Last month, I attended my 6th Inman Connect New York (😱where does the time go?!). As usual, it was a great event with a ton of content, engaging sessions and extracurricular activities. At my first Inman Connect back in 2014, my big takeaways were being human in your business, connecting with millenials, and international business opportunities. While those are still relevant today, the industry focus has definitely changed so I’m happy to bring you my three biggest takeaways from ICNY2020.

1. Study the Pros.
   Former collegiate athlete and now industry entrepreneur, Malte Kramer (CEO of Luxury Presence), credits his athletic success to having studied the greatest basketball players of all time. By applying  that same philosophy to his real estate marketing, he’s been able to grow his client base by 500% in the last 12 months. Malte outlines exactly what he does on a daily basis (even when at events like Inman) in this blog.
   
   Principal broker Sandra Miller of Engel & Völkers echoes this concept by adding, “If you’re not happy where you are, look at those who are where you want to be and copy them.” So now is the time to start taking note of the successful real estate agents in your area and start doing what they do.
   
   
2. iBuyers.
   iBuyers aren’t a new concept; they are essentially cash offers. Cash offers have been around forever, just not as prominently or talked about in the mainstream. According to Mike Delprete, iBuyers purchased over $8.7 billion dollars worth of homes and doubled their market share in 2019. And while there’s a lot of uncertainty about iBuyers and whether they’re working for or against agents, the consensus on the Inman stage is that they are in fact beneficial to agents. But there still are a lot of questions, which is why we hosted a webinar in partnership with Opendoor back in December to debunk the myths about iBuyers and their impact on agents. Check out the recording here.
   
   It’s also worth noting that iBuyers aren’t affecting every agent nation-wide. While their market reach is expanding (Delprete credits 70% of iBuyer growth to new markets) this slide shows exactly where they are now and whether or not it’s relevant in your market at this time:
   
   
3. Fair Housing is your responsibility.
   My boss always says, “sales is a responsibility” and this rings true more than ever when I think about real estate agents – especially after attending Inman Connect.
   
   Last November, Newsday published the results of a three year undercover investigation in Long Island, NY that used paired-testing to see if real estate agents were treating consumers fairly. The results were disheartening – 40% of all cases showed disparate treatment of minorities when compared to white testers.
   
   Hearing directly from the Newsday Project Manager, Investigative Reporter, and Deputy Editor from the stage at Inman was eye opening. They shared that Long Island’s historical segregation pattern was the motivation behind the study and wanted to know if real estate agents had anything to do with it. Their ultimate goal with this project is to encourage more testing and enforcement of Fair Housing laws. 
   
   They reiterated that real estate agents have the power to be the change we need to see when it comes to fair housing. One black tester in the study expressed about real estate agents that, “They are the gatekeepers, they are the segregators”. Hearing this was extremely powerful and made me wonder how I would fare as a real estate agent knowing that my day to day actions could have such a huge impact on major cultural problems, like segregation.
   
   After this session, Valerie Alexander took the stage to do a deep dive on how unconscious bias affects us all. I highly recommend you watch her TedX talk on How to Outsmart Your Own Unconscious Bias.

These are only three of my big takeaways from Inman Connect New York, so needless to say, there’s so much more you can learn by attending one of these conferences yourself. The next one is coming up in Las Vegas and tickets are on sale now at inman.com. I hope to see you there!