Now Is the Time for Innovation

Even as inflation stabilizes and housing inventory grows, high home prices and interest rates in the sixes continue to prompt many buyers to delay purchases. As a result, brokerages are exploring new business strategies and revenue streams.

Challenging markets often present the best opportunities to build new platforms and processes that reduce costs, create value for agents, and strengthen the bottom line. When sales are booming, implementing new technologies can be difficult. However, slower periods provide the perfect window for brokerages to integrate innovative solutions—laying the foundation for future growth when the market rebounds.

Why We Created the LeadingRE Innovation Council

Moderne Ventures, a long-time partner of LeadingRE, launched the exclusive, invite-only LeadingRE Innovation Council to introduce cutting-edge technology to LeadingRE members. This council fosters creativity, drives forward-thinking initiatives, and helps brokerages implement transformative changes.

At its core, the Innovation Council serves as a hub for collaboration, bringing together diverse perspectives to evaluate and implement groundbreaking ideas. By working collectively, members accelerate learning, share best practices, and adopt innovation faster.

What Is the LeadingRE Innovation Council?

The council is a nine-month program composed of 5–10 forward-thinking LeadingRE brokerages that leverage technology as a market differentiator. During the 2024-2025 cycle, seven top brokerages—Red Oak Realty, Windermere, Baird & Warner, Adams Cameron, The Keyes Company, J.B. Goodwin, and Harry Norman—worked together to develop solutions for shared challenges.

Each brokerage designated an Executive Sponsor, who contributed strategic insights, and a Champion, who led pilot program implementation. After defining priorities, Moderne Ventures tailored the experience, connecting each brokerage with solutions that fit their needs.

“Being a part of the Innovation Council has been an invaluable experience, as it has fostered meaningful collaboration with industry experts who inspire new ideas and possibilities,” shared Wendi Iglesias, Chief Information Officer at Keyes. “The access to cutting-edge tools and technologies has empowered our business and salespeople, driving growth and innovation. Additionally, participating in beta tests has cultivated strong partnerships, delivering unique value and differentiation to The Keyes Family of Companies.”

Key Learnings from the 2024-2025 Innovation Council

The 2024-2025 Council launched 11 pilots across five technology companies, focusing on lead generation, customer experience, recruiting, and data analytics. These pilot opportunities provide ways for Innovation Council members to test new technologies and allows the companies to gain important insights to better serve LeadingRE brokerage partners.

One of the companies offering pilots for the 2024-205 Innovation Council was Nestment. Nestment Founder and CEO Niles Lichtenstein shared of the experience, “Nestment is excited to partner with The Keyes Company to bring our Gen Z and Millennial focused home ownership solutions to the Florida region. Through working together we're showing an increasingly concerned generation that homeownership is possible especially through innovative solutions like house-hacking, co-buying, rent-vesting and more. We're excited to pilot this program and approach and use the learnings to share with other LeadingRE brokerages.”

In reviewing the core learnings from the pilot offerings this year, key takeaways included:

Prioritize Real Needs Over Trendy Technology
While AI, blockchain, and the metaverse dominate headlines, true innovation starts with solving a deeply felt unmet need. If a technology doesn’t directly address a critical challenge, it may not provide real value.

Make a Clear Business Case
Moderne Ventures evaluates companies using three core criteria:
1. Increase revenue
2. Reduce costs
3. Create differentiation that drives customer loyalty

Applying this framework ensures that new technologies provide tangible benefits to your brokerage.

Set and Track Metrics from the Start
Innovation Council members committed to piloting at least two new companies over six months, breaking them into three-month innovation sprints. Each pilot had predefined success metrics, ensuring that brokerages could quickly determine whether a technology was effective—or if it should be abandoned.

Accelerate Learning Through Collaboration
Driving innovation requires creativity and perseverance. Council members benefited from working alongside peers to share insights, test solutions, and refine best practices—making innovation adoption faster and more effective.

2024-2025 INNOVATION COUNCIL PILOT OPPORTUNITIES: Focused on meeting the most pressing needs identified by our Innovation Council members, Moderne Ventures curated the following new companies available to the council members to test and share with their teams:

V7Labs (v7labs.com): V7 Labs leverages AI to create automated workflows such as document processing and data labeling, helping make unstructured data easy to understand and leverage for new insights.

Proof (proof.com): Formerly known as Notarize, Proof is the market leader in electronic notary and secure transactions – making every real estate transaction more seamless, less costly and more secure.

Real Reports (bhr.fyi): Real Reports leverages AI to help agents build credibility with deep property insights, save time evaluating properties by streamlining research and diligence, and submit more competitive offers backed by data.

Stride Health (stridehealth.com): Stride Health provides broker-branded easy-to-use portals to help their agents access health, dental, vision and life insurance— Stride offered custom branded landing pages and curated on-boarding activities to Council members as a part of their pilot.

LiveEasy (liveeasy.com): LiveEasy’s broker-branded homeownership concierge platform gives agents the ability to make recommendations and referrals for essential services—such as moving, home maintenance, and repairs—available to their clients. Brokerages can customize offerings to showcase in-house service providers, driving additional revenue for brokerages and satisfaction for home buyers.

Super (hellosuper.com): Super offers subscription care for the home. Super home warranties cover member’s repair or replacement of appliances or systems. Now in 36 states, Super boosts homebuyer confidence that the home their new home is covered should they need anything.

Nestment (nestment.com): For many segments of the population, home ownership is as elusive as ever. Nestle expands opportunities for individuals to buy homes by giving aspiring homeowners a way to co-buy with friends and family. Nestment partners with brokerages to bring pre-qualified and highly vetted leads to agents who have received Nestment’s training in the co-buying process.

JOIN THE 2025 INNOVATION COUNCIL

Based on the tremendous success of the Innovation Council over the past two years, LeadingRE and Moderne Ventures are excited to launch this year’s Council in June.

We are actively looking to have conversations with new brokerages who are ready to bring innovation to their teams alongside the returning council members. Brokerages who are interested in joining the 2025 Innovation Council should reach out to Carolyn Kwon, carolyn@moderneventures.com for more information.