Lasting Impact: Founded a truly national, independent news organization to challenge the existing sources of news about the residential real estate industry, along with several national conferences that became go-to events for real estate professionals.
Regardless of whether you agree with Brad’s commentaries and opinions, his news reporting was the first to challenge the establishment of the Realtors as the voice for real estate. The stories and coverage from Inman News became the weekly focus of discussion for the majority of those who follow the residential brokerage industry. His initial goal was to bridge the divide between real estate brokers and agents and real estate technology leaders.
The Inman Connect conferences grew to become among the most important events of the year as a place for realty, real estate technology and related business executives to meet and make deals. Connect became one place to meet and make deals.
Inman was also the first to provide online news without a subscription as its earliest derivations were ad supported. This was a new way to build a news organization and led most of his competitors to follow suit.
Today, virtually all national firms covering the real estate industry offer some free content, premium content with a subscription charge and ad-supported content. While Inman didn’t invent this format, he led the way in doing so in the real estate industry.
Steve Murray is a senior advisor for RealTrends and a partner in brokerage consulting firm RTC Consulting.