‘Unfiltered’: Are agents ready for a buyers market?
Watch the conversation with Dan Cooper as the tech entrepreneur reminds agents that they “have to put in the work” as the market shifts in buyers’ favor.
Editor's note: The Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered podcast explores the people and forces that shape the real estate industry. Check out our top takeaways and this episode from NextHome CEO James Dwiggins and Keith Robinson, NextHome's chief strategic officer.
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in the Real Estate Insiders podcast belong solely to the podcast creators and guests.
On this episode of Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered, Gitcha Founder and CEO Dan Cooper weighs in on the shift toward a buyers market and offers tips on how agents — most of whom haven't experienced market conditions quite like this before — can thrive.
There has been speculation for months that the market is starting to favor buyers. But after the last several years, Cooper believes the industry is now "based on serving the seller." As the market recalibrates, Cooper believes agents should treat buyers just as they treat sellers.
"There's so much more front-end work you do when you have a listing," he said. "You can't all of a sudden now just say, 'Don't worry about it — I'll take you through these houses because the seller pays me.' That's not in the discussion anymore. You actually have to put in the work"
A whole new world for agents? It's been about 13 years since U.S. residential real estate experienced a buyers market, Cooper explained, and "only 15% of current agents were practicing real estate back then."
In addition to their lack of experience with these market conditions, today's agents don't necessarily have the technology they need to navigate a market that is, for many, entirely new to them. "We had like 200 products in 2012; we have like 3,000 products now. None of them have been — have needed to be — developed through the buyer's lens," Cooper said.
Creativity is key: Agents may need to switch up their usual tactics to stay competitive. Before immersing himself in the real estate business, Cooper struggled with trying to sell his own home after the 2008 financial crisis — and felt that some parts of the experience were "really flawed."
He recalled the agents he worked with having a "rinse and repeat" process in which they "posted a listing in the newspaper, sent an email to their spheres, strategic postcards around the neighborhood, held the brokers open houses, and then lowered the price when they didn't get any offers."
Cooper felt like there was "a deficiency in the knowledge" among agents who "didn't really know how to meet the market where it was." Moving forward, agents should not "be afraid to try something new to try to enhance your services for the time that we're in" and should treat buyers "a little bit more concierge level in the process," he urged.
PLNs 'bad for business'? Another major change since the last buyers market is the rise in private listing networks, which Cooper believes is "a bad thing."
"When we start to weaponize the private listing networks from a brokerage standpoint, nobody wins — except for maybe that brokerage," he said. "As a small brokerage owner — and I can speak for my fellow small brokerages — it's a detriment to us serving our clients as well.
Private listing networks tend to cater to sellers, with proponents like Compass CEO Robert Reffkin frequently trumpeting the importance of "seller choice." But this approach may not fit with the current market.
"What happens when it isn't the seller's choice?" Cooper asked. "You're going to restrict visibility of your listing in a buyers market? I would think that would be bad for business."