With so much going on across the industry as it relates to AI, private listings and MLSs, Donny Samson points to gathering with other industry leaders as one of the key benefits associated with attending Zillow’s Industry Forum—an invite-only event where brokers, MLS executives and franchisor leaders recently came together to discuss where the industry is headed while gaining a peek behind the curtain at what the real estate portal giant is currently working on.
“Getting together in a place like this, I was looking forward to the content, but I was more looking forward to the social aspect of being able to hop in a room with some of these other people that are running brokerage or MLS and getting their point of view with what’s going on off the record so that I could better form my opinion as to what’s going on on the record,” says the CEO of Samson Properties.
From hot-button topics such as AI to listing transparency and pre-market strategies—and everything in between—Samson left the event better informed and better prepared to lead his brokerage into the future.
AI-powered efficiency
Coming up in nearly every industry conversation right now, one of the challenges facing brokerages is determining how to leverage AI to improve efficiency.
A self-proclaimed sphere of influence guy, Samson is vocal about being careful as far as how much you make AI a part of your life when it comes to how you interact with your consumers and sphere.
“They want to work with somebody they like, know and trust, but we do a poor job of reminding them that they like, know and trust us. And I think that the more technology and AI become a part of our life, it’s going to be harder to keep people that like, know and trust you remembering that they like, know and trust you,” explains Samson, who is a big proponent of person-to-person contact.
And while AI can be helpful in home searches, identifying buyers closest to needing help, crafting better emails and building marketing plans, according to Samson, none of that replaces the core of what agents should be doing: connecting with clients and their database to make sure people know they’re there for them.
As for his main goals surrounding AI, Samson notes that it’s all about finding simple ways to teach it to agents while helping run the brokerage more efficiently.
It’s a philosophy Zillow is actively building toward. The company has been clear that its approach to AI is about making agents more efficient—surfacing the right buyers, streamlining the search experience and identifying who’s closest to needing hands-on help from an expert—so agents can focus on the moments that matter most to their clients. It’s a thread that runs through everything Zillow is currently building, from Zillow AI Mode to its agent productivity tools.
“We have to figure out how to meet agents on their level when it comes to using AI,” says Samson, pointing to the fact that while most AI classes being taught have the best of intentions, they often fly over the head of the average agent—the national median age of which is 57.
Trust, loyalty and lasting relationships
Arriving at conversations more informed than ever before is a shift brokerages across the board are experiencing when working with today’s clients, underscoring the importance of establishing a good agent/client relationship from the get-go.
“I think (clients are) more informed than ever because there’s so much more on the internet, and sometimes they’re using that, but they’re doing their own searches more often than ever,” explains Samson.
“Most clients want to use portals because they do the best job of displaying information, but they don’t want to use portals because they don’t want Realtors® to call them every time they click a button on a house,” he says. “We get a bad name as a profession because we either don’t call people back when they ask for information or they just click a button and didn’t know they were asking for information, and six of us call.”
To that end, cracking the communication code is a key piece of the puzzle when it comes to fostering strong agent/client relationships and keeping clients engaged throughout the real estate process.
“If you don’t connect with them and give them a search functionality that they’re going to use and that keeps you closer to them, they’re going to find somebody else,” adds Samson, highlighting the growing challenge of retaining consumer loyalty in today’s ever-evolving market.
It’s a challenge Zillow is directly addressing with Zillow Pro, launching nationally next month. The platform’s My Agent feature creates persistent branding for agents across Zillow for consumers they already have a relationship with—so when that client is browsing listings at 10 p.m., their agent shows up, not a stranger.
For Samson, investing in ways to bridge that gap begins with something as simple as a market snapshot, providing a way for agents to connect with buyers and sellers when it comes to monthly market updates or monthly buyer searches.
Drilling down further, while the firm utilizes newsletters and postcards alike, Samson isn’t afraid to go old-school to stay in front of clients past and present and connect on a more personal level.
“While it might seem old and antiquated, I encourage all of our Realtors® to send a newsletter once a month to everybody in their database,” says Samson. “I want it customized to not only what’s going on in the real estate market around them, but what’s going on with them as a person because that’s how you stay connected to your database.”
Listing transparency and pre-market strategy
Top of mind for many brokerage leaders, the discussion surrounding listing transparency and pre-market strategy continues to cause tension between seller flexibility and broad market exposure—a topic Samson is particularly passionate about.
“I think the word ‘seller choice’ is ridiculous,” says Samson, who believes the term was introduced by those trying to create more leverage for themselves or their brokerage.
“Anybody that is trying to sell a home off market before it hits the market to the masses is only trying to help themselves. They’re not trying to help their sellers,” adds Samson, pointing to the fact that full market exposure helps 99.99% of listings get the best price, the best terms and the best situation for that specific house.
Zillow’s data backs that up. Sellers who list off the MLS typically lose nearly $5,000 at closing—and in communities of color, that loss more than doubles to nearly $10,000 per home.
“Once in a blue moon, you might be able to find somebody that is unwilling to show their house for whatever reason, or is unable, but even then they’ve got to show it to somebody to buy it,” says Samson. “I don’t think that’s a private off-market listing if you’re still exposing it to everybody in your brokerage. That’s just deciding how many people get to see it.”
And while real estate professionals can sit in front of any seller and convince them that this is the best strategy, Samson believes that view is misguided.
“On the flip side, I’m a big proponent of Zillow Preview. I might be using Zillow Preview as a brokerage more than any brokerage in the country right now,” says Samson, who believes the pre-market platform that brings home listings into the open earlier in the listing process should be used as a test balloon.
Zillow Preview lists homes publicly on Zillow and Trulia—and starting this summer, on Realtor.com—before they go active in the MLS, visible to all buyers, not limited to any single brokerage’s network. Agents and sellers can see how the market is responding in real time, including views, saves and shares, giving them the data they need to go live at the right price point with confidence.
“If they’re reacting well, great, launch it at (that) price point. If they’re not reacting well, then we know we’ve got the wrong price point,” says Samson, “but this should not be used as a mechanism to try to sell off-market deals.”
Rather than moving the industry forward, Samson argues that efforts to keep listings off the broader market are pushing the industry backward.
“We have a great internet and cooperative system that we’ve had for years and years, and we’re trying to break it because one broker (has) decided that they thought this would be a cool angle to try to keep Realtors® or keep deals in-house. And that’s crazy to me,” adds Samson, who isn’t against a three-phased approach that includes previewing the property by putting it out there to see what the market thinks about it before placing it in Coming Soon status prior to going live.
“My major disconnect is that step one and step two should be for information gathering so that we launch at the best price so we can put our best foot forward with condition/price and have the best chance for a successful sale,” he says.
Affordability and inventory constraints
With affordability and inventory constraints contributing to a tough market lately, real estate professionals in markets across the country are buckling down as the second half of the year gets underway.
While Samson believes things are going to remain fairly similar for the time being, he points to the golden handcuffs effect that’s keeping homeowners locked into low mortgage rates as a real problem.
Using himself as an example, Samson notes that most everyone he knows that has kids between 10 and 20 years old hasn’t moved in the last few years unless they’ve had to because they’ve retired or they’re moving out of the area due to their kids graduating or whatever else—and it’s not because they’re wildly obsessed with their house.
“I heard it said once really well: ‘I like my house, but I love my mortgage.’ Nothing is truer than that,” says Samson, who notes that simply opening up one thing at the top of the food pyramid could open up four other sales. “But because nobody is moving, it closes off what is out there, so I don’t think that the amount of sales is going to change dramatically, because the people that have to move will move, but the people that can choose to move aren’t going to move,” he adds.
The capital gains exemption is another issue that could potentially change the landscape should the limits be moved from where they currently stand at $250,000 for an individual and $500,000 for a couple to $500,000 for an individual and $1M for a couple.
“We would create so much more inventory in this market tomorrow if it was $500,000 and $1M because people have the equity, but they’re not going to sell and pay $100,000 in tax on it because it’s not exempt anymore. But if we extended that exemption, people would sell and downsize. They would sell and move to a different area,” says Samson.
“If we extended that capital gains exemption, it would create a lot more market, a lot more homes into the marketplace tomorrow, so I really hope NAR is able to help push that through with all the lawmakers out there because it would make a big difference,” he adds.
On the MLS side of the equation, the challenge right now comes from letting things continue the way they are, a move that Samson worries will cause MLSs to lose a lot of leverage.
“If we don’t have the power of being the go-to source for all the listings, and they become less powerful out there, more and more brokerages start to peel away from them and now we’ve lost the cooperation aspect of everybody putting their listings in one place that made us powerful together,” he says.
“I think we’re running into a real problem of trust and a real problem of controlling data. MLS leaders have to jump out and be in front of this or they’re going to be left in the wake trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces.”
The path forward
Samson’s message for those who weren’t part of the conversation at Zillow’s Industry Forum is simple: Stay informed, have direction and inform your Realtors®.
“It’s our job as brokerage leaders to get out there and figure out the path that you feel comfortable with and run down it,” says Samson, while at the same time remaining informed and being willing to change.
“I’m the biggest opponent of private listings and selling stuff off the market that there is, but I’m now embracing Zillow Preview because it’s a path to knowledge that didn’t exist two months ago. But it wouldn’t have been a focus of mine six months ago at all,” he adds.
“We have to know what’s going on, be decisive and be a leader during this and inform our Realtors® because they look to us to help guide them on what’s the best path moving forward,” shares Samson, who has nothing but appreciation for Zillow’s transparency during the forum.
“I think that we’re clear (about) what they’re trying to do and what they’re not,” he concludes.
For more information, visit https://www.zillow.com/
