Weekly Radar # 282 - A Peculiar Inman Decision, Adding Gravy to Agent Selection, Influx of As-a-Service, Blocks of Physicality Built of Blocks...
Here's what we're exploring in this week's edition of the Crystal Radar:
- Inman is doubling down with two more events...a move that will degrade production quality.
- A homeownership accelerator, Gravy, is set to be acquired by Clever Real Estate. Another soft landing for the category.
- Real Brokerage added a white labeled offering that puts them in the "brokerage-as-a-service" mix.
- On this week's episode of This Week in Startups, Bill Gurley, Brad Gerstner, & Jason Calacanis predict that a few IPOs are coming, and Gerstner says "IPO markets are always open, it's just a matter of price."
- The most disruptive approaches to modular, where buildings are printed in the field, face barriers to adoption and material issues leading to project failure.
- An update on our Proptech Index and recent GEM Diamond Member News.
New on the Geek Estate Blog:
Property data is a topic we’re digging deep on in 2024. We wanted to tap a member of the GEM Diamond community, RealEstateAPI‘s Co-Founder Vincent Harris, for his take on the state of property data and what an API approach looks like.
Transmission Recap:
This week, see the current membership makeup of GEM Diamond, as well as 2023 business reflections and 2024 resolutions. Before that, Drew Meyers and other GEM members shared their 2024 predictions.
As always, links surrounded by the ❇️ emoji indicate exclusive GEM Diamond content. If you would like to have access to all links, please consider GEM Diamond membership.
EVENTS
A Peculiar Inman Decision
By: Drew Meyers
Inman Connect: To go or not to go?
That's a question I get asked quite regularly. The answer, for tech executive on the residential side, used to always be yes. But, dwindling attendance makes it less and less of a no-brainer. It seems, more and more, executives are choosing to allocate their travel time and budget elsewhere. And their sponsorship dollars.
That's why I find the Inman decision to double down on conferences with the addition of two more events (Miami and Austin) so confusing.
While the core audience is agents and brokers, without the high-profile executives/speakers to fill the stage, the model won't work. I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say...those people are not going to attend more than one or two events per year to discuss the same topics we've been beating to death for years already (death of the MLS, anyone?). So, it's clear to me that the production quality of all four is going to suffer.
The industry events slate is beyond crowded already, with offerings serving targeted audiences. If I were them, I would have gone the other way. Go down to one conference, not two, and make that one event a must-attend for everyone in the industry. Watering down attendance with more events is not the path back to the conference's glory days. But, maybe that's just me.
Will you be attending Inman NY? Austin? Miami? Las Vegas? Or, none?
REAL ESTATE
Adding Gravy to Agent Selection
By: Drew Meyers
First-time owner app Gravy "has been acquired by Clever Real Estate, a company that specializes in educating consumers about agent choice and the overall transaction process," according to Inman News. Gravy's Loyalty-as-a-Service offering was apparently a big part of the allure for Clever to pull the trigger. The executive talent is sticking around, with "Gravy executives and co-founders Jeff Dinter, Jimmy Lien and Will Dunn...becom[ing] part of Clever."