This week on RealTrending, Tracey Velt sits down with Steve Murray, senior advisor for HousingWire and the founder of RealTrends and RTC Consulting.
Steve joins us to unpack some of the recent dramatic shifts in real estate, including Stone Point’s strategic investment in Keller Williams and Rocket’s acquisition of Redfin. They also talk about Clear Cooperation Policy and the industry footprint of new, fast-growing brokerage models like LPT Realty and The Real Brokerage.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Rocket's acquisition of Redfin aims to leverage its brand and website traffic.
Private equity interest is returning to the real estate market.
New brokerage models are growing rapidly, often with lower costs.
The franchise model is evolving, with virtual brokerages gaining traction.
NAR's policies on delayed marketing are creating industry debates.
The market is shifting towards more inclusive practices.
Related to this episode:
Changes are underway as MLSs implement NAR’s new CCP policy | HousingWire
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/changes-are-underway-as-mlss-implement-nars-new-ccp-policy/
Keller Williams receives big investment from Stone Point Capital | HousingWire
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/stone-point-capital-takes-a-stake-in-keller-williams/
The Real Brokerage is banking on 'pure tech innovation’ | HousingWire
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/the-real-brokerage-is-banking-on-pure-tech-innovation/
Rocket Companies announces deal to acquire Redfin for $1.75 billion | HousingWire
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/rocket-companies-announces-deal-to-acquire-redfin-for-1-75-billion/
Enjoy the episode!
The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the lessons they’ve learned. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.
Steve joins us to unpack some of the recent dramatic shifts in real estate, including Stone Point’s strategic investment in Keller Williams and Rocket’s acquisition of Redfin. They also talk about Clear Cooperation Policy and the industry footprint of new, fast-growing brokerage models like LPT Realty and The Real Brokerage.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Rocket's acquisition of Redfin aims to leverage its brand and website traffic.
Private equity interest is returning to the real estate market.
New brokerage models are growing rapidly, often with lower costs.
The franchise model is evolving, with virtual brokerages gaining traction.
NAR's policies on delayed marketing are creating industry debates.
The market is shifting towards more inclusive practices.
Related to this episode:
Changes are underway as MLSs implement NAR’s new CCP policy | HousingWire
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/changes-are-underway-as-mlss-implement-nars-new-ccp-policy/
Keller Williams receives big investment from Stone Point Capital | HousingWire
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/stone-point-capital-takes-a-stake-in-keller-williams/
The Real Brokerage is banking on 'pure tech innovation’ | HousingWire
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/the-real-brokerage-is-banking-on-pure-tech-innovation/
Rocket Companies announces deal to acquire Redfin for $1.75 billion | HousingWire
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/rocket-companies-announces-deal-to-acquire-redfin-for-1-75-billion/
Enjoy the episode!
The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the lessons they’ve learned. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.
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NewsTranscript
00:00What's going on with the Stonepoint acquisition of Keller Williams, Rocket and Redfin, and
00:07what does it look like in the market with the new delayed marketing policy for the MLS?
00:14I am talking to Steve Murray.
00:17He is an industry stalwart, founder of Realtrends and RTC Consulting.
00:22He is also a senior advisor to Housing Wire, and we talk all things industry today on the
00:29podcast.
00:29So enjoy.
00:31Steve, always great to have you on the podcast.
00:34Hey, Tracy.
00:34How are you?
00:35I am great.
00:36I have lots for you today.
00:38So, but I want to start with something that kind of came and ran through the news cycle
00:44quickly, which is the Stonepoint investing in Keller Williams and talk to you a little bit
00:50about the possibilities of that.
00:53I should be talking to the CEO, Chris Zarnacki, pretty soon.
00:57And he's going to be also speaking at the gathering.
00:59So I look forward to that.
01:01Wonderful.
01:02Give me your take on that investment.
01:06You know, Stonepoint, as some people may know, had already made significant investments in
01:12Lone Wolf and CoreLogic, which my understanding is they rebranded it Cotality.
01:21You know, I can't say that I, as a consultant of the industry, fully understand Stonepoint's
01:28thinking in acquiring a large piece of Keller Williams Realty International, but certainly
01:35they bought, you know, it's, they are the largest, you know, brand in the United States
01:42in North America, one of the largest top two or three in the whole world with, you know,
01:52tremendous transaction count with a significant already existing investment in their tech platform.
02:00They obviously think, rightfully so, I believe, that we are at the trough of the housing sales
02:10cycle.
02:11So if you're going to make an investment in the brokerage industry, they bought the nation's
02:16largest firm at a time when the results are at their weakest, which is a good time for purchasers
02:24who have the capital and patience. So, but, but how, the strategy of how they may use their
02:34technologies at, at Lone Wolf, the, you know, all the various pieces of Lone Wolf, how they may
02:45leverage the information of Cotality and their technology. It's beyond, it's beyond my
02:54tend to know that answer, but it was opportunistic time to invest in the nation's largest residential
03:00real estate company. Good for them.
03:03Yeah, there, there are rumors running around that it's possible they are, you know, there've
03:08been rumors for years that Keller is going to go public, that this might be the opportunity
03:13for them, or they're at least exploring that. So that'll be an interesting move if that actually
03:20does come to fruition.
03:22Well, typically an investment like Stone Point made is, pushes any public offering off into the
03:30future, three to five years at a minimum, just typically how companies like them work, but who's
03:36to say, right?
03:37Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I also want to talk about the Redfin, the Rocket acquisition of Redfin.
03:44What's your, what's your take on that?
03:46Good, good for Rocket. I mean, I mean, look, people, as I wrote in an article a month or
03:55so ago after it was announced, I mean, they acquire a company that hadn't made money on a
04:01gap basis for its entire existence and was not actually getting any closer.
04:08And somebody offers them a lot of money. And what does Rocket get? Rocket gets 50 million
04:19plus or minus unique visitors a month. What most people consider one of the finest websites
04:27for consumer real estate purposes out there. A lot of people think Redfin's website was
04:34significant. So you get that. And then they announced they're cutting, they can cut costs by
04:39140 to $160 million, which means it's immediately profitable for Rocket. My hunch is, is that they're
04:48going to convert their employee agents to independent contractor agents, that they're going to generate,
04:58try to cross market mortgage and real estate, which they've already been doing,
05:02uh, to a great extent. And this will expedite that, but what they, they bought a great, you know,
05:10a well-known brand and they bought a huge amount of consumer eyeballs. Yeah, absolutely. And my guess
05:18is, and if they do cut those costs, uh, they also bought a business that will immediately become
05:25accretive to their own earnings. Yeah. Yeah. That to me, that was an easy one to figure out.
05:32Yeah, exactly. So there's a lot, you know, there've been, there's been some big, um, acquisition news
05:39and they're, you know, kind of private equity may be coming back into the picture. Um, what are you
05:46seeing out there? Do you see any movement with like peerage and, and Karen or, um, or, you know,
05:52just in general, what are you seeing come back to the market right now?
05:55Well, the, the, no, we don't see any activity right now from peerage or Karen or United, uh, to name
06:06those three that I'm most familiar with. Um, they are busy running their own companies, trying to make
06:12sure their, their own businesses in good shape to cover their investors' interests, so on and so forth.
06:19Um, you know, there are, we're aware of at least two and maybe three other, um, private equity backed
06:30interested parties who are poking around our industry, looking at various, uh, opportunities,
06:37companies, both some of the national companies, as well as some of the regional private, privately
06:44owned companies. Um, interesting enough, uh, anywhere is back in the picture. They have let us know from
06:52the very top of the organization. They're open for acquisitions. Again, we are representing a broker.
06:59They're going to take a look at and, um, um, you know, it it's, you know, it's kind of interesting.
07:07I mean, again, this is the bottom of the trough. If you're going to buy stuff, this is, you can get it
07:14at better prices than you could back in 20 or 21. So it's a good time for people to be looking at it.
07:21If you have a balance sheet and, uh, and a good operating team that can actually execute, but we
07:29know there's others poking around some fairly, uh, some fairly good size, uh, pockets of money out there.
07:37Yeah. Do you see, you see your, um, business kind of taking a little bit of a jump right now
07:43because it's such an opportunistic time?
07:45I mean, it's our, our, our valuation business is at record levels right now. Uh, the M&A business
07:54is about average, although we obviously valuations often lead to more, uh, representation of sellers
08:03that mostly what we do. Um, I mean, we got one closed two weeks ago. We got, uh, I think we'll have
08:11another one under contract maybe first of the week. It's a good sized one, but most all of these, uh,
08:20I mean, there are a few that compass is working on certainly. Um, but most of these are between
08:27a brokers, you know, in the same market, uh, right in the same market, buying each other. It's very
08:34synergistic, uh, the people know each other. Um, and we're having some good, good success with working
08:42on local deals, so to speak.
08:44Yeah. Great. Yep. Um, I want to shift to the broker rankings, as you know, they just went live
08:51and, um, we had some interesting shifts and I just wanted your take on some of it. Basically, um, you know,
08:59we've seen, it seems to me that companies are growing faster in a shorter amount of time than
09:06ever. And it generally is generally is like a low fee or not necessarily low fee, maybe a transaction
09:15fee. I don't know, brokerage that we're seeing or virtual type model. Um, I know LPT is, is growing
09:24very quickly and they, um, they offer several different compensation plans. So they're not just
09:31a one conference. They believe in agent choice. In fact, they believe that no single entity brokerage
09:37should have a mortgage company. And Robert Palmer came through the mortgage business. He still owns a
09:44mortgage company that only does servicing and, um, refis now, um, purposely so that they don't
09:51overlap. Um, what are your, what are your thoughts, your initial thoughts on the rankings? Um, what are
09:56you seeing? Can you give me some context to the brokerages that are really rising quickly?
10:03Well, clearly it, it, the newer models are the ones growing. I mean, and, and they, they also
10:13would, what would be what we consider lower cost models. I mean, whether we're talking about LPT
10:19or you're talking about, um, real brokerage, uh, you're talking about, uh, fathom, uh, grew last
10:30year by 15 to 18% agent count and transactions. Yeah. I mean, and the United grew, uh, as well,
10:39and they're a low cost model, both owned and franchised. Um, you know, you know, shoot,
10:47the industry has spent 40 years trying to figure out how much more we can pay the agents
10:54and, and, and, and new creative ways to pay agents like profit sharing. And then there was revenue
11:01sharing and then there's stock option equities and then there's low cost plus stock options
11:11plus revenue sharing. I mean, it's like, um, and so we have, um, and very difficult for,
11:23I mean, it's a great challenge for firms like the big owned brokerage companies, whether they're the
11:29national guys like home services or anywhere or compass to fight the lower cost model guys.
11:37And the incumbent privately owned brokers have the same challenges. I mean, agents today,
11:44agents and teams have more options of a variety that they've never had before. And so, you know,
11:54um, and, and, and they look, they will all continue to grow for a time. As we have seen, and I wrote
12:05about recently, it seems like in our industry, most brokerage companies, both national and local,
12:15they have a time of rapid growth. They're new, they're interesting, they're exciting, they have
12:21passionate leaders. They're kind of people use the term shiny penny. I don't, I don't particularly
12:30like that. It's just new and interesting. And they have passionate, new, interesting leaders, LPT,
12:36good example of that. I mean, you peel it back any of these companies, you go, what is it they actually
12:43offer that helps an agent grow their business? Right? Simple question. Is there anything there?
12:52And I don't know the answer to that for a lot of these people. Or is it just that they have a new
12:58wrinkle on how an agent can make money, say, or, or have lower costs with a particular brokerage?
13:05All good reasons for an agent to want to shift. But beyond that, is there something there to help an agent
13:11improve their business? And that's where I kind of have a big question mark in my mind for,
13:17for a lot of them. But nonetheless, they're the fast growing guys.
13:23Well, they're also a lot of them, not all of them are single entity, um, rather than franchise. And so
13:30what's your take on on that? Like a lot of the newer companies are not franchising. I mean, a couple of
13:36them are, but most of them, you know, your EXP, your Fathom, your LPT, your real. Um, so talk to me
13:44about that trend. And if there's anything to it, like as a franchise model dead, or is it just something
13:50that other people are considering, you know, they don't want to really pursue? Well, I'll say some
13:58things that the viewers probably will consider to be crass. Okay. So I caution everybody ahead of time.
14:06Um, all the studies that you and I did, we're real trends together, looking at the broker rankings and
14:13segregating them into national brands versus independent in this model versus that middle.
14:18And year after year after year, we'd find that there was no real difference collectively in the
14:24growth rate of the national branded companies versus the local branded companies. One could
14:29construe from that over a 25 year period of time. Is there any proof that having a national brand
14:35actually helps somebody grow now? Hey, in the hands of a good leader and having a good brand,
14:42it can be, it can be very valuable. I, I don't, and I'm not in any way saying a national brand or a good
14:49brand is not important. We know better. We did, you and I did a lot of studies to prove that there is
14:55value there. But here's the other thing. Back when those companies founded, nobody had thought you could
15:01run a virtual brokerage. So the way you expanded nationally was either buying brokerages and having
15:11offices because agent wanted to go to an office, uh, or your franchise, which was much lower capital,
15:17much lower risk, higher margins. And that's the franchise model. So now it, you know, there are,
15:26but there are limitations and restrictions of what you can do in franchising, right? That are not
15:34there if you own the brokerage. I mean, if you, if you stop and think about it, do you think that
15:40people like home services or anywhere right now, if they could totally convert their whole operation
15:47into virtual brokerage, they'd probably do it tomorrow. If they thought they could get out of
15:51all those leases and not lose most of their agents, right? Because it's a huge overhead.
15:59So it, it, you know, back there, I don't know how many years ago, 10, 15, 20 years ago, it became
16:06evident that maybe there was a way to run a virtual brokerage and maybe you could attract agents
16:12who didn't feel the need to have an office to go to. And it's been that long, 15, 20 years ago,
16:20even local brokerages started building those kinds of models and some of them even before that. But,
16:26but I think on the national scale, these guys looked at it and said,
16:31we think you can run a national virtual brokerage. I mean, that is one without office space for all your
16:37agents and probably succeed. And I think that has proven to be the case.
16:43Yeah, definitely.
16:45But you know, the franchisors, of course, have all the, have the franchise agreements and their way
16:52of operating, which is to award a franchise for a particular address.
16:57Yes. Well, if you, how do you do that if you have no addresses? I'm sure by the way,
17:04they're thinking about it.
17:05Yeah.
17:07To wonder how to do that. And Keller Williams has done some of that
17:12with their mega agent expansion teams.
17:14And those, the lower cost brokerages who also offer, you know, stock and revenue sharing or
17:27something, are today the fastest growing guys out there, have been for the last three to five years,
17:37except for the example of Compass.
17:39Mm-hmm. Yeah.
17:41Right? I mean, every time you think, well, that's a given, that that's the only way you can get big,
17:47well, Compass proves otherwise.
17:48Yeah. Yeah. And Compass is kind of on its own in the industry right now. I think that it's really
17:59interesting that I just feel like everyone loves to hate them, but they're so, but they, if you look at
18:06what he's done, he's done some really incredible things, um, in the industry that brokers can really
18:13learn from too. Yeah.
18:15Um, and so it is interesting. I mean, he kind of was the, one of the first to really do the, you know,
18:22the sign on bonuses for agents and then transition to acquisitions and, and then transition to an
18:30innovative way to actually do an acquisition as well, as well. So, um, I think they're an interesting
18:36case study and, uh, it, the reception in the industry has not always been a positive one.
18:42And it's interesting to me.
18:43I, and I think some of that's going away. Uh, I don't know. I don't sense that they are, uh,
18:51the great Satan that everybody, uh, ascribed to them, but you know, I give them credit too,
18:59because they learned from the industry as well, because somewhere two, three years ago, uh,
19:05they shifted from this, just, just total focus on we're technology and technology and, and, and
19:16their CEO, Robert Refkin and, and a lot of his senior team. And then that filtered down to a lot
19:22of their local operating people, they started understanding their real value was in helping
19:30develop agents to, to, um, coach and mentor and build relationships and all the things we know
19:39matter. And trust me, that wasn't compass three, four years ago, but it certainly is now much more
19:47so than they were. So they're kind of more like the really good firms, uh, that have been doing those
19:54things for years, right? Um, they, uh, structurally, they have a few advantages. I mean, they have
20:03among the national biggest national companies, they have full time recruiters working at developing
20:11relationships and recruiting agents. And they have another team of people that just works on small,
20:17what we call my medium to small brokerage roll-ins. I mean, I give them credit. They,
20:24somewhere along the way there, that was very strategic from the start, or they just figured
20:29out that was a better way to do it because their managers of their offices around the country only have
20:34to focus mainly on the agents they already have and take care of them. Yeah. And really, I mean,
20:41Keller kind of went through several evolutions as well. And it seems like that is kind of, I'd say the
20:51way to grow, but I know that some of it is stagnant growth at this point, but still there, you know,
20:58I think that it's a problem for brokers who aren't willing to go through those evolutions and make those
21:04tough choices or changes to what they're doing, um, or even their model in general. Um, you know,
21:13even Glenn Kelman at Redfin evolved the model. So, you know, in different areas, because he knew he
21:19couldn't compete with independent contractors and in several different areas. So they have a mix of
21:25employee and independent contractors now. So. Yeah. I mean, look, um, and I,
21:32you and I have talked about this and most people have heard me talk about it ad nauseam.
21:36The success of any realty operation is going to be very strongly tied to the leader and the leadership
21:45group. And in, I can't speak to all the other industries in the world, but in this industry,
21:54that, that leader and leadership group have to convince and communicate consistently that the
22:04agent's welfare is at the top of their priority list. It don't mean welfare that they coddle them all
22:13the time, but that they listen, that they communicate well, that they understand that agent will be
22:20satisfied with this mix of services and technology and marketing now. And three years from now,
22:27it'll be totally different. What, what they, what an agent cares and values and the companies that
22:35keep growing the best. It's because the leadership is still passionately involved
22:41and they have recruited other passionate leaders to be part of that leadership team.
22:45I don't care what your brand or your technology is. If you don't have that or you lose that,
22:53you will begin going backwards. It's only a matter of time.
22:56Yeah, absolutely.
22:58Yeah. Well, I want to shift gears to NAR and the clear cooperation policy and the new policy of
23:06delayed marketing, um, that kind of has, you, you've got the, um, compasses and I think the
23:13agency who really believe in private listings, and then you've got most of the rest of the industry that,
23:18um, likes the idea of delayed marketing, but believe strongly in the MLS.
23:24Um, what, what is your take on, on all of that? And, and, uh, you know, I do feel like NAR kind
23:30of punted this to the MLS is to make the decisions on how to carry out the delayed marketing policy,
23:35which I think most of the MLS is are actually very happy with because every, every area is different.
23:41Um, so give me your take on all of that.
23:43Okay. So I have been a long time proponent of what I referred to as the realtor marketplace,
23:51which is the MLS and the realtor association working together because a, a, a fair and efficient
24:01marketplace requires both abundant information and the rules that govern the participants in the
24:10marketplace. We all remember the disasters of 06 to 2010. There was abundant information to an extent,
24:19but there were, but the rules were kind of just let go, right? The, the participants made their own
24:27rules up. Um, and we saw what that resulted in. Um, so I start there, but I've also been one to
24:37recommend to MLS clients going back 15 years. They said, well, we're the marketplace for housing. I said,
24:43yeah, as long as it's listed with one of your members, what about for sale by owners? What about
24:50builders? What about foreclosures? What about rental housing? You're not really a marketplace for housing.
25:00You're a marketplace for list homes listed for sale by your members, which is a big chunk of the market,
25:08but by no means is that the whole market. And I think that, um, they should have been,
25:18they should have been considering how they invited broader participation into the MLS marketplace.
25:27And then how, even if people weren't their members, they were going to govern again,
25:32set rules that by the way, didn't restrict people's creativity, but made sure of the rules.
25:40What did the rules, what did they, um, contribute to? Did they, do they contribute to a fair and
25:49efficient housing market for the broadest number of users, buyers and sellers and agents,
25:57or did it actually restrict that? Did it, you know, um, is it, is it a good thing to have just one
26:06marketplace? Well, I guess we, one answer comes to us from the fact that the industry seems to think
26:13it's fine to have three, at least three different national marketplaces that are called Zillow,
26:23realtor.com and homes.com. So the industry seems to say, well, it's okay to have three of those with
26:31their own sets of rules and guidelines, but we don't want to have different marketplaces locally.
26:39So, so then to get directly, you know, so that's where I'm coming from. I think that I, I continue what,
26:46what we're, what they should have been focused on all along is the broadest inclusion into the
26:53marketplace and have fair and efficient rules in the marketplace. Not, not restrictive,
27:01uh, not coercive, uh, not coercive rules, but this is what we need to have. So participants,
27:10you know, can, um, part, whoop, something popped up right there.
27:17Um, so we're, so let's go to clear cooperation. Um, I think that the realtors and the MLSs should
27:32permit it. Uh, I think if, if Compass and six other or two other, or no other brokers want to market
27:40theirs in their own internal marketplace for whatever reasons they want to do it, if they think that,
27:47they want to offer that option to the sellers and assuming that most of the sellers have it
27:54explained to them, the benefits or downside of doing that, the seller and an agent should have
28:01the right to make that choice, period. Um, I think that, I think we are at the very start,
28:10uh, I don't think the realtors at the national level are going to lead change in this industry needed
28:19change. I think it's going to come up from within. So we see more and more local, uh, MLSs are opening up
28:30their access to non-realtor members. Yeah. Right. And Florida did that years ago.
28:37Yeah. I mean it, yeah. And it hasn't caused any great damage to the realtor organization or the MLS.
28:44Not that I've heard about from anybody or read anywhere. Uh, so that's good. We're going to invite
28:51more participants, invite more people to have, but then we can put them under this fair and efficient,
28:56here are the rules of the participants, how this works in cooperation with each other.
29:02And assuming that the trial judge and the DOJ didn't mean to impose these commission communication
29:10rules that, that came down, well, that should apply to everybody whether a realtor or not.
29:16Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so clear cooperation
29:23is, I mean, I'm sure there are some people that understand that I've heard a lot of comment,
29:31well, this only benefits the bigger brokers who have the market share.
29:37It may, may also create an opening for somebody to actually compete with them more effectively by
29:44saying, do you know what they're doing when they keep it off the MLS is you're losing access to 80%
29:51or 90% of the market. Yeah. I mean, really? I could sell that one to a seller,
29:57to a potential seller said, you know, and, um, it's, you know, I would simply say, look,
30:07I am going to market you through my, my firm's own internal marketing system and the MLS.
30:14Right. I mean, how hard is that? Yeah.
30:17To convince the seller that's better than somebody keeping it private. Yeah. Right.
30:23Um, so let the market figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I'm, look, I'm, I'm confident
30:34there are some people who say, if we permitted this broadly, it will be the end of the MLS.
30:40Maybe, maybe, and then it would be reconstituted. Yeah. In some other form. Right. Right. Yeah.
30:52It's kind of like, like I think about the whole industry has been built for 50 years on this hub and
31:01spoke system. Agents, brokers feed their data into the MLS and then they get it back in a form,
31:10aggregated form. Okay. So if I tell you, we now have a couple of technology platforms that can
31:18search every website in the entire world and find every single piece of property that fits my needs
31:24and bring it to me in a common, in a format that I can look at. Okay. Would we need MLSs anymore?
31:34Yeah. No. You just, brokers just post it on their own websites or on somebody else's site
31:40and get permission for people to look at it. There are problems with that. Right. Who's going to do the
31:48scrubbing to make sure the information is accurate and who's going to enforce that?
31:54I mean, it's not, it's not like that's a perfect solution is my point. It does strike me as kind of
32:00a bit of an irony that the realtor organization would, which preaches free enterprise and all that,
32:10except for our own members in MLSs, in which case you have to be a realtor to get access to our MLS.
32:17That doesn't sound like free enterprise to me. And shutting down clear cooperation does not sound
32:24like free enterprise to me. Yeah. I mean, it'll be interesting how this all shakes out. You know,
32:32I know that there are companies that are pushing hard for private listings and there are a lot of
32:38companies who are very against it. I think the delayed marketing is an interesting idea. It depends on
32:45how that actually gets implemented. I know that the portals are, you know, recently one of our
32:51reporters did an article on how the portals could be hurt by that because they're getting those direct
32:57IDX feeds. And if the delayed marketing, the listings aren't in that feed for a certain amount of time,
33:03that they're not getting the most up-to-date information that the MLS members see.
33:08Yeah. I mean, I've talked to some brokers that for that very reason, they ought to allow private
33:15market listing because it would deprive Zillow and Homes.com and Realtor.com of their lifeblood.
33:21Yeah.
33:22Yeah.
33:24That's not a good reason to do that, by the way.
33:27Right. Yeah, exactly.
33:30I mean, I wouldn't do it because I think it will hurt them.
33:32Right.
33:33That doesn't sound like a good business reason to do it.
33:36No, definitely not. Well, Steve, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. I always
33:43learn so much from you and enjoy talking to you. So thanks a lot.
33:47Well, Tracy, you know as much as I do about all this stuff. You just need me interviewing you.
33:55Yeah. We'll do that next time.
33:57Next time. Thanks, Tracy.
33:58All right.