banks, and tens of thousands of real estate professionals around the country," his author page on HousingWire notes.
In his new role with Compass, Simonsen will "focus on helping agents and their clients better understand housing market analytics in real time," the company said, as well as lead research efforts that will "help elevate Compass' market reports and power its data-driven content." Simonsen has regularly been cited as an expert voice in mainstream media, the company noted, having been featured in stories from The New York Times, The Atlantic, Bloomberg and others.
Market intelligence for agents: Compass CEO Robert Reffkin said in a news release that hiring Simonsen is "a direct investment" in the company's strategy "to provide world-class market intelligence" to agents.
Simonsen said part of his new role will also be helping buyers and sellers understand the current housing market landscape. "It helps me as a professional analyst of the market having the insight of the 37,000 agents doing the most transaction volume in the country," he told Real Estate News over a phone call.
"There's a lot of great value to me in working in a Compass environment."
Sharing private listing data? Some of Compass' proprietary agent data includes info on the company's 6,600 private exclusive listings — but it's unclear if that data and research would be made available to the industry or for broader consumption. "I'm here to help people see and understand the market and communicate best what's happening for buyers and sellers," Simonsen said on the topic, adding that he will also be resuming his weekly market update video series but under the Compass brand and team.
'A very compelling offer': After selling Altos Research to HW Media and overseeing the company's transition, Simonsen said he felt like "it was time for a new adventure" and "had some ideas," but he hadn't considered moving to Compass. But when Reffkin reached out with the opportunity for Simonsen to continue doing research and reporting as the brokerage's chief economist, he decided it was the logical next step in his career.
"The Compass team were fans of the work I was doing at Altos and how I communicated about the market, and [Reffkin] asked me what it would look like if I came and joined Compass to do that," Simonsen said.
"That was very flattering. It was a very compelling offer from Robert. It's an exciting company, he's a charismatic leader, and I said let's talk immediately."