272 Connecting Home Buyers with Information - Marc Regardie Jun 11 2025

Greg Bray: [00:00:00] Hello everybody, and welcome to today's episode of The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine. 

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse. 

Greg Bray: And we are excited to have joining us today, Marc Regardie. Marc is the head of sales for new construction at Homes.com. Welcome, Marc. Thanks for being with us.

Marc Regardie: Thanks so much for having me. We're really excited to be here. 

Greg Bray: Well, Marc, for those who haven't had a chance to meet you and get to know you yet, tell us a little bit about yourself. Give us that quick overview and background. 

Marc Regardie: Absolutely. So, Marc Regardie. I lead the sales team for new construction at [00:01:00] Homes.com. I am born and bred Washington, DC, and our Homes.com office that I'm out of is right across the river from Georgetown, so in Roslyn, Virginia. I'm leading the sales team for a new endeavor within Homes.com, specifically focused on new construction. So, this is a portion within Homes.com that's going to launch this summer dedicated just to new home builders, and really excited to be a part of that. I'll give you a little history of my time in new construction, but super excited to be part of Homes.com and what we're building for new construction.
 
Kevin Weitzel: Before we get into all the dot coms and all the home listings and stuff like that, we need a simple and honest fact point about yourself that has nothing to do with work, the home building, industry, or family.

Marc Regardie: Got it. So, it's going to be a few months away, but starting in September, on the first day of NFL season, I will start once again playing in a touch football league that I've been a part of for about 30 years. Somehow, I've now become the commissioner of the league. I don't know how that happened. So, it's a ton of fun. It runs from beginning of NFL season through the Super Bowl every single Sunday for two hours. I've been playing with some of these guys literally for [00:02:00] decades now. It's a boatload of fun. 

And also, we are really helping out the orthopedic doctors in the greater DC area because, as you now get people of my age, forties, fifties, sixties, even beyond, you can imagine the things that are happening to us as we try to sprint for the first time in months or years. So, we're doing our best to keep those doctors in good business with broken bones, thumbs, fingers, knees, you name it. We're giving them lots of good business. So, it's one of my favorite things that I do. 

Kevin Weitzel: Marc, I can 100% relate to that, and I can tell you why. I have never been a big fan of organized sports. I did play ice hockey as a kid for a year or two years. However, I've always done like golf and tennis and racquetball and all weird white shirt organized sports out there. Anyway, so all the team sports out there, I finally decided I was going to join a softball league. I was grounding third, and my hamstring popped so loud that it was audible to the bench. I can 100% relate to these ailments that happen with adult sports. 

Marc Regardie: Yes. Especially when it comes to sprinting. It is not for the faint of heart. 

Greg Bray: Well, Marc, for those [00:03:00] who maybe haven't heard of Homes.com, give us just a little bit of the bigger picture of what you guys are about and kind of your focus. The name does kind of imply something, but tell us a little bit more about the company. 

Marc Regardie: Absolutely. So, Homes.com is a brand that's been around for close to 20 years or so. But it was purchased about four years ago by a company called CoStar Group. CoStar is the leading company throughout real estate for data and marketplaces. Started in the commercial real estate industry to get all the data on every commercial building. But over the decades, CoStar has also gotten into the website business. So, it owns companies like Apartments.com, which I'm sure many listeners are familiar with as a leading apartment site. LoopNet on the commercial side, land.com.

And so, Homes.com is CoStar's entry into the residential real estate space. So, we're here to compete with the other portals out there, and I'm sure everybody knows who those are. But I think a couple of things that are a little bit different about Homes.com, one is, and this is true of all CoStar companies, a philosophy we call your listing your leads. So we get our feeds from [00:04:00] MLSs, and we're getting them for the builders, which we'll talk about more. But whenever you go on Homes.com and you see a listing there, the only person you're going to see is the listing agent for that property. And that consumer, that's who they want to talk to. 

So, we're here to be matchmakers. We want to directly connect that consumer with the person who owns that listing. So, in residential real estate, it's that listing agent. In Apartments.com, it's that apartment management company. So, we're here to be matchmakers. No other person can be involved in terms of getting that lead, so that your listing or lead is really important to us. 

And I think the other thing that's really important on Homes.com, we're not just regurgitating data we get from places like MLSs or builders, but we build tons of proprietary content on our own. We have a massive research team. And if you go to homes.com, you'll see over 20,000 neighborhood videos with music, voiceover, drone shots, professional photography, written stories to give that consumer a real sense of what would it be like if I lived in that neighborhood, is that the right fit for me and my family. So, those are a couple of the things that I think we do differently than some of the other folks out there [00:05:00] to create a really rich, robust experience for consumers.

Kevin Weitzel: I did catch one thing that kind of caught my ear, and that is that you don't sell the leads at all? 

Marc Regardie: Correct, and that is something that has been the case for every single CoStar company. We are truly matchmakers. We do obviously need to make money. The way that we do it with all of our sites is from an advertising-based business. So, for Homes.com, we have a program for agents called an agent membership. So, I live in Washington, DC. I live in a neighborhood called Palisades. If an agent who's part of our agent membership wants to get more exposure for their home, they can do that. So, they can sort up to the tops. When people are seeing those homes in Palisades, Kevin Weitzel he'll be up at the very top there. He'll get a lot more exposure. 

So, we're simply charging advertising fees, but we're not doing any sort of pay-per-lead or allowing any other person to infringe on another agent's listing. It's just not something that we do. It's not very consumer-friendly, and that's been the philosophy of CoStar for literally decades now. So, we're never charging for leads. We will help our clients get more exposure for everything that they have up [00:06:00] there. 

Greg Bray: So, Marc, tell us a little bit more about your personal journey into being part of new construction and how that became something that interested you.

Marc Regardie: Sounds good. So, this is going to be a little longer than you probably want to hear, but it's something that I enjoy talking about. So, as I mentioned, I was born and bred in Washington, DC, and my parents they're part of the real estate world as well in new construction. So back in the 1970s, my mom had a company called Housing Data Reports, which was the first company to get all the data for new home builders. So, she was the original person creating that data source for builders. My father had a magazine called New Homes Guide. So, it was the premier magazine for helping consumers find new homes. So, I grew up in that world, and after college, I started working in some advertising agencies, and I actually started my own advertising agency in the early 2000s, working with home builders, and we were creating early websites. What we quickly realized was those builders had a really hard time following up with their leads. I know that still exist to this day. 

And I ended up [00:07:00] starting a CRM company working with home builders in the greater DC area, a company called You Follow Up, and worked with many of the builders in the DC area along the East coast. After 10 years, I sold that to a company I'm sure many people here are familiar with, Lasso CRM. I worked for Lasso for a couple of years, and then I wanted to try something new. So, I joined a startup in the DC area, a company called Homesnap, which became the premier mobile app for real estate agents, so their daily data and productivity tool. And I ended up running the brokerage part of the business there. So, we created a lot of automated digital marketing, and I worked with some of the larger companies like Remax. 

So, I did that for a number of years. Homesnap was purchased by CoStar Group. Shortly after, CoStar then purchased Homes.com. So, we had both those brands for a little bit. We eventually sunset the Homesnap brand, so Homes.com became CoStar's face on residential real estate. I ran that brokerage business for a while. But once we knew that we were going to launch this new construction portion, which we'll launch in July of this year, [00:08:00] and the opportunity came to get back into the new home builder world, I jumped at it right away. It was something that I, again, have in my family that I did it years before. So, when that opportunity came about to be back in the new construction world, it was the most exciting thing for me. So, it's a very long way to get there, but I'm thrilled to be back into the new construction world and meeting up with people who I knew many, many years ago and, of course, a lot of new people as well.

Kevin Weitzel: I can't get past the point that you're not selling leads. Home builder X, Y, Z lists an entire community of homes. Every spec home they build, they put it on Homes.com. They're not going to get inundated with every real estate lizard out there that wants to just glom onto their deal to try to glom onto that commission. 

Marc Regardie: Yeah. No, it's the exact opposite of that. One of the things I love about all the sites that CoStar has built, it's about the consumer. Let's give the consumer what they want. Let's give them more information that they can find anywhere else. Let's give them more robust information. And if they want to know more about that property, let's just hook them up with the person who knows about it and get nobody else involved in there. You also don't see things like third [00:09:00] party advertising on any of our sites.

Somebody is coming to Homes.com to find a home. They went to Apartments.com to find an apartment. Let's give them what they came there for, let's make that process really simple, and let's connect those two parties together. So, I know it sounds bizarre, but it's actually what the consumer wants. So, let's give the consumer what they want, and that's always the steadfast part of every CoStar company and, obviously, Homes.com as well. 

Greg Bray: So, Marc, with the builders that you talk to, and of course they all want more leads, and you come to them and you're like, Hey, here's an opportunity for more leads. What are some of the concerns they have or some of the things that you see as you look at what they're already trying to do that make you go, Hey, have you guys thought about this or that instead and some of those opportunities?

Marc Regardie: Yeah, I think what will help is let me tell you a little bit about what our philosophy is specifically for new construction because it is a little bit different than I think you'll find from the other sites out there. So, this is going to launch in July: this dedicated section within Homes.com just for new construction. And what me and my sales team are doing now is literally trying to talk to you, every builder across the country, to get their data [00:10:00] feeds and have those on Homes.com for new construction completely for free. So, this doesn't exist out there anywhere that we've seen, one place where consumers can go to to find literally every new home community out there. The other portals we see they're a bit incomplete. 

So, as a consumer, what do you have to do? I've got to just go to a million different sites, and that's a frustrating aspect for consumers. So, we really want to flip that script. So, we're telling builders we want your feed, we want it for free, we're going to give you those leads for free. And the benefit to you as a builder is you want to be a part of this because, as most folks have probably heard, we run a lot of advertising. We're an aggressive company. We've built up a lot of traffic in a short period of time, and consumers want convenience, and I think builders want to be part of that as well. They want to be part of that site that is getting all those consumers that know, when they come to Homes.com, this is gonna be that best search experience if I'm looking for new construction. So, we're getting a lot of great feedback. That's what they want. They want to go where the consumers are, and we want to build that best consumer experience for them.

Greg Bray: And as you guys look at [00:11:00] where are consumers, what are some of the things that you've been seeing that consumers want that they struggle to find other places that you're trying to say, okay, here's something we could do better or different that would help us connect with that consumer even more?

Marc Regardie: Yeah. So, I think there's two things that we're hearing. It's width and depth. So, width, they want to go to one place where they can find everything. They can find every new community, and they want to have a separate search experience just for that part of it. And every consumer has a different thing of what they want, and they want that to be available to them. So, they want to find everything. They want to have one place where they can go to where they can find all those new home builders, new home communities. 

But they also want to know not just about that community but what is that area like where they're moving to. So, that community is in a neighborhood. That neighborhood could have been around for decades. What is that neighborhood like? What are the schools like there? What are the parks like? What are the crime scores, the environmental factors, and they don't want to have to go to all these different places. So, I think that's the other big part that we're bringing into this is not just the new home builder stuff, which is of course important, but what is that area like, what is [00:12:00] my life going to be like if I live in that area? And that's the thing that we've been hearing from folks a lot, is they don't want to have to jump around to a million different sites to find all that information that they're looking for. So that's the depth part of what we're looking to build out here as well. 

So, it's not just new home community listings. That's really important, don't get me wrong, but what's it like to actually live in that neighborhood? And that's some of the content that we bring in that you're just not going to find anywhere else, and we think that is really appealing to consumers, having that one-stop shop for everything that they want when it comes to new homes.

Greg Bray: I mean, that sounds ambitious.

Marc Regardie: It is. I mean, we spent the last two years, hundreds of researchers, these are videographers, drone operators. We have the second largest drone force other than the US military. These are photographers, writers, over 20,000 neighborhoods. We've built this unbelievably robust content. But it's something, again, that doesn't exist anywhere else. It's going to a real sense of it. That's the nice part about being part of a company like CoStar, that investment they will make to build the most comprehensive site that has the information that consumers are really [00:13:00] looking for. It's big, audacious. It costs a lot of money. It takes a lot of time, but it produces a really, really robust site that once consumers find what it is, they really see that there's a difference in that search experience for them. 

Greg Bray: So, as a builder is considering, do I want to do this? Obviously, you're reducing some of those barriers to entry by eliminating cost and some of that, there's still some work involved in all of that, but is there a feeling of like, well, gosh, I'm just going to be in the mix with everybody else and just kind of lost in the shuffle? Do you have those kinds of concerns, and how would you talk to somebody who might be worried about that? 

Marc Regardie: Sure. We haven't heard too much of that. I mean, overwhelming when we've been talking to the builders, they want to be a part of that because they think they understand this concept of if the buyers are there, the potential buyers are there, I, as a builder, want to be a part of that. I don't want to be missing out. So, this is going to be completely for free. We'll take those data feeds, we'll put them up there. Now, of course, we're going to have a time where we need to make some money on this as well, and we're just going to follow that same pattern that we've done for all our other sites. 

So, if that builder wants to be higher up on those searches when [00:14:00] people are searching for new homes in Atlanta, they can absolutely find a way to get a lot more exposure from there, and this will be available for big builders or small builders. So, we found this to be a really tried and true business model with apartments, with all those other sites. Get everything on there that lifts all boats. But if you want your community or communities to get a lot more exposure, you definitely have the way to do that from a paid opportunity. If you don't want to be a part of it, you still know that your content will be on there. 

But I think the other thing that we are talking with builders about is let's make sure there's a lot of content for you. Don't be afraid to give us a lot of information. Consumers want that part of it as well. And we do see with all of our sites, the folks on there that have more content that they're providing to us, they get a lot more engagement on Apartments, on Homes.com. So don't be afraid to give that data. Consumers are looking for that part of it. 

Kevin Weitzel: I got to phrase this question the right way here. So, with your ambition of getting this all rolled out in July and the established players that are already out there, is it just reaching out just [00:15:00] to the new home builders, just to try to get them involved, educate them on the process and that they're their leads? But how do you get the buyers? Because it's easy to get a builder. But how do you get buyers? Because there's an actual verb used for one of your competitors' names, of something that people do while they're sitting at their desk. Absolutely. So, how do absolutely get people to go homing.com, Homes.com, when they're at their lunch break looking for new residences? 

Marc Regardie: Yeah. Starting a year ago at the Super Bowl, we started launching Homes.com TV commercials. Then we have a couple of celebrity spokespeople. We spent a lot of money on advertising. That's part of the CoStar playbook. That's what turned Apartments.com. When CoStar purchased it 12 years ago, it was a real afterthought in the multifamily space, building that product, lots of TV advertising. There's Jeff Gold Bloom TV commercials, which probably everybody has seen. That's the same playbook we're running here. So, it doesn't happen overnight, Kevin, without a doubt. But we made tremendous gains in just a year. 

We're now at a hundred million monthly users. When we started a couple of years ago, we were at 10 million. We'll [00:16:00] continue to invest on the marketing side, and I can absolutely see, or I hope to see TV commercials dedicated just to that new construction experience. So, that consumers know when they go to Homes.com, it's more homes than anywhere else, it's more new construction, and we think that's thing that's going to be really, really appealing to them. So, we're not afraid to spend the money on marketing. We know that that's a part of what we need to do. We can't just build a great site. We've got to have that investment in marketing as well. 

Kevin Weitzel: So, I'm just going to throw this out there. I don't have the draw that Jeff Gold Bloom has, but I will work for literal peanuts. So, trust me, I'm about as cheap as they come. 

Marc Regardie: Well, how about this, Kevin? I'll make a deal with you. After they put me in with the first commercial, then you get to be the second person after that. 

Kevin Weitzel: Done. 

Marc Regardie: Does that sound done? 

Kevin Weitzel: I'm going to hold you to it.

Marc Regardie: Okay, well, you might be holding it for a little while, but that's the deal I have for you. 

Greg Bray: Well, I do need to say, Marc, that there's a little technical issue that I need to bring up in one of your ads, Homes.comisthebest.com. You cannot have two dots in a domain name. [00:17:00] Okay. It's a reserved character. It doesn't work. The website guys their heads explode when they see that. You can't do that. 

Marc Regardie: We've caused mass confusion. It's been wonderful. That was one of the new Super Bowl ads. And yeah, we've gotten a lot of really good feedback from there. It was a little bit different. But yeah, it's been a lot of fun. 

Greg Bray: So, as you sit there and you talk about new construction in Homes.com, we look at the sales environment for builders, and we recognize that resales are actually their biggest competitor, not the builder down the street as far as the size of the market and things there. How do you kind of encourage builders to be there but recognize that you've got resales on the site too, even if they are segregated somewhat? Talk to us about that. 

Marc Regardie: Yeah, so this was one of the most fun things that I've experienced once I started this role about four or five months ago. So, we started talking to some of the biggest builders out there, and I kind of knew this, but every one of these builders said it to me right at the beginning. Their competitors are not just the other new home builders but it's the resale market as well. And I was like, oh yeah, that kind of makes sense.

So, the short story is, Greg, of how we're building this [00:18:00] out is we will have new construction listings intermingled with the resale listings. So, if I'm searching for homes in Atlanta and I put my filters on there, 500 to $800,000. On those search results, you'll see all the resale listings, and you'll see the new construction listings as well. So, yes, let's give that consumer the alternative, whether they're looking for resale or new construction. So, we'll have that, we'll intermingle those together. 

But then we're going to have multiple entry points. When that consumer has raised their hand and said, I just want new construction, we'll have multiple ways for them to get into it, into this new construction search experience. So, we want to have both those things. We want the builders competing with the resale, but when that consumer's decided new construction is what I want. Let's give them a totally separate search experience just for that. So, we really want to serve both those audiences. 

Not everybody immediately is like, oh, I only want new construction. I think a lot of times they do start, let me see everything that's out there. Then they might find, well, new construction's really interesting, and then we give them that unique experience just for that [00:19:00] part of it. So, we really want to be playing in both those spaces, Greg. And I think that's something that we can uniquely do with the content that we'll have.

Greg Bray: Now, Marc, you've got background in CRM, in those tools. Talk to us a little bit about lead follow-up and how a builder might react to a lead that comes from Homes.com. Is it just like any other leads? Should they treat it differently? What would they kind of look to flag saying, oh, this lead came from here?

Marc Regardie: So, we'll certainly be integrating with the CRMs. I mentioned Apartments.com before. Apartments.com integrates with a lot of CRMs. So, we have a whole team that's been doing this literally for many, many years now. So, I think we have a lot of advantages to integrate with the leading CRMs out there. So, that's super important, needless to say. So, as we launch everything, we will be building a lot of those CRM integrations. Builders are inherently better at following up with leads and a lot of the real estate agents that we work with. 
What we certainly do hope that builders will find is as these leads start to come to them because of that commitment we've made to building a really great site and having really educated consumers that are finding information they're not finding anywhere else, [00:20:00] we truly believe that this quality of lead will truly be better than they're finding from other places. Because we are investing so much in that experience for consumers to give them even more than they wanted, but have it be very narrowly focused within the real estate world and not get to versions with other things.

So, I think we will find that those leads are going into those CRMs, it's going to their OSCs, however they operate that part of it, and that they're going to find, well, when I get this Homes.com lead, this is a person who's done their homework, they really want to be contacted. So, we're really excited about that portion of it to build all that out and get those leads going directly into those builders hands the way that they want to operate.

Greg Bray: So, Marc, looking ahead, you guys are on the cusp here of getting your big new thing out the door as we're talking today, you know, if somebody's listening to this a few months down the road. But as you guys look ahead even beyond into the next few years, are there some trends you're watching in new home sales or some other things you're going, you know what? And again, you don't have to give us like the super secret competitor insight here that's going to get you in trouble. But what are [00:21:00] some of those things that you know what, eventually we need to pay attention to x, y, and z that's coming? 

Marc Regardie: Yeah. So, you know, there's certainly things we're looking at in terms of, not just filters, but other creative ways that consumers want to be doing searches on there. So, there's certainly a lot of things that we're working on there, which are really, really exciting, beyond just checking off boxes. I'm looking for homes between this price and this price. There's a lot of really exciting developments on there. 

I think the other thing that's also really interesting is we'll get a lot of builder websites, and the depth of information that they have on their websites is way more than what they're sending to the other portals. So, there's a real mismatch here. We really want to be at the forefront of working with the builders to build that next generation of those data feeds. If they're showcasing all this information on their website, that certainly should be on Homes.com as well. So, we think that's a bit outdated in terms of how some of those things are done, and we're already talking with builders now. 

Let's talk about that next generation. Let's have this be more immediate in the data that's coming from you. Let's have it be a lot more robust because, as my theme has been throughout here, it's what consumers want. So, I think those are a couple of the things that we're definitely keeping our [00:22:00] eyes on, too. At the end of the day, it's about that consumer experience. Give them what they want, give them all the information. They're going to make the choices from there. So, let's make it as easy for them and as robust for them. And again, have something that's built just for new construction and those consumers who've raised their hands to say, this is what I want. Give me everything. I need to know about that part of it. 

Greg Bray: So, at its heart then, what I'm hearing you say is that builders need to figure out how to manage their data so they can share it better.

Marc Regardie: Yes, I would agree with that part of it. And some of them do a great job, some of them are realizing that they need to be a part of it. Because one of the things we'll see on all of our sites, if you have a listing with a lot of information versus a listing with a little bit of information, guess which one gets a lot more clicks and a lot more views and a lot more exposure and a lot more leads? That listing with a lot more information. It's what the consumer wants. If you're not giving that part of it, you can be at a real disadvantage in terms of the engagement that you get with your listings, whether it's a resale listing, new construction, whether it's an apartment. Consumers are looking for more. I do think the builders need to be cognizant of that and be willing to [00:23:00] give the consumer what they're really looking for. 

Kevin Weitzel: We shouldn't lose sight of those builders that wanna have everything just be a mystery and put almost zero information on their website. Right? 

Marc Regardie: Yeah, no, it's a real balancing act, Kevin. It really is. Look, I 100% understand why they go that route. Again, I'll take it from the perspective of the engagement we see on a place like Homes.com; the ones that have more robust content they definitely get a lot more interest in it. At the end of the day, that's what the agent wants on their listings. I think that's what the builder wants as well. But yeah, it's always a balancing act on there. And I do see a real divide these days. I'm sure you guys do as well. Some builders want to kinda hold onto the old school, not share very much, get people into the sales office, and others who are much more forthcoming in terms of the data that they give out. So yeah, I'm seeing a more and more of a divide these days. So, we'll see how that happens. 

Greg Bray: It'll be interesting to see how it evolves as you guys reach your goal of having every new home out there available. There really will be now a competition between like content quality that will evolve, and you won't have complete control over [00:24:00] that because it'll be what the builder's willing to give you and to work within that. So, it'll be interesting to see. 

Marc Regardie: Yeah, but at the same time, we have a tool that can actually make it easier. So, CoStar recently purchased Matterport, which some of you might be familiar with. So, we want every builder, every listing out there to have a Matterport. Because we absolutely see on Homes.com, those listings that have Matterports get way more engaged on there. So, that's one of the things that I think that we can actually do to help virtually every builder out there to have more robust content on there. So, that might be one way we can provide a better experience for consumers and help builders to make that part of it really, really easy.

Greg Bray: Well, Marc, we appreciate the time you've spent with us today and the insights. You know, it's interesting to learn more about where you guys are headed and what you're doing. Any just last pieces of marketing and sales advice that you want to leave with our builders today?

Marc Regardie: Yeah, I think it's don't be afraid to give that information to consumers. I certainly understand the hesitation of giving too much, but we certainly see that's what consumers want. We are in that instant gratification when we want to know everything out there. We don't want to have to go to a whole lot of places. And if you are the one that's [00:25:00] not providing that information, you can be at a real disadvantage there. So, follow what the consumers are looking for, and they're definitely interacting with those companies that are providing the most information. So, while it may be uncomfortable, at the end of the day, I think you need to listen to the consumer and what they're looking for. So, don't be afraid on that part of it. 

Greg Bray: Well, thanks again, Mark. If somebody wants to reach out, learn more, and connect with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch? 

Marc Regardie: That sounds great. I've got two quick ways. You can email our team, newconstructionsales@homes.com, newconstructionsales@homes.com, or we do have a landing page specifically about new construction homes.com/solutions/new-homes.

Greg Bray: All right, we'll drop a link to that on our show notes as well to make it easier for people to find that. And thank you so much, Mark, for being with us. And thank you, everybody, for listening today to The Home Builder Digital Marketing podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Bray with Blue Tangerine. 

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse. Thank you. [00:26:00]