Weekly Real Estate News
Summary
HomeServices of America has acquired residential real-estate strategy, research and creative firm 1000WATT. The full team is joining HomeServices, with co-founders Brian Boero and Marc Davison taking senior strategy and creative roles as HomeServices expands its OnePoint effort to connect brokerage, mortgage, title, insurance and servicing.
HomeServices of America has acquired 1000WATT, bringing one of residential real estate’s better-known strategy and research firms in-house as the Berkshire Hathaway-owned company works to connect its brokerage, mortgage, title, insurance and servicing businesses more closely.
HomeServices announced the acquisition Thursday morning. Financial terms were not disclosed. The entire 1000WATT team is joining HomeServices, and co-founders Brian Boero and Marc Davison are moving into newly defined senior roles: Boero as chief marketing and strategy officer and Davison as chief creative officer.
The transaction ends 1000WATT’s run as an independent agency serving clients across residential brokerage, franchising, MLS, real-estate technology, mortgage and title. Founded in 2007, the firm built its business around industry strategy, consumer and agent research, brand positioning and creative work.
For HomeServices, the acquisition fills a different need. The company already owns a broad collection of housing businesses. Its current push is to make those pieces function more visibly as a connected consumer platform rather than a collection of largely separate operations.
“Bringing this team and the research platform they’ve built inside HomeServices gives us an extraordinary combination of industry knowledge, research, strategy and creative talent to help us further execute our vision of a Complete Real Estate Experience,” HomeServices President and CEO Chris Kelly said in the announcement.
1000WATT was already working on OnePoint
The two companies were not strangers. 1000WATT worked with HomeServices over the past year on OnePoint, the brand HomeServices is using for its effort to connect services across the homeownership transaction.
Under that model, a local real-estate agent remains the consumer-facing point of contact while brokerage, mortgage, title and insurance services are intended to operate as a coordinated team. HomeServices has also been rolling out a unified technology platform across its network.
The acquisition makes 1000WATT’s research, content and creative capabilities an internal resource for HomeServices operating companies and HSF Affiliates, which operates the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices franchise network.
HomeServices said it plans to use the firm’s research and content across the enterprise to help its companies and agents track changes in consumer expectations, agent sentiment and local business opportunities.
Boero described the opportunity in terms of the businesses HomeServices already controls.
“HomeServices of America has built something singular: a scaled national enterprise that includes brokerage, a wholly-owned top-25 mortgage lender, a 50-state title footprint, a nationwide insurance company, and now mortgage servicing,” he said.
The mortgage operation is becoming more important to the strategy
The mortgage component is Prosperity Home Mortgage, HomeServices’ wholly owned residential lender. The company’s effort to create a more integrated housing platform expanded in August when Prosperity added in-house mortgage servicing.
That move extended the relationship with borrowers beyond origination and closing, giving HomeServices a presence through the life of a mortgage. The addition of servicing also makes the OnePoint strategy broader than the familiar brokerage model of referring buyers to affiliated mortgage, title and insurance providers.
HomeServices is now trying to create continuity across more of the transaction and ownership cycle. Bringing 1000WATT inside the company gives that effort a dedicated strategy, research and creative group rather than relying on an outside adviser.
The approach comes as large residential real-estate companies pursue different ways to capture more economics from each transaction. Some have emphasized scale, listings or technology; others have invested heavily in mortgage, title and other adjacent services. HomeServices already owns much of that infrastructure, making integration and consumer adoption the more immediate challenge.
What changes for 1000WATT
1000WATT will no longer operate as an outside adviser in the same way. Boero told Inman that the firm will stop taking outside client work as its team moves into HomeServices. The company’s proprietary consumer and agent research will instead become an internal advantage for the HomeServices network.
The acquisition also puts Boero and Davison directly into HomeServices leadership. Their mandate extends beyond traditional corporate marketing: HomeServices is tying the hires to OnePoint, consumer research, positioning and the way its collection of housing businesses presents itself to agents and consumers.
Davison said the ability to bring the entire 1000WATT team into the company was central to the transaction. HomeServices’ announcement said the incoming group includes professionals across strategy, research, copywriting, design, creative development, project leadership and marketing.
No purchase price or other financial terms were disclosed. HomeServices also has not announced workforce reductions or operational changes at its brokerage, mortgage, title or insurance companies as a result of the acquisition.
The immediate change is strategic: a firm that spent nearly two decades advising companies across residential real estate is now working exclusively from inside one of the industry’s largest integrated housing enterprises.
