There always seems to be an emerging business model or new piece of software that’s allegedly poised to change or disrupt the real estate industry. However, a question that should be on every broker/owner’s mind is: how can this help my agents and my businesses?
According to Fathom Realty’s chief branding officer Wendy Forsythe, that’s the approach that the tech-focused brokerage has taken to bolster its ranks and expand its reach nationwide, at least in part.
During the National Association of REALTORSⓇ Conference in San Diego this past November, we sat down with Forsythe at the RISMedia booth to dive into Fathom’s growth since introducing its IPO in 2020 and where tech and innovation fit into the company’s business strategy.
Jordan Grice: What are your expectations for real estate this year, and where do you think the growth potential is, not only for Fathom but the industry as a whole?
Wendy Forsythe: I’m certainly cautiously optimistic for 2022. We see markets starting to shift. There have been headlines that seasonality is back, and we are certainly watching that closely. A stabilization year would be a good thing for us as an industry to see house price appreciation, inventory levels and some of those critical things settle down a little bit.
For Fathom, we are geared up for another year of growth. We continue to see the number of real estate professionals learning about our company and our brand increase. We also continue to perform well as a publicly traded company and get that news and message out there.
JG: Fathom has experienced continued growth since going public in 2020. What’s been driving that trajectory?
WF: It’s a combination of things. It’s investing in overall growth and executing our vision of creating a platform for real estate professionals to help them better serve their clients. We acquired a mortgage company, a title company and an insurance company. We’ve invested heavily in building our technology platform and growing the number of real estate agents in our network through acquisitions and organic recruiting.
All of that happens, though, because of our story. We just spent some time chatting with a couple of agents here with John and what they shared with him is the core of our message, which is:
‘I joined Fathom because of the commission, but I stay because of the culture.’
That’s what our agents tell us all across the country, and that’s part of our story that we want to continue to share.
JG: Regarding recruitment, your company reported that agent count was up 50% year-over-year in Q3. How have you accomplished that, and what is Fathom doing to hold on to its growing roster?
WF: We’ve talked as an industry for many years about disruption, and Fathom was founded as a virtual company—we’ve never had brick and mortar offices—with a business model that agents deserve 100% commission. They pay a small transaction fee, but we have an agent-branding-first philosophy.
With our agents, we want them to put that money that they would pay a traditional broker in a split back into building their business. That’s part of what is fueling that growth. Agents are looking for that support from their brokerage, and going through the pandemic was the worst thing that could happen to prove what we had been saying, which is that you don’t need a brick and mortar physical office space. You don’t need to pay a broker 20% or more of your commissions because we couldn’t go into an office. It was proof that our business model works.
So part of what has fueled the growth of our agent count are those agents leaving those traditional models and saying, “you’re right; I don’t need to be paying this split for an office I never use.”
JG: Considering the growing pool of ’emerging brokerage models’ in the industry today offering different perks to attract agents, how is Fathom staying ahead of the competition?
WF: We’re certainly aware of what other competitors are doing, but it’s not what we focus on. We focus internally on our agents and how we can better serve them. We know if we’re improving and serving them better, they’re going to stay with us, and they are going to tell other people about Fathom and then other agents will join us.
JG: Tech and innovation have been hot topics recently and will likely continue in 2022 and beyond. In your perspective, what aspect of the brokerage tech stack should broker/owners be looking to update or spruce up this year?
WF: Our thought around that is that we need to stop thinking about multiple different products. I think the stat is that the average broker will have seven to nine various tech tools in their tech stack and there are all kinds of different vendors and pieces of software.
We’ve been working hard at Fathom to bring that into one. It is a platform approach where your transaction management, CRM, website and digital marketing tools are all together in one spot. That allows for seamless integration throughout the transaction, so you’re not having to go to different places and deal with information not being passed the way it should.
It goes back to making it more straightforward for the agent to do what they do well, which is to serve their customer and be face to face and negotiate and do all of those things. Our focus is really on that integration into one seamless place that allows for sharing information and simplifies the agents’ lives.
JG: Keeping with the tech, as the pool of tech solutions and companies grows in real estate, how does Fathom Realty stay ahead of the curve with its approach to building out/owning its products?
WF: Part of the benefit of owning our tech is that we can move faster and that’s one of the ways we’re staying ahead. We know what our agents are looking for and we know what either a challenge or an opportunity is. We build the technology around that need and that opportunity. We have complete control over that with our teams, so that’s a huge benefit that allows us to move faster.
Jordan Grice is RISMedia’s associate online editor. Email him your real estate news ideas at jgrice@rismedia.com.
