“It was a challenging, unpredictable year in real estate.”
We’ve all heard this every year for the last handful of years, and it’s starting to feel like a playlist set on repeat. That’s real estate for you, but real estate professionals are built for it.
This year, we’re celebrating 35 years in real estate. We’ve seen it all and have reacted to it all. The most recent events around commissions lawsuits have rocked the industry, on top of the regular market ebbs and flows. But they have also created unique opportunities for real estate professionals in navigating the market, and we're here to support them through it all.
We discussed this topic of the past and future of real estate tech and more earlier this week at our webinar, hosted by a panel of Lone Wolf leaders. If you couldn’t attend, keep scrolling for the recap—and you can find the full recording here.
Challenges that foretold today’s changes
While filled with its challenges, 2023 was also a transitional year away from the extremes of the previous handful of years. It still had its pain points of higher mortgage rates and lower inventory but had its bright spots, too.
The new year hit, bringing real optimism for a more balanced and dynamic market, home sales growth, possible interest rate dips, and a gradual inventory increase.
Then in March, shockwaves hit the industry when the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) agreed to a monumental $418-million settlement following a verdict favoring home sellers in a class action lawsuit. The outcome of the settlement is still unfolding, but here's a short summary of the proposal:
- More competition: Practices that might have inflated commission rates are restricted, potentially leading to more competitive pricing for buyers and sellers.
- Increased transparency: Buyers gain more power with upfront written agreements from agents, outlining fees and services.
- Uncertainty remains: Long-term effects on commission rates and the market are unclear, with potential appeals from NAR.
Helping you navigate this market
While the settlement is certainly news and next steps for the industry aren’t crystal clear, it doesn’t really change that our goal here at Lone Wolf is to help you adapt to whatever the industry throws at you so you can continue being successful in a challenging market. Right now, we are actively:
- Partnering with organizations nationwide to stay on top of the latest regulations and updates, ensuring our forms always meet compliance standards.
- Focused on empowering brokers with products that minimize risk and ensure adherence to regulations, all while allowing agents to demonstrate their value to clients.
- Actively preparing a new generation of Lone Wolf software to deliver cutting-edge features and, most importantly, simplify the real estate transaction process.
The future also needs better software.
Beyond adapting to industry changes, a major challenge you face is juggling numerous point solutions—software that address specific tasks but doesn't integrate with each other, creating a fragmented workflow.
In fact, our study last year with T360 found agents and brokers use 20 different products a day. Managing this complex web of tools with multiple vendors, data entry points, workflows, and customer experiences creates many questions.
How do you improve the value you provide? How do you prove the value you provide to your clients?
We're here to help you find the answers with better software.
What is “better software?” It’s not a simple answer, but most industries share these similar hallmarks of what defines “better software.
- It’s connected
- It’s secure
- It’s data driven
- It’s always being updated
Our answer to better software is Lone Wolf Foundation.
Lone Wolf Foundation is different from all the others. It's not about adding more complexity. It's about building on our experience and history and bringing everything together into one fully connected and complete real estate platform. Imagine one platform for all your needs: advertising, marketing, transactions, back office, and analytics.
One real estate platform, with one login, one dashboard, one navigation for all users across every step of a real estate deal.
Jake Hamilton, SVP of Strategy here at Lone Wolf, puts it into perspective:
“Because Lone Wolf Foundation is not a monolith or one-size-fits-all. You pick and choose the Lone Wolf apps you prefer, connect to the tools you trust, and essentially serve as the architect for your own platform. The goal is to give you a connected experience from start to finish, like a Microsoft or a Google or an Adobe, and give you the power to build your platform, your way.”
Special topic: Recruiting in this market
Beyond the current changing rules, the top challenge facing brokerages is finding good agents and bringing them on board. But the good news is that recruitment can be less of a challenge with BrokerMetrics by Lone Wolf. Our powerful recruiting tool empowers brokerages like yours to:
- Find top-performing agents in your market based on KPIs, growth analysis, and potential contribution to the bottom line.
- Bolster your value proposition by discovering and promoting your brokerage’s competitive differentiators and strengths.
- Prepare your agents to identify and capitalize on future shifts with insight into emerging trends for pricing, supply and demand, and more.
What’s next?
Discover more from Lone Wolf, stay tuned for exciting new updates coming soon, and don’t forget to tune into the full webinar recording to learn more.
