JamesEdition’s 15th Anniversary with Eric Finnas Dahlstrom

agent top miami real In an interview for The JamesEdition our CEO Eric Finnas Dahlstrom delves into the latest trends and developments in the luxury real estate market and recounts the company’s 15-year history. Past JamesEdition was launched in 2008, and obviously, a lot has changed since then for online luxury sales. What are the major differences between 2008 and 2023 in terms of how both buyers and sellers approach the process? JamesEdition was founded just a little more than six months after the launch of the first iPhone. Online sales as a share of total US retail sales were five times lower than today. At that point in time, print advertising was twice the size of the online advertising market, social media was still in its infancy and the idea of putting multi-million dollar items for sale on the internet was novel. JamesEdition was one of the pioneers to focus solely on online as a sales channel in the luxury space to reach high-net-worth consumers. In 2008 there was still a lot of skepticism that this would ever work, but it’s a concept that has stood the test of time in this ever-changing decade and a half. Today, online advertising spending is more than 10 times larger than print. The demand for online platforms from both the seller and buyer sides is increasing more than ever. Many things have changed since 2008, including the user expectations of online products. Today’s luxury buyer is tech-savvy and mobile-first, with experience and expectations for their online shopping experience based on the top-of-the-line technology products they use daily. Compared to 2008, people spend most of their time constantly connected. Most users visit JamesEdition using their phones today, and that share is only growing. How did buyer activity on JamesEdition change over the past four years (from the volume of traffic and user countries, to saved listings and leads)? Four years ago, we laid out a strategy to grow and expand JamesEdition regarding product offering and geography. Since then, we’ve grown traffic by almost four times, the number of partners advertising with us by six times, and the number of buyer inquiries by over 10 times. Every month, sellers from over 100 countries present their items to buyers from more than 160 countries worldwide. This global reach makes the JamesEdition proposition unique in the marketplace today. In our strategy, we have built on the foundation laid 15 years ago and created something that we, in our numbers, see is highly relevant for global buyers and sellers of luxury items worldwide today. Present How would you describe your journey as CEO of one of the fastest-growing marketplaces? I joined JamesEdition in 2018 when the company was already 10 years old. We had a strong foundation to stand on with a respected brand and a large user base, and we paired that with a company culture built on trust and responsibility that allowed us to attract fantastic talent. We started by implementing an agile startup mindset that helped us move fast, impacting everything we do internally and for our clients. We solve problems quickly and try to bring our customers more value daily. Today we have a team distributed across over a dozen countries, working together toward our goal of building the world’s leading luxury marketplace. To me, the most important thing is to create an environment where people enjoy coming to work, then great results will follow. We are very ambitious in where we aim and work hard to reach there. My job is to help and remove blockers for the team to perform their best. How would you start your buyer journey if you were looking for a high-end property? I believe there are a few critical components to a successful property search. We often see two specific reasons someone is looking for high-end properties on JamesEdition: to add to or make a lifestyle change or to find a property with the primary purpose of investment. Initially, it’s essential to start with a clear goal and then try to match expectations with reality. Certain things can be more or less flexible in the search — location can be flexible, the budget can be flexible, views can be flexible, timing can be flexible, etc. It is important to have a rough understanding of this when looking for a property. If these expectations are clear, it will be easier to understand where and what to look for. We know this process might take several months to several years. According to the JamesEdition Luxury Property Buyer Index, what is the current buyer sentiment? The JamesEdition Luxury Property Buyer Index is a monthly survey among our user base that indicates the current buyer sentiment and usually correlates well with fluctuations in real-estate transaction volumes. We can see that the period from March 2021 to May 2022 was extremely strong, which we also saw in record transaction volumes in most markets. It then started trending downwards to the fourth quarter of last year, when it seems to have bottomed, at least temporarily. The last quarter of last year was a weaker quarter for many agents, driven to a large extent by a volatile macroeconomic environment, increasing interest rates and rising uncertainty. We see now that buyer sentiment has since picked up and, in February, almost turned positive. We also see the same behaviour on the site, with record volumes in buyer inquiries across practically all markets. It’s often said that real estate is a safe harbour as an investment. Has buyer behaviour data during the pandemic, post-pandemic and in 2022 proven that? We conduct a lot of research based on historical data to understand what to expect from changes in macroeconomic conditions, and luxury or high-end real estate usually fares better in times of economic uncertainty. As a large share of purchases is financed with cash, interest rate fluctuations have a lower impact. In many cases, owners treat these properties more as assets that can be held through volatile periods with less need to sell. What we saw during the last three years very much confirms this thesis. The effect of Covid is a broadening scope of preferences due to the possibility to work from almost anywhere. I wouldn’t say this is a shift in preferences, as demand in cities such as London, Paris, or New York continues to be strong. Rural areas have experienced increased demand; in Europe, we’ve seen a migration from the northern countries down to the Mediterranean, and we’ve seen a shift in preference towards more space for family and home offices and privacy. As people become more mobile — which we see also in high demand for traveling — and look for homes away from home, the short- and mid-term rental markets have expanded significantly. This increases the opportunity for yield on second homes and investment during extended parts of the year at higher rates and, in turn, a higher value of homes. How is JamesEdition currently adapting to the new technological trends of the market, with constant new channels popping up? Our objective is to continuously evolve with these trends and technologies to match and exceed the expectations of modern luxury consumers. There are a lot of challenges to buying and selling luxury items globally. With more technological advancements, we can make this process much easier, faster and more convenient. We invest a lot into our product and increase this spending yearly, to ensure we deliver a top-of-the-line experience to our users. Future If AI-trained models, like ChatGPT, replace Google search, how might luxury property buyers use them throughout their journey, and at what point could they discover real-estate businesses? I think the jury is still out on what ways generative AI will change user behavior. For property searches, Google is mainly an interface to find a tool that can help users find a property: in most cases, a property portal. Existing portals already do a good job of assisting buyers in finding the best location, property and agent to purchase their property. On JamesEdition, we already use machine learning models to personalize the experience and surface the most exciting offers for the user. I believe what is clear is that, if implemented in these tools that we already use today, generative AI can significantly increase productivity. Real estate agents can get listings online much faster and with less work with the help of products that generate and optimize content, and also handle communication with more ease due to AI-assisted communication tools. Where do you see JamesEdition in five years, and can you give us a sneak peek of what’s to come? We will continue to expand our product offering geographically and, in terms of depth, within our core categories. Our guiding principle is to build the fastest and most convenient experience for finding luxury items for sale online. As user expectations change and technologies develop, we will continue to innovate to stay at the frontline. We also know that we inspire millions of people every month worldwide with our unique proposition and content. We can reach millions more people out there, and we will continue to do our best to inspire them, too.   Enjoy more interviews with industry experts in the first issue of The JamesEdition: Get exclusive access now. Completely free. Сообщение JamesEdition’s 15th Anniversary with Eric Finnas Dahlstrom появились сначала на JamesEdition. best bienes realtor
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