Doorify Real Estate Podcast

Meet the Board: Tracey O'Dowd – Real Estate Trends and Client Advocacy

• Doorify MLS

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We’re back with another episode in our Meet the Board series, where we spotlight the key players shaping the future of Doorify. 

Joining me is Tracey O'Dowd, a Broker at RE/MAX One Realty and a valued board member at Doorify MLS. We discuss her journey in real estate since 2006, her role on the board starting in January 2023, and her unwavering commitment to client advocacy. We also touch upon the challenges and changes in the industry, especially in light of COVID, and how technology is shaping the future of real estate. 

If you’re looking for a fresh perspective on real estate and the changes happening in the industry, this episode with Tracey O'Dowd is one you won’t want to miss. Tune in to hear her insights!

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

  • The role of consumer empowerment in the modern real estate landscape
  • How Doorify is helping real estate professionals adapt to industry changes
  • The shift from traditional real estate practices to digital-first approaches

Links from this episode:

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Tracey O'Dowd [00:00:00]:
I'm just ridiculously passionate about looking out for my client, whether they're a buyer, a seller, and whatever their situation is, I want them to have the protections that they deserve. There's so many twists and turns and it can be a very harrowing experience. It also can be a very wonderful experience, and I'm passionate about making it wonderful for them. And the more tools I have in my pocket to do that with, the better professional I'm going to be.

Matt Fowler [00:00:32]:
Hey, everybody, it's Matt Fowler. I am the executive director of DoorifyMLS.com. It's fun to say that. And this is Tracey O'Dowd, who is a director on the Doorify's board of directors. We have some questions for you today that we've been asking all of our board members. Our board members are fantastic. And the reason that we get to go out and change things because we have the confidence that they're behind us tracing is a valued member of the board. And we've got a few questions about Tracey and a few questions about Tracey's impressions of what's happened in the last little while at Triangle.

Matt Fowler [00:01:06]:
What going on again, Tracey? What is a little known fact about Tracey?

Tracey O'Dowd [00:01:12]:
Well, I get asked that frequently, and my answer that I've been giving is that I was a cheerleader in high school and you may or may not see that about me. It's funny because I sit there and I think nobody would imagine I was a cheerleader. But sometimes every, I don't know, every once in a while someone will say to me, well, I can see that you definitely have a bounce or a sure team spirit.

Matt Fowler [00:01:35]:
I was going to feel that.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:01:37]:
Okay, fair enough. I can say that when I'm on a team, I'm pretty much all in.

Matt Fowler [00:01:41]:
There you go. There you go. Get people on their feet. That's great. I was a mascot. If that tells you I had to put a covering on me to let me on the field.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:01:51]:
Yeah, but then they did, and you did some wild and crazy stuff and kept also kept everybody on their feet, didn't you?

Matt Fowler [00:01:57]:
That did have fun. My brother was also one, but that said something weird. My answer to that, Tracey, and we're not interviewing Matt today, was that I was on the Alabama state high school pole ball relay team that won the state championship.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:02:13]:
Oh, nice.

Matt Fowler [00:02:13]:
That, that sounds like a huge deal, but, like, we don't, you know, pole ball, you know, like hand off the pole in the race, you add up three jumps and we had two guys that were really good and you had to have three. So they invited me on, said, look, we got to have three. Just like, do it for a few weeks and get over the shortest one, and you will win. So I did, and we won. Yeah. So, yeah. State champion Paul Walter right here. So how long have you served on the board of directors? It's.

Matt Fowler [00:02:44]:
It's been pretty recent.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:02:46]:
I think I'm one of the newer board members and I've been there since January of 2023. So as of this recording, about a year and a half.

Matt Fowler [00:02:53]:
Yeah, about a year and a half. So just a little bit longer than me.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:02:56]:
That's right.

Matt Fowler [00:02:57]:
I started at the very end of 2021, so you got to come in and, like mid stride. We had a lot going on when you hit the. Hit the board.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:03:05]:
I did, and that has presented its own set of challenges, but I feel like I've got a better handle on things. Most recently, I finally feel like I got a handle. I understand what's happening and what happened before I got there. That was the really challenging part, is knowing what decisions were discussed and how they were arrived at before I. Before I got there. Because that.

Matt Fowler [00:03:25]:
Now that you're responsible for them.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:03:27]:
That's right.

Matt Fowler [00:03:29]:
It's good to know where that came from, and hopefully you found out that it did come from like an organized place. This was a plan that was well thought out, and I can say that because it's not mine. This is an architecture of the way the industry has been wanting to optimize the delivery of MLS services. If I can get all wonky about it, how that works. Exactly. And we changed how it works along with a few other mls in the industry. And it was, I think it's fair to say it was a difficult and painful transition for many. And there's a lot of.

Matt Fowler [00:04:09]:
We can unpack that for an all day podcast, which we won't do today, except to say that we've kind of come out on the other side of that and we're starting to see the benefits of people being able to choose what technology they want to use. The backend that we felt was non negotiable is now up and running, is super fast. We've got lingering friction between these platforms that we're confident we can resolve as these platforms upgrade the technology that they're using. But it was, it was a rough winter last Christmas. So you've been on the board for a couple of years. How long have you been in real estate?

Tracey O'Dowd [00:04:46]:
I got my license in 2006. So, yep, it's. I literally just had my 18th anniversary, as a matter of fact, while we were in Seattle, and I just realized this morning that I missed it because I normally. Some sort of announcement. And I all of a sudden today, I was feeling. I was doing something. I was like, oh, no, that was last week and it's gone.

Matt Fowler [00:05:06]:
Well, that's great. You were so engaged. Like psychiatrists say that the optimal mental state is bliss, where you don't really understand the passage of time. You know, like, you get lost in a book and lost in what you're doing. You're lost in what you're doing. Bliss or flow. Sorry, they call it flow. And it's the supposed to be the opposite of anxiety, in psychology terms, when you are so engaged in what you're doing that the world passes you by, including those things you could be worried about because you're engaged in what you're doing so much.

Matt Fowler [00:05:38]:
That's great.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:05:39]:
Wow.

Matt Fowler [00:05:39]:
But you've seen. What'd you say? 2006?

Tracey O'Dowd [00:05:43]:
2006, yes.

Matt Fowler [00:05:44]:
Okay.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:05:44]:
A lot. I've seen a whole lot.

Matt Fowler [00:05:46]:
So you got kind of up and running and then, like, the brakes land. Right.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:05:51]:
I have. I have great timing.

Matt Fowler [00:05:55]:
A little while later. A lot while later. Ten years later, we have Covid. So between ten and 20, you got to see a long uptick, really. 2016 is when our records show that there was just a kind of a hard turn.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:06:11]:
That's right. Yeah. It started in around twelve, but I would say 16 is about where I never. I had not looked back to the crash or the tough times in quite some time.

Matt Fowler [00:06:23]:
Yeah, yeah. Then Covid, what was that like?

Tracey O'Dowd [00:06:29]:
You know, gosh, Covid has a lot of lasting effects, I think, probably for everybody. And one of the biggest to me is it's just changed our entire industry in the blink of an eye. It happened very quickly where we. We were stepping into the virtual world slowly. And I think as a. As an industry and really as a country and maybe even as a world, we were all stepping into the virtual world still rather slowly, I feel like.

Matt Fowler [00:06:57]:
And when working, doing those remote showings.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:07:01]:
And, yeah, nobody did any of that. And we certainly. Gosh, I never even thought about selling a house without the client ever seeing it until Covid, and it was done more than once. And so I think that it taught all of us that we can embrace technology when we have to, so maybe we should look at it when we don't have to. I think is one of the. And I'm not saying that properly, so this is where going to have to do.

Matt Fowler [00:07:25]:
But no, no, that came through, Tracey, like, yeah, you. No, no, I think you said that really? Well, I want to let you comment on something for Andrea. You know, you and I have both heard from people that complain about the change that occurred, and change is difficult.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:07:39]:
For some people, especially in our industry. I don't know if you've picked up on that, but. But we don't like change. We don't care for it at all.

Matt Fowler [00:07:47]:
I get that. I get that. And, you know, you make money. You don't make money, like, filling out these forms. You know what I mean? That's not where you make money. Those are things that keep you from going out and building your network. And, you know, I've described it as if the software on the ATM that you always use is updated and you're late and you're on your way to the concert and you need $60 in cash right now, and you stop and it wants you to watch a video or something. And, like, all the buttons are different.

Matt Fowler [00:08:17]:
This isn't good news. You're late, you don't have $60. And the idea that you should show up early to practice, to use the ATM in case the software should change, that's ridiculous. But I get that, and I get treating it like the ATM. You put. You push the buttons and you get your CMA or what you need and you print out of the house. But technology came to the real estate world a while ago, and it's kind of speeding up for the reasons that you gave Covid. Certainly one of them.

Matt Fowler [00:08:49]:
The age of the buyer is another one. And those are things that are happening to the. A lot of jobs, you know, a lot of professions are becoming more automated. Yeah. There's a great article just for the podcast here. I'll put it in the notes from Mark Andreessen back in the day called software's eating the world. And it's true. And I have a.

Matt Fowler [00:09:11]:
A presentation about this in real estate. We were, back in the day, you were a people person if you were going to go into real estate, right. And I still have people come up and kind of take my forearm and say, honey, I'm a people person. Come explain this to me. You know, I'm like, I so feel that. I really do. But I want, I want people who know so much about their neighborhoods and about their communities, like you do, Tracey, to be empowered to defend themselves against that 30 year old who doesn't think they know what they're doing because they don't use TikTok or something. You know, your ability to use TikTok is not going to save that guy money on his house or get them into the right one for his family.

Matt Fowler [00:09:56]:
So there's a middle road in there somewhere where I have to. The technology organization has to empower you enough for you to feel confident in the use of these new tools so that you can demonstrate your competency to that millennial who is evaluating you unfairly based on your current technical knowledge. So what would you say to people on your team? What do you say to people on your team who say, look, I don't have time to learn anything right now. It's like stopping by the ATM. I just want my $60. What do I do? What do you say to that person to get them to still be a realtor in three years?

Tracey O'Dowd [00:10:40]:
Yeah, that's a really good question, Matt, and I wish I had the answer because that would solve a lot of problems. I think, really, all I can speak to is who we are, which is we rely on systems, especially. The busier we are, the busier we are, the more we have to have systems in place, and we become. We have to become somewhat. We automate ourselves and we automate our systems and our staff. So when. When there's new technology, it disrupts what we've already put into place, and it can be very challenging for us to recognize it as. Wait a minute.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:11:14]:
This is a tool. We just have to slow down long enough to learn how to use the tool. But it's easier in the moment to do what we were, what we've always done, because we know this is such a complex industry.

Matt Fowler [00:11:26]:
Well, that's not human.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:11:28]:
I don't even talk about the industry as a whole. Let's just talk about buying or selling a house. That is a very complex transaction, and we do it all day, every day. So it can seem kind of easy for us. And it sometimes may look easy, we may look at, make it look easy, but it's because of the system. So I think what I think what I love that Doorify is doing, and that excites me the most, is we're now offering different sets of tools to different sets and subsets of. Of people and professionals, because not every professional is going to have the same needs. Not every professional enters many listings daily.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:12:05]:
There are agents and teams and producers out there who literally put in listings. That's all they do all day, is they're entering. It's just data entry. So we mess that up, and it causes a big problem for that system. But sometimes you have to break things, and sometimes we have to spend money to make money. All of us are business owners if you have a real estate license, you are a business owner. And so we have to. I love what Doorify is doing, which is encouraging us to learn some of those new things.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:12:32]:
Let's slow down, because the world is so fast. If we take our little steps back and look at a new tool and say, should I, should I take a couple hours to get this right and it's going to save me infinite hours in the future, is that something that ultimately benefits me? But we're just not there. We've never had to be there. Nobody's ever presented this to two subscribers, and now we're presenting it, and it's confusing. But I not, I did not answer your question. But it was.

Matt Fowler [00:13:04]:
I think it did answer the question, Tracey, and that. It's a really hard question to answer. Right. So, you know, I think I use all these metaphors. If you're a business person and you've been using the same machine in your plant, it worked, you make money on it, you know how to use it, you're good at using it, you're skilled with that machine, and somebody comes along and says, tell you what, let's rip everything out. Let's be closed for a month, and let's put this entirely new thing in that's not popular, it's going to be hard to make that financially feasible. It's just difficult to do that. In business, though.

Matt Fowler [00:13:42]:
People do find better machines, and if they're using the one that makes ten an hour instead of the one that you use, it makes two an hour. You may love it and rely on it, you may be great at using it. But if somebody's just come up with something that brings greater efficiency. One huge thing in this industry is about speed, and I'm going to transition to my next question, but it's about speed because I'm going to get you to respond to what you think about b two b to c. So we recognize now with our consumer focus that we're a b to b to c business. And we've always thought about ourselves as b two b. We only talk to the brokers. There's no reason for us to the consumers even to know we're here, except for we have the most fair and open housing network in the world, and we're under fire by the regulators because the consumers don't think it's the most fair and open housing network in the world.

Matt Fowler [00:14:35]:
And we have things that probably could be made better. I think we got started on that this summer with the change that we made, but we also disrupted some things and made things harder for many buyers. I think we have a loss of a lack of transparency going into the changes as a result of the changes that we made. So a lot of our subscribers, Tracey, think that it's inappropriate for the MLS to be skipping the broker and talking to the consumer. But we have a b to b. There's a b in the middle c a business, and we're not forgetting about the b in the middle. I want the app that you use on your phone from whatever vendor you get it to be as capable of being as fast as the fastest app on the app store with the updates that they get from other apps that they get off the App store that are super fast. So when I think of b, two b, two c, I'm thinking about it because of the branding that we need to do.

Matt Fowler [00:15:32]:
But also the technology is that to go from b to b to c in under a second, to be as fast as the fastest app on the app door, we're going to have to get our proverbial stuff together with our strategies, our technology, with our communications between your brokerage and my company so that we've got that greased. We've got to do that. So tell me what, help me respond to people who say, I'll ask it in Andrea's specific format. How does Doorify deliver on the promise of connecting people to property? Given what we just understood about that.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:16:11]:
Yeah, that's a really great question. Doorify's unwavering commitment to deliver quality, accurate information, a very timely matter to its manner to its subscribers, has been apparent since I joined in 2023. And while we had some hiccups with the data transfer during front end of choice, overall Doorify still contains the most accurate information and is delivered more expeditiously than any platform out there. It just, there's, there's no two ways around that. And that's one of the things that I've always, for years, encouraged people to my consumer, my, my direct client, pay attention to what I send you, because what I am sending you is hot off the press. It is the best, quickest, immediate, most immediate information you can get is what I send you directly from my MLS. It's always been that way. And if we can now, what's happened is that the consumer has had to go to third parties.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:17:04]:
And I won't name names, but we all know them and there's a lot of popular brands out there that people are using for their searches. I've always been the person who says why aren't we giving the information directly from the horses now? Why do we need this third party? This excites me, not from a relinquishing control aspect, but more of a let's give the consumer some control back. Because they want to be in control. They clearly want to be in control. They want to go out and look on the Internet. They want to find the properties they're interested in, if they're selling. They want to see what's out there to compare it to. They're begging for that information.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:17:42]:
So why not give it to them direct from the source, as quickly and as accurately as humanly possible? I think that makes our platform more beneficial, and I don't know why we wouldn't do that.

Matt Fowler [00:17:54]:
Yeah, it really does. Tracey, great answer. That was perfectly done. And I think I really respect what our subscriber Zillow is doing. There are other apps out there that have a really cool user experience. There's one for site impaired people. That's really cool. I like all of them.

Matt Fowler [00:18:10]:
My problem is with having the central committee. I've described this as being very soviet, and it's distributed the way we used to distribute software. That there's the central committee, literally, that picked the thing that everybody has to use. It's like, you know, you give me one ruble, I give you one software, and it's, that's crazy. When we do have the technical ability, it's a stretch, but we do have the technical ability to give people the ability to choose. And by we, I mean the vendors really struggle with this concept. Not all of them, but definitely some of them. So I'm going to ask you one more question in our, and I'll let you go it too.

Matt Fowler [00:18:49]:
Tell me about the passionate question. Why are you passionate about opening doors to homeownership?

Tracey O'Dowd [00:18:54]:
That's a really good question. And if there's anything that I'm not lacking, it's passion for the consumer. So I remember what it was like to buy my first house. And, and I, I remember it like it was yesterday, as a matter of fact. And it was by far the most frightening and also the most exciting experience I've ever had. And you know, the old iyky, I think that's right. I y k y k. If you know, you know, and if you've bought a house out there, then you know what I'm talking about.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:19:22]:
And, and there is just, there's just no feeling like it. And there's, and I want everyone to be a k, to be in the know and to be able to experience the joy and freedom that comes with that. And the average consumer, the average person in America is going to own three homes. And that's just a real broad statistic. But three homes is not very many to someone like me, who buys and sells multiple transactions, you know, a month. I do it every day. So for that person, three years, it's really tough to navigate. And I think that I, even as a professional, wouldn't do it by myself.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:19:57]:
So I'm just ridiculously passionate about looking out for my client, whether they're a buyer, a seller, and whatever their, their situation is, I want them to have the protections that they deserve. And, and there's, you know, you, you wouldn't just put your twelve year old out in a car and say, go drive it, even after the third or fourth time they've done it, you know, now, now we have bumper stickers that we put on our kids cars and we leave them there as long as humanly possible.

Matt Fowler [00:20:22]:
Yeah, sure.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:20:23]:
Let people know that this is a new driver. So, so I just feel like there's so many, so many twists and turns and it can be a very harrowing experience. And I, it also can be a very wonderful experience. And I just, I'm passionate about making it wonderful for them. And the more tools I have in my pocket to do that with, the better, the better professional I'm going to be.

Matt Fowler [00:20:45]:
Yeah. Great answer, Tracey. Perfect. Then right on time. I did it. Thanks for joining us today for our board profile. That was a lot of fun.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:20:55]:
Yeah, it was fun. Thanks for having me, Matt. I appreciate it. And I appreciate the opportunity to serve on the board.

Matt Fowler [00:21:00]:
Yeah, of course. We love having you there. And for our subscribers, this is one in a series of our beat the board profiles. You can see who is on the board of directors on a new tile on the dashboard that says board of directors. And you can see how to learn more about the people who serve on our board. So go do that. I'll stick a link to it in the show notes. Tracey, thanks again for joining us today.

Tracey O'Dowd [00:21:23]:
Thanks so much, Matt. I appreciate it.

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