This week on Power House, Diego Sanchez chats with the CEO of HousingWire and the former host of this very podcast: Clayton Collins!
Clayton dives into HousingWire’s journey—from steady organic growth to smart acquisitions—and why in-person events like The Gathering are more essential than ever for the industry. They also talk about the relaunch and rebranding of our new data-licensing business, HousingWire Data, and the kinds of granular housing market data it can provide for companies all across the housing ecosystem.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Balancing organic growth with acquisitions is key to strategic business development.
HousingWire Data tracks over 110 million properties and provides valuable insights.
The ideal clients for HousingWire Data are innovators across the housing industry.
Accurate and diverse data is essential for decision-making in a digital-first world.
Listening to client needs drives product development and innovation.
Related to this episode:
HousingWire Data - Enterprise Solutions
https://www.housingwire.com/enterprise-data/
Altos data licensing product relaunches as HousingWire Data | HousingWire
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/altos-research-relaunches-data-licensing-product-as-housingwire-data/
Enjoy the episode!
The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio
Clayton dives into HousingWire’s journey—from steady organic growth to smart acquisitions—and why in-person events like The Gathering are more essential than ever for the industry. They also talk about the relaunch and rebranding of our new data-licensing business, HousingWire Data, and the kinds of granular housing market data it can provide for companies all across the housing ecosystem.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Balancing organic growth with acquisitions is key to strategic business development.
HousingWire Data tracks over 110 million properties and provides valuable insights.
The ideal clients for HousingWire Data are innovators across the housing industry.
Accurate and diverse data is essential for decision-making in a digital-first world.
Listening to client needs drives product development and innovation.
Related to this episode:
HousingWire Data - Enterprise Solutions
https://www.housingwire.com/enterprise-data/
Altos data licensing product relaunches as HousingWire Data | HousingWire
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/altos-research-relaunches-data-licensing-product-as-housingwire-data/
Enjoy the episode!
The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio
Category
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NewsTranscript
00:00We sell an ingredient and our clients are baking the cake and they're all baking a different kind
00:07of cake or a different type of loaf of bread. We sell an ingredient and that ingredient is
00:12active housing market data so they can build what they need to build.
00:22Welcome to Powerhouse, where we interview the biggest names in housing and ask them about
00:28their strategy for growth. I'm Diego Sanchez, president of HousingWire, and I have a special
00:34guest today, Clayton Collins, the CEO of HousingWire. Clayton, welcome back to your old show.
00:42Thrilled to be here. I don't know how I found my way back to this microphone. I joked with you
00:46before we got on air, but yesterday was the first time I plugged in a microphone since 2024.
00:51So I feel like I'm coming back to the old campus for a walk around.
00:55Well, let's see if there's any rust. And by the way, what's up with the beard?
01:02That's a seated question. You're the culprit on this, Diego. I don't even remember what I
01:09originally joked, but I joked that like, hey, I'm not going to shave until we sell
01:13100 more tickets to the gathering. And as you and I do sometimes, it spirals. We egg each other on.
01:22Next thing I know, I'm not shaving until we sell 500 tickets to the gathering. So I am channeling my
01:29bearded friends like Chris Griffith and Nate Nottingham has one now. Nate Smoyer. I'm thinking
01:38of all of our bearded friends here. And I hope they're listening, but gents, I really don't want
01:44to look like you with that long beard. So I sell some tickets fast. Nate Smoyer's beard is pretty
01:50wild now. It is long. Yep, it is. All right. So love that. Love that thing that we're doing with
01:59with the gathering. By the way, the gathering is coming up pretty soon, about 65, 70 days.
02:05I think it's 73, Diego. Yeah. And we're excited about it. We're going to get
02:131,000 plus housing executives out to Colorado Springs, and it should be a really beautiful event.
02:21Yeah. The gathering is special for a lot of reasons. The venues are always awesome.
02:27But ultimately, at Housing Wire, we have the chance to cover the industry for mortgage and real estate
02:31executives and professionals 365 days a year. And we try to make it a two-way conversation as often
02:38as possible. But that relationship is digital, largely. And the opportunity to come together
02:45in person and actually be able to interact and see and talk with and share food and drink with the
02:52folks that we interact with digitally so often is such a pleasure for us. And we hope it's a pleasure
02:59for our audience members who get the chance to spend time with like-minded professionals who thrive on
03:06information and use that knowledge that they gain through Housing Wire digitally and then Housing Wire
03:12from our programming on stage to drive strategy, make decisions, grow businesses, be better leaders.
03:19And the gathering is truly the opportunity for some of the most impactful leaders in housing
03:27and those who aspire to be impactful leaders in housing to come together in the same room and get
03:34better. This last few weeks, we've seen so many massive strategic decisions made in the industry.
03:40Some big M&A deals announced that you've covered here on this podcast. And Sarah and James have covered
03:45on Housing Wire daily. And some of those deals and some of those moves have the potential to put
03:54people in a defensive stance. But the take that I've had, and I had dinner last night with a really
04:00high-growth real estate brokerage executive, and we talked a lot about how iron sharpens iron.
04:05And I think that phrase is really important for the folks that are joining us in Colorado Springs.
04:10As you put yourself around the best people in housing, the most talented people who have the
04:15skill, the experience, and largely recently, the capital to do big things, it will make the folks
04:21around you stronger if you approach it with the right mindset. And we'll see it in Colorado Springs.
04:26The folks that are going to be there are not afraid of what's happening in the industry right now.
04:31No, not at all. And that's the iron sharpens iron mentality. You see your competition getting
04:37better. You have two choices. Do you retreat or do you get better? And ultimately, this industry needs
04:45people that are willing to get better, make the industry better and more profitable and more
04:50efficient, but ultimately create better consumer experiences and further this dream of homeownership
04:55that we all obviously believe in since we dedicate so much of our time, life, and energy to this space.
05:01Well, let's take it back to the origin story. How did a retail and investment banker end up
05:09acquiring a business media company?
05:11Man, I feel like our HousingWire audience has heard this story so many times, but I'll keep it
05:16quick for some of the folks that you've attracted now that you've taken over the powerhouse.
05:22Yeah, yeah. So I was a banker by background, big New York banks and a Canadian bank. Got exposure
05:31to the retail, small business, lending side of the financial services ecosystem, and then jumped
05:38over to M&A advisory. But when I was doing M&A work, I fell in with a group that, as an associate
05:44in my early days, I was doing a lot of media and technology deals and loved the media and technology
05:51deal-making space. But one of the things that I felt was missing for me is what happens after the deal.
06:00And you've been on Wall Street too, Diego. You know the models, the forecasts, the books,
06:05the sims that junior bankers build, ultimately you take out to market companies for fundraising or M&A.
06:11What happens after that? What happens after the deal concludes and the press release sends?
06:17How does the integration work? Are there revenue synergies? Are there cost synergies?
06:21Does all the operational promise of bringing two businesses together actually come to fruition?
06:27And as I was a couple of years in at the bank I was working with in New York, I was like,
06:33yeah, I just got to see the other side of a transaction. And I felt my entrepreneurial
06:38ambitions really starting to bubble up and knew that the life I wanted, the career I wanted for
06:45long haul is a little bit different in the path I was heading down.
06:47So I left investment banking, raised a little bit of money and went out and hunted for deals.
06:53And I was fortunate to meet the founders of Housing Wire in that process. And that relationship
06:58ultimately led to me acquiring the business from the founders, Paul Jackson and Richard Bittner
07:03in 2016. My wife and I immediately moved. We're coming from New York at a short stop in Charlotte and
07:11then moved out to Dallas to run the business. And April 25th of this year marks our nine year
07:19anniversary. But the vision we've had with Housing Wire has definitely evolved over the years,
07:27but stayed very similar. So one of the most attractive parts of Housing Wire is out the gate,
07:33which I think is really differentiated from a lot of B2B media businesses is that the founders invested
07:39in quality content. They hired great reporters, they hired great editors to build a newsroom DNA
07:44that helped build trust and audience from an early stage. That baseline, that foundation has enabled us
07:51to expand our vision for what Housing Wire can and will be, which is the information services and media
07:58business that brings the full picture of market intelligence to housing professionals. So today we serve
08:05users and readers and clients from mortgage origination to loan servicing and capital markets
08:11to real estate brokerage and appraisal and valuation and home building. We look at the whole value chain
08:17of the residential housing transaction and we think that's our charge to cover that from a newsroom
08:22perspective and serve those audience members. In turn, we gain the benefit of being able to bring those
08:30people to events and bring them on as subscribers to Housing Wire and work with them through our
08:35Alto SaaS business to active real-time housing market data. And now most recently, the launch that we just
08:42brought to market in April, like this month is Housing Wire data, which brings this big picture,
08:49this real-time housing market data to enterprise clients. Now we're able to work with lenders and real
08:54estate brokerages and prop techs and hedge funds and home builders, not just on the news, but also
09:01providing them real-time housing market data that helps them make decisions. And Diego, that's a step.
09:07This launch is a big part of our vision and charge to bring the full picture to housing professionals.
09:15I'm not going to stop. You're not going to stop until we're giving professionals the information they
09:22need to make decisions better, more efficiently and faster, ultimately make more money and create a
09:27better housing economy. And I think that's the path we're running down.
09:31Yeah. I want to return to Housing Wire data in a moment. When you think about the growth that we've
09:37had over the past nine years of your ownership of the business, it has been an interesting mix of
09:46inorganic growth and organic growth. Tell me a little bit more about that strategy of
09:51balancing out M&A with building things internally.
09:57I've always admired and to a degree emulated the business operators that weren't one-trick ponies.
10:07And I give a lot of credit to actually one of our investors, Will Thorndyke, wrote a book years ago
10:15called The Outsiders. And Will talked about five exceptional CEOs that were fabulous capital
10:23allocators inside of their business. They understand which levers to pull at different points in a
10:29business cycle, an economic cycle, and in certain situations. So as an operator, I've always thought
10:35about the idea and the complicated idea that growth does not have to have a single complexion.
10:43There are times when you want to take your available resources, your cash flow, your capital,
10:49and invest into organic opportunities, whether that's new product development,
10:54scaling sales and marketing teams, building new products, or launching completely new business
11:00lines. There's other times where those organic opportunities might not really exist. And the best
11:04use of capital is through the financial means, whether you're paying out a dividend to investors or
11:10putting cash on the balance sheet or reducing debt. And there's other times where you want to look at
11:17inorganic opportunities and say, hey, this is a market where we can get to where we want to go faster
11:23through M&A. And we're still a small to mid-sized business. But I think that we have proven that we know when
11:34to pull respective levers. And ultimately, we're a really ambitious business. And there's some things
11:41that we have learned how to do organically. It's pretty phenomenal to me over the last
11:46four years, how we've kind of gone from an organization that was completely dependent on
11:52outside developers and technology solutions to drive daily operations to an organization that has a full
12:00technology product and engineering team that we can actually build now. And I'm watching the team
12:07that you lead with Holden Page actually build things that years ago, we would have just been waiting on
12:14a SaaS provider to bring to us. And we still definitely love our best of breed partners that
12:20bring technology into the organization. But we've learned how to build on top of that.
12:24We've also learned how to do M&A and bring businesses like Realtrends and Altos into the
12:33business and build and improve on the foundation that was already built. Bringing some of our
12:40best of breed skills to those organizations while learning from the best of breed capabilities and
12:48products that Realtrends and Altos have brought into our company.
12:52So it's a dynamic approach. I joke sometimes that it's nearly impossible to try to run an organic and
13:01inorganic strategy at the same time. But we've figured out a cadence on how to get it done.
13:08Yeah, I think we're doing it. I mean, we've done three acquisitions in the six plus years
13:13that I've been with the business. And I think we're contemplating more. Are you thinking about
13:19more acquisitions this year or next year?
13:23Yeah. I mean, dealmaking is hard. But we know where we want to go. And we know that in some
13:29circumstances, M&A can be our faster path to get there. But if the right deal doesn't present itself
13:35with the right company, team, and structure, then we know we can build it. So we know that
13:43we need to bring more business intelligence to our loan originator audience. We're working very
13:50thoughtfully on our organic or inorganic path to get there. We believe that what we've learned from
13:57Realtrends and our rankings and recognition business actually brings a lot of market intelligence to
14:03who's gaining market share and who's losing market share in the real estate agent and broker world.
14:07So we think the loan origination audience deserves to have that knowledge coming from HousingWire as well.
14:14And so we're really eager to get into that space. And it's pretty phenomenal to see what our team is
14:20capable of doing, but certainly looking at deals as well. The other areas that we're really interested in
14:28are bringing more data and business intelligence to the whole housing market ecosystem.
14:34So Altos brought us real-time real estate data that tracks all active market listings that we bring to real
14:41estate agents and loan originators and title reps to the Altos product and also through the HousingWire data
14:47products. But we can be more robust there in tying in economic data and other forward-looking indicators
14:55that help people make forward-looking decisions. And that's a vision of where we're going.
15:01But ultimately, today we cover the residential housing landscape. We see the whole real estate ecosystem
15:09as an area we have interest in. So we'll see where the path goes.
15:15When I first joined the business, I feel like we were like 90% advertising and sponsored content.
15:22And this year we'll be probably 60% not advertising and sponsored content. What are some of those other
15:31areas that we've been pushing into over the past six years that diversify the business?
15:38Yeah. I see. I said a North Star. I keep saying five years ago. It's probably six years ago at this point
15:47to get to a balance point where we're seeing equal amounts of revenue coming from corporate clients
15:53and our users. I believe that creates an incentive system that keeps businesses very on point to who
16:04they're serving. And we know the importance of our audience and users at HousingWire more than
16:10anybody. We're keenly aware of the importance of our users. So we've built this model where we've
16:17launched HousingWire subscription, where we have over 12.1, 12.2 thousand housing professionals that are
16:28paying us to subscribe to HousingWire, get access to all of our content. We have our Altus SaaS business
16:34with thousands of real estate mortgage and title professionals that pay to subscribe to Altus.
16:41We have our events business, the gathering, as well as our one-day summits, the AI Summit,
16:46IMB Summit, and InEcon Summit, our HousingWire awards and Realtrans rankings and recognitions programs.
16:53So it's a diversified model, but it all aligns under that vision of bringing the full picture
16:58of information to housing professionals. So today, we've actually tilted past that North Star of 50%
17:07of revenue coming directly from our users. And I think that's done nothing but strengthen our
17:14relationship and strengthen our obligation of service to those users. And we do nothing that's not
17:22cheering for the success of the best mortgage and real estate professionals out there. And I love
17:28that relationship we've been able to develop with the audience.
17:31Yeah, I do too. So earlier this week, we relaunched and rebranded our data licensing business,
17:39which is now called HousingWire Data. You brought it up before. What is HousingWire Data?
17:45So HousingWire Data takes our unique proprietary data set, which tracks all active market real
17:52estate listings in the country. So we track over 110 million properties, and we do it for dozens of
17:59different data points that are important to some of the innovators in the housing industry. So we're
18:05tracking all active market listings. We see things like listing date, price improvements, aka price
18:12reductions or price increases, square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms, clearly like days on market,
18:19when homes go pending, when they close. So we're able to track that information and share that with
18:26our enterprise clients so they can leverage it for running AVMs or marketing strategies or investment
18:32strategies or market selection strategies for M&A or recruiting or home building. And we also serve
18:39this same clientele with a very similar data capability on the rental side of the market.
18:44And then we also do some of the analysis and serve a trends file. It lets people see these week over
18:49week, month over month, year over year trends in the real estate data so they can build better businesses
18:57because we all know that in a world of digital first strategies and artificial intelligence,
19:03data is king. And we want to be able to give our clients a really nimble enterprise solution that
19:12they can build around. And we do things different than some of the other data providers in the market.
19:18We have a very high degree of flexibility around use cases that our clients can leverage the data for.
19:26We know our lane. We know who we serve well. And we work with some of the best innovators in the
19:32housing industry who are building really cool things and making big decisions that really do
19:37impact the housing market. Let's talk more about that lane. What kinds of clients do you think make
19:44up the sort of ideal customer profile for housing wire data? Yeah. So I mean, high level innovators that
19:52need real estate data to build really cool things to make decisions, getting more granular. Our client list
19:58includes hedge funds, asset managers, home builders, single family rental operators, independent mortgage banks,
20:05real estate brokerages, and prop tech companies. It's diverse, but it's representative of our audience at
20:13Housing Wire, representative of the kinds of clients we work with at Housing Wire. Ultimately, we sell an ingredient
20:22and our clients are baking the cake and they're all baking a different kind of cake or a different type
20:29of loaf of bread. We sell an ingredient and that ingredient is active housing market data so they
20:36can build what they need to build. We have about, we have a half dozen data sets right now that we're
20:42going to market with. How are you thinking about growing that list of data sets that we bring to market
20:49through Housing Wire data? Yeah. So I think that's going to be through partnerships, M&A,
20:56and a little bit of proprietary work. So we have a big expansion opportunity ahead of us in this real
21:04estate data space where we operate now. We'll test new things over time and respond to client requests.
21:09For example, in the coming months, we will launch sold data. Sold, it brings the... I know,
21:17I think a few of our sales team members are already out there kind of beta testing that with some
21:22clients, but the sold data is a result of clients asking for something, us figuring out a solution
21:28on how to get it. And sold's a complex data point to bring in considering that we have, I think it's
21:3513 or 14 states that are non-disclosure. Like every market's different. We figured out a path.
21:41And so Diego, I've always subscribed to the belief that you sell something to people that they want
21:50to buy. And so I listen to our clients. We listen to the market and respond to that.
21:57So you lead our marketing team at Housing Wire. How have you and Ronak, our head of marketing,
22:04brought this Housing Wire data vision to life over the past couple of months?
22:11Yeah. So it started with an understanding of what was working well and what wasn't working so well
22:18in our prior go-to-market strategy and really looking at what clients and prospects we're responding to
22:25and also figuring out how we bring focus. So one of the drivers of the launch of Housing Wire data
22:32is that the licensing capability used to sit inside of our Altos business unit. And we see this huge
22:41potential for the Altos SaaS business. And I think we were starting to create some brand confusion,
22:47like is Altos a SaaS business that serves real estate agents or is it an enterprise data licensing
22:51business? And we wanted to bring some clarity to that confusion. That was one of the objectives of
22:57bringing the capability to Housing Wire and launching this new division. We worked with a partner,
23:07a brand agency called Thousand Watt on helping really understand what the market wanted here and
23:13developing our brand story and narrative and look and feel. And Thousand Watt's a partner we've
23:19worked with on several projects now. So just shout out to Brian Boero and Mark Davidson and team.
23:27That's part of the path. Ultimately, marketing a business that has six or seven core business lines
23:35requires really tight integration and figuring out where things fit and how you tell the story and
23:41don't create confusion inside of the market and client base. So Ronak and I definitely had a tough
23:50charge ahead of us as we launched Housing Wire data. But I think we've landed in a position with this
23:57enterprise data licensing business where we couldn't be more clear over the value we provide,
24:03why it fits inside of the Housing Wire ecosystem, and how it's different from what else is out there in the
24:10market. Great. So let's wrap with this question. How can the potential clients in the powerhouse
24:19audience, potential clients of Housing Wire data, get more information about this business?
24:25Yeah. So we're pretty clear on our priorities at Housing Wire. So if you visit housingwire.com,
24:32you can check out our toolbar at the top of the page. We have news, events, video, and we also have
24:38three of our core business lines in Housing Wire data, Altos, and Real Trends. So right from the top
24:44of the homepage, you can see Housing Wire data or HW data right there. Check it out. I'm sure I can
24:51twist some arms and get a link added to the show notes as well. But ultimately, this solution is not
24:59going to be for everybody in the industry. We work really great with teams that know how to integrate
25:05data into their business and realize the importance of active market, real-time data for driving
25:14decision-making and have the teams that know how to integrate through our API and analyze and build
25:21products. So we're not trying to be everything to everybody. This is not our loan originator or
25:26a real estate agent solution. This is our enterprise solution for some of the big corporates we work with.
25:32And I mean, I'll be proud to serve more people if we have that opportunity.
25:37Well, this has been awesome. Been great catching up with you in this show that used to be yours.
25:43Been fun having you on the hot seat a little bit. Thank you so much, Clayton.
25:46Thanks for having me back. Talk to you soon, Diego.