Inman Conference San Francisco: 10 years on
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Aug 1, 2018
Inman Conference San Francisco: 10 years on
I was fortunate enough to be invited to the conference with 11 other agents, and I must say it was quite fascinating and a time to reminisce.
Sitting in the LAX terminal on the way home made me think of my last trip direct from LA. It was 2008, two weeks after the global financial crisis (GFC) had hit and the money markets were on their knees. I was working for daVinci, Japan's largest private property fund manager and their corporate structure was decimated already.
Raising money internationally prior to the GFC was "so easy". Australia was the flavour of the year, we had a great banking structure, growing economy and a booming property market.
Fast forward 10 years, I felt at the Inman Conference in San Francisco last week that same invincible tone of impregnability.
Venture Capitalists, once never considering "residential" as a form of investable asset class, is now the flavour of the month. Hundreds of millions is being deployed into "real estate technology companies", world wide. None of these companies have turned a profit and none forecast for years to come yet. Sounds familiar to those with a "little grey hair"?
The talk of the town and conference was the major sponsor, Compass.
Compass's mission is to build the first modern real estate platform, pairing the industry's top talent with technology to make the search and sell experience intelligent and seamless.
It's headed by a who's who in the corporate world. The founder and CEO is Robert Reffkin, who is not 40 yet and was previously part of Barack Obama's team and Chief of Staff to the President of the world renowned private equity firm Goldman Sachs.
The other founder is Ori Allon, a former director of engineering at Twitter.
An interesting mix of skill sets, and I must say and it seems a sign of the times - technology mixed with business savvy.
It's a "watch this space" as it already has gained significant traction and they are first to market movers as the significant disruptor's.
It will be great viewing how this new wave holds together over the next couple of years. My tip is that there will be some consolidation over the next couple of years between competing start-ups and some will not turn a profit before blowing up.
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