Weekly Radar #295: Grassroots To Green Loans, Seller Concessions Unpacked
What's covered in this week's GEM Crystal Weekly Radar:
- Building Decarbonization In-a-Box is launching in nine cities, addressing the emissions of sub-50,000 square foot multifamily and commercial buildings that represent the vast majority of properties in America.
- Drew revises his thoughts on the future of real estate after summarizing Ed Zorn's podcast content regarding how agents will get paid in the post-settlement world.
- Consisting of 30 stocks, the GEM Proptech Index had a combined market cap of $242.519B, a 3.35% decrease from the previous week.
Geek Estate Blog Recap:
Geek Estate Team
Geek Estate Team
Geek Estate Team
Geek Estate Team
Geek Estate Team
Transmission Recap: Drew covers how new technological shifts with AI and innovations will impact real estate in the coming decade. Before that, Dennis Steigerwalt dove into a few technologies that help real estate developers maximize water efficiency and minimize waste.
CLIMATE
GRASSROOTS TO GREEN LOANS
By: Logan Nagel
Building Decarbonization In-a-Box is launching in nine cities including Los Angeles and Atlanta. It aims to address the emissions of sub-50,000 square foot multifamily and commercial buildings that represent the vast majority of properties in America as well as a huge chunk of the industry’s carbon generation. Launched by a coalition that includes municipalities, nonprofit banks and investors, and a trio of for-profit tech companies, the program aims to identify underperforming buildings and then deploy no-cost “technical and financial assistance” to these owners. It also plans to increase the number of community lenders skilled in making green financing tools such as the C-Pace program, a debt instrument that offers very favorable terms for sustainability improvements.
Instead of municipalities approaching property owners directly, landlords that own applicable buildings will receive direct mail and digital marketing campaigns. While the extent of the cost-free advisory solutions is unclear, the companies involved—C-Pace service providers Allectrify and Sustainable Real Estate Solutions and data platform UtilityAPI—gain a tremendous amount of social proof and prospects for repeat business or upsell opportunities. None of these companies are huge, and the use of unique funding methods to improve older buildings isn’t stopping any time soon. While it’s unclear if the coalition is open to new members, If your own firm is involved in sustainability and decarbonization, identifying opportunities to develop similar coalitions could be a win-win.
REAL ESTATE
SELLER CONCESSIONS UNPACKED
By: Drew Meyers
The VP & General Counsel for CRMLS, Ed Zorn, was a guest on Real Estate Insiders episode discussing how agents will get paid in the post settlement/lawsuit world. A few takeaways:
- Commission sharing is not going away, but will simply move to the seller concessions section of the listing in the MLS.
- Listing agents will not have to sign an agreement with a potential buyer prior to opening the home to them (since they already have an agreement with the seller to show the home to whoever they'd like).
- MLSs will not allow data access to any entity aggregating commission. MLSs are even likely to shut off a VOW/IDX feed only being used to show commissions of a brokerage's own listings if that data is known to be scraped and aggregated by another entity.
Along similar lines, ❇️Michael Wurzer❇️ has two articles worth reading. The first is about Paragraph 58.xiii(a), stating that:
[T]he Practice Changes in Paragraph 58 of this Settlement Agreement shall not (a) prevent offers of compensation to buyer brokers or other buyer representatives off of the multiple listing service
The second is about exception in Paragraph 58.xiii(b), what states
[T]he Practice Changes in Paragraph 58 of this Settlement Agreement shall not … prevent … sellers from offering buyer concessions on a REALTOR® MLS (e.g., for buyer closing costs), so long as such concessions are not limited to or conditioned on the retention of or payment to a cooperating broker, buyer broker, or other buyer representative.
Based on additional/better information, it appears I do need to revise ❇️my thoughts about real estate in 2035❇️. Namely, listing agents showing any property without a contract means open houses might not be juiced as much as I originally thought. Instead, we're likely to see listing agents build larger teams that can handle many more showings. Additionally, since all or most of the offers platforms integrated with MLS data feeds, aggregating commission sharing data would put them at risk of being shut off entirely by MLSs in order to reduce potential MLS legal risk. So, that's not likely to happen. All that said, commission/concession sharing products will surface. Two already built are BAfee from ReOrzo and Verified Commissions. There will be more coming, legal risk or not.
BIZ INTEL
Proptech Index Update
Consisting of 30 stocks, the GEM Proptech Index had a combined market cap of $242.519B, a 3.35% decrease from the previous week.
Editor's Note: On Tuesday, Selina Hospitality Management issued a statement reinforcing their belief in the company's strategic direction and their commitment to shareholders. Despite a 95% decrease in their stock price over the past year, the company maintains an optimistic outlook... The looming question remains: will they encounter a ❇️similar downfall as View Smart Windows❇️? Stay tuned for further updates.
GEM DIAMOND MEMBER NEWS
- Listen to Spencer Rascoff on building and investing in the future of Proptech. – Brad Hargreaves
- Docusign opened up a new SaaS category, Intelligent Agreement Management, and unveiled Docusign IAM. - Glenn Shimkus, Tyler Thompson, and Dave Garland
- The National Association of Realtors® announced SoFi as a new partner with REALTOR Benefits. – Dave Conroy & Dan Weisman
- Homely.com.au welcomed 49 new agent offices onto long-term memberships in Q1. – Jason Spencer
- Propertymark formed a co-investment partnership with TDS to boost funding for REACH UK. – Dave Garland, Tyler Thompson Natasha Terinova
- Shovels released a list of every building permit jurisdiction in the US – Ryan Buckley
- Courted expanded its roster of brokerage partnerships with One Sotheby’s International Realty, Michael Saunders & Co., Windermere, Seven Gables, and more. – Sean Soderstrom & Diane van der Goes
- Apartment List welcomed its new Chief of Sales, Mike Wolber. – Matthew Woods