HW Media CEO and REAL Trends founder on 2021’s purchase market

This week, HW Media founder and CEO Clayton Collins interviews Steve Murray, the co-founder and president of REAL Trends. In this episode, the pair close out season four of the Housing News podcast by discussing HW Media’s strategic acquisition of REAL Trends, the residential real estate industry’s leading report that ranks the performance of the top U.S. brokerage firms.

During the interview, Murray also discusses his projections for this year’s purchase market and explains how real estate brokerages, loan originators and title reps can best work together for a more productive 2021.

Here is a small preview of the interview with REAL Trend’s Steve Murray, which has been lightly edited for length and clarity:

Clayton Collins: Taking into account the first half of this year might be a bit more vibrant, if I run a real estate brokerage, how can I best prepare my business for 2021?

Steve Murray: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, there are three things that are fundamental to the brokerage business: You have to consistently recruit talent, whether they are agents or staff, to your brokerage company. You have to develop the skills of that team, whether you’re constantly providing tools, technology, marketing, education and motivation. And lastly, you have to spend less money than you have coming in.

Now, people always laugh when I repeat those three things, but it’s not complicated. In 2021, there will be curveballs in the first half of the year, but the good news is a lot of leading brokers have discovered they’re getting far higher levels of participation and engagement from their agents remotely than they did with in-person meetings. Now they have to figure out the balance and that’s the challenge. Nobody quite knows exactly what that looks like.

The Housing News podcast explores the most important topics happening in mortgage, real estate, and fintech. Each week a new mortgage or real estate executive joins the show to add perspective to the top stories crossing HousingWire’s news desk. Hosted by Sarah Wheeler and produced by Alcynna Lloyd.