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Byron Lazine and Nicole White are two agents in Connecticut who give us their thoughts on the week’s news every Friday in “The Real Word,” a weekly video column on Inman.This week, Lazine and White are talking about team structures and their effect on rankings, how agents can help buyers obtain down payment assistance plus topics from left, middle and right.
Topic No. 1: ‘Team structures are a trainwreck‘
Lazine and White looked at an Inman article by Troy Palmquist that analyzed the way various team structures, including expansion teams and teamerages, affect the ability of organizations and publications to analyze, evaluate and rank teams and brokerages. They also talked about how some ranking services are pay-for-play money grabs, while others are trying to evaluate the teams and brokerages themselves.
Take out the MLS sheet and show the real stats for your market, as well as those for others that a potential client may have talked to, the hosts said. This way everyone is looking at real numbers. In addition, Lazine and White debated the validity of multi-state expansion teams. Since different states define teams differently and define reciprocity differently, how can a single team be covered by all of the same rules?
Topic No. 2: Over 1M searches for down payment assistance
Zillow’s down payment assistance feature garnered more than a million hits last year. Qualifications include location, type of property, household size, income, military or veteran status, and other factors.
While Lazine and White see a need for assistance to increase affordability, White said that some include second mortgages, deferred payment and other potentially dangerous financing options that agents need to be aware of so that they can educate their clients. She also said that down payment assistance information makes a good Call to Action (CTA) for your own content.
Left, middle right
Casino mogul Steve Wynn is betting on the luxury market, as he unloads $300 million in personal real estate
Lazine and White said that it sounds like Steve Wynn is projecting a downside from the luxury market. We should be aware of that and hedge against it, since this could be a leading indicator of rough economic news ahead.
Dollar Stores lead a surge in new retail openings
The company is seeking out underserved rural areas that may not have shopping or retail resources with lower-cost goods in a time of high inflation and potential economic downturn. If you’re an agent serving an underserved rural area and you have clients with land with high traffic counts, send this article to those clients and ask them to allow you to market their land to these types of retail stores.
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