There might not be anyone in real estate brokerage that is more passionate about the value of data than the Baris brothers at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Jordan Baris Realty. Having a data scientist in the family has given this northern New Jersey regional powerhouse a unique still. Russ Baris operates eLumindata in Westport, CT. Some of you may remember that the firm was awarded the “Best New Software in the Industry,” award by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATON OF REALTORS® in the late 90s, called Top Presenter – a data driven listing presentation tool developed by the brothers.

WAV Group took note of a comment made by CEO, Ken Baris on a Mergers and Acquisitions panel hosted at the 2022 RISMedia CEO & Leadership Exchange. “We look at the history of every agent in the firm during an M&A transaction.” WAV Group consultants have done hundreds of M&A transactions and we always look at production, but Ken suggests digging a little deeper. We discussed this in a call together and here is what we learned.

The company uses data science to answer a lot of questions about their agents and every agent in the MLS. They use the data to support efforts in coaching, recruiting, retention and of course, M&A.

  • Are agents likely to leave?
  • Is there a coaching opportunity?
  • Are they pricing listings correctly?
  • Are they losing listings?
  • Do customers relist expired properties with them or someone else?
  • When they come to the brokerage, where do they come from?
  • When they leave, where do they go?

Often, Baris knows more about a company and its agents than the owner. Not only do they track competitors and agents all the time, but they recognize changes in behavior that might signal opportunities. The data allows the firm to benchmark their performance across many categories to create an observation and a strategy for M&A. Here are some examples:

“We look for performance weakness in key areas of a firm’s operation,” explained Ken Baris. “We can see listing counts dry up, agent turnover rates, swings in expired listings, and so much more from data that allows us to benchmark against competitors.”

You probably do not have a data scientist on staff at your brokerage, but products like Terradatum or 3 Data Pulse can help you with similar insights. The Broker Resource Network recently heard from Nancy Fennell and the leadership team at Dickson Realty about how they have deployed 3 Data Pulse in their business. The tool is used to track all recruiting in their company – meaning all agents in the market. 3 Data Pulse is also used as the cornerstone of onboarding real estate agents and monitoring the tools they use and the meetings and trainings they attend. This solution is also used to securely store agent and employee documents and even track referrals and referral closings. Tracking all M&A conversations is also a very helpful feature.

Here are a couple screenshots from the webinar. [FYI – Subscribers to the Broker Resource Network can watch the entire webinar here, by logging in to their portal. If you are not already a member and you are interested in joining, send Steve Hayes an email and he will provide you all the details.]

 

Feel free to give Victor Lund or Marilyn Wilson a call if you have further questions.

Also, if you have interest in hosting a webinar with the Broker Resource Network, send them an email and a team member will get with you to discuss details.