We have known Jim & Donna Klinge for over a dozen years, having met them in Carlsbad where our children went to the same school. As long time North County residents, it was a no- brainer for us to have the Klinges be our eyes and ears for San Diego real estate in general and North County in particular. As my military career caused our family to move all over the country and overseas to Asia, Europe and the Pacific, we trusted Jim and Donna to help keep our house in Carlsbad rented with reliable and respectful tenants for over 10 years.
Naturally, when the time came to sell our beloved Carlsbad home to pursue a rural lifestyle in retirement out of California, we could think of no better team to represent us than Jim and Donna. They immediately went to work to update our house built in 2004 to current-day standards and trends — in 2 short months they transformed it into a literal modern-day masterpiece. We trusted their judgement implicitly and followed 100% of their recommended changes. When our house finally came on the market, there was a blizzard of serious interest, we had multiple offers by the third day and it sold in just 5 days after a frenzied bidding war for 20% above our asking price! The investment we made in upgrades recommended by Jim and Donna yielded a 4-fold return, in the process setting a new high water mark for a house sold in our community.
In our view, there are no better real estate professionals in all of San Diego than Jim and Donna Klinge. Buying or selling, you must run and beg Jim and Donna Klinge to represent you! Our family will never forget Jim, Donna, and their whole team at Compass — we are forever grateful to them.
Hi Jim, what advantages would you say Compass gives to a consumer? From what I can tell so far, they are just building out tools and marketing for agents. I don’t see anything they are doing on the consumer side that would make you want to use Compass over any other real estate website.
I don’t see anything they are doing on the consumer side that would make you want to use Compass over any other real estate website.
Hello Ron!
It’s in the works.
The agent platform isn’t going to be completed for at least another nine months, and the search portal is probably behind that on the priority list.
But the equation is obvious: Build a better portal than Zillow and Redfin and you’ll get the eyeballs!
It would be easy to make a benefits list:
1. Make video the lead feature of the listing.
2. Provide the listing agent’s set of comps and justification of price.
3. Allow people to comment.
None of those are available today, but if they were added to a comprehensive real-estate portal, do you think it would get eyeballs?
I make my suggestions, but hard to know if they will go anywhere yet. The current Compass search portal doesn’t have every property in America yet, so we have room to grow!
Compass acquired a more than 20-person technical team behind the e-commerce app Spring in a move to accelerate the growth of the company’s technology platform and offerings.
“The team at Spring built a service-oriented brand and technology platform that attracted 2,000 of today’s top retailers,” Ori Allon, Compass founder and executive chairman said in a release. “At Compass, we believe in investing in top talent which is why we welcome the opportunity to bring members of the Spring team on board.”
Allon added, “Our new Compass colleagues will execute against and innovate on ways to build the end-to-end real estate platform with real-time insights and technologies that will redefine the industry.”
Compass technical staff, after the acquisition, now numbers more than 120 employees. Satwik Seshasai, Spring’s chief technology officer, will now serve as Compass’ senior director of growth infrastructure.
The new team will join Compass’ existing engineers and technical employees to help accelerate the company’s technology roadmap and develop additional technologies that enhance the agent experience. Compass currently has its own agent-facing customer relationship management tool, equipped with an in-house marketing center and over the summer unveiled new high-tech signage it plans to sell to its agents.
“Spring was founded on the belief that consumers were looking for a better online shopping experience, a single destination where they could find all their favorite brands,” Seshasai, said. “In a similar way, Compass is embracing the digital future and revolutionizing a legacy industry with agent satisfaction at its focus. I am thrilled to help Compass grow its technology platform as it continues to be a leading disruptor in the real estate industry.”
Thanks for your insight, Jim. I think Compass still has a lot to do to catch up to Zillow and Redfin in the consumer side. Hopefully they are building worthwhile tools for you top producing agents to get you to stick around aside from just better splits.
Thanks for your insight, Jim. I think Compass still has a lot to do to catch up to Zillow and Redfin in the consumer side. Hopefully they are building worthwhile tools for you top producing agents to get you to stick around aside from just better splits.
All the SD agents I know came to Compass with an existing book of business. If it takes 1-2 years for the company to grow into its potential, we’ll survive.
It’s about what I expected too. Outsiders who have never been agents trying to produce tools based on what they think we need – there will naturally be some time needed for refinement.
A search engine that’s better than Zillow/Redfin will be the icing on the cake, and put Compass in the position to seriously dominate the landscape. I’ll wait-and-see, because the benefits could be huge.