99Triumphs Blog

The Upside of the Downside

michele.combs@99triumphs.com (Michele Combs) — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 17:40:22 GMT

Originally published: 2024-04-02

As brokers rethink their models amid DOJ pressure and low inventory, property portals and consumer-first tech are emerging as some of the biggest winners.

It's a great time to be a property portal. With the DOJ decision, higher interest rates and record low inventory, real estate brokers are scrambling to rethink their models and property portals and marketing tools are in the prime position to address some of the most significant new barriers.

With the big squeeze on the real estate industry, brokers and agents are striving to get closer to the consumer experience by either buying exclusive-leads directly from their favorite portals (rather than buying through lead screening companies and paying a referral fee), generating their own, or by acquiring the tech entirely.

Another factor to consider is that the market "bubble" is not coming anytime soon. The economic factors are just not there. We are still in the middle of a significant housing shortage and housing starts are not keeping up so for the foreseeable future, housing prices will continue to climb and there will be a shortage.

Meanwhile, the buyer-broker commission shift speaks to the fact that consumers need more love too. Finding a home is hard, and they have been treated like leads, not people. And, since today's consumers have nearly as much access to property data as agents do, the value of an agent has shifted.

Time to face the fact that today, most of the info they need about the property can be found with a simple search or an A.I. voice assistant inquiry. This creates a huge advantage to products and services that are closer to the consumer experience and can help show greater value to the buyer. Afterall, if you've bought a house in the last few years, you know it hasn't changed a lot over the last 30 years, so buyer agents are scrambling to show value.

All of this points to property portals being in a prime position to embrace new tech, provide more insight about the sales journey, and provide more tools to help agents improve their bottom line.

If you're looking to sell your product or company, or looking to make an acquisition to move the needle we want to hear from you. We specialize in matchmaking for partners, alliances and all kinds of off-grid opportunities. And, perhaps more importantly, we can quickly spot the opportunities you're missing to move your business to the next level.

CoreLogic Acquired for $6B

michele.combs@99triumphs.com (Michele Combs) — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 17:18:53 GMT

Originally published: 2021-02-05

CoreLogic has been in the middle of quite a bit of uncertainty. CoStar was aggressively pursuing them, so was Black Knight. There was a lot of anxiety among the employees at CoreLogic, understandably. And, CoreLogic went mysteriously quiet the last few weeks.

Originally published: 2021-02-05

Today, we learned that Stone Point Capital acquired them for a whopping $6B. Stone Point owns LoneWolf which acquired CloudCMA (W+R Studios last month) and Ten-X (an auction company). Stone Point also owns a wide array of financial services technology.

With the big moves from CoStar and Zillow in the last couple months, this is going to get really interesting. We'll be keeping a close eye Stone Capital's next moves to assess their evolving strategy.

Zillow Now Gets IDX Feeds

michele.combs@99triumphs.com (Michele Combs) — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 16:23:01 GMT

Originally published: 2021-02-05

Wait, what? Under the cloud of COVID chaos, Zillow quietly just became a brokerage unlocking MLS data access in a way few saw coming. The ripple effects could reshape the entire industry

Originally published: 2021-02-05

Is anyone else seeing what I'm seeing? As a portal, there are only a few choices for data feeds. Direct from the MLS or from ListHub. The downside is that both have the ability to limit the feed.

The ListHub divorce of 2015 ended that relationships and Zillow went directly to the MLSs for feeds, often negotiating sold data too, which is the Holy Grail of data. They've been what's likely millions to get that data from the MLSs which help to offset member dues in most cases.

So, what do they do? They create a brokerage, put one broker and maybe one agent in the local markets and get full access to data at a fraction of the cost of vendor data...and no restrictions. And, because NAR no longer mandates that MLSs require NAR membership, Zillow is not subject to the Pre-List and Off-Market listing restrictions that NAR mandated for all Realtors in MLSs.

Something seems off to me.

Zillow is the Google of the real estate space. They are now threat #1 to MLSs because consumers are already going there to list their FSBOs, Coming Soons and Make me Move deals. Even agents enter their listings directly on the site.

Seriously, doesn't anyone else see the writing on the wall? They are the future of a national MLS solution. All they have to do say is "we only accept directly listed property on Zillow", shut of the MLS feeds and 80% of the agents in the US would still enter their data on the site through their own data feeds.

People -- Realtors really matter! We need them. Think about why that institution even came about...because of scammers. Just ask Craigslist how that went or even AirBnB. Realtors are held accountable by their peers and the general public for upholding the Realtor Code of Ethics. The list of ethics isn't mandated by the government, it's all voluntary. I should probably leave that for another post.

For more info check out the article on Inman News