Real estate's 'beta brokers' lead the way

In real estate, like any other industry, some firms are more eager than others to break new ground.

Executives from five such companies will come together at Real Estate Connect New York City, which runs Jan. 16-18 at the Grand Hyatt New York, to discuss how they are using new technology, new business processes and new models to grow.

Inman News Publisher Brad Inman and Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate LLC President and CEO Sherry Chris will moderate the panel, "Pushing the envelope: Beta brokers."

The panelists were chosen from those featured in the Beta Brokerage Project, a Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate initiative launched following a "Brokerage Reboot" discussion of real estate industry execs, including Chris, at Real Estate Connect New York City in January 2010.

The project involved interviewing dozens of what Chris called "next generation" or "beta" brokerages and featuring some of them in a directory on Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate's Clean Slate blog.

"What we discovered is the emergence of smaller, newer brokerage companies and some more established firms that have remodeled for today's marketplace," Chris said in a video on the blog.