Why Trulia chief economist Selma Hepp jumped to Pacific Union International

(by Julian Mark, San Francisco Business Times)

The chief economist at the real estate listings website Trulia has moved to Pacific Union International as the real estate firm beefs up its investment in market data.

Selma Hepp has been appointed by Pacific Union as “vice president of business intelligence,” a position created for her as part of the company’s larger efforts to use data to understand “client demographics and empirical market dynamics on a hyperlocal bases.”

“What I saw at Pacific Union is a desire to arm agents with proper information so that they’re best equipped to help buyers and sellers,” Hepp told the Business Times. “I see (Pacific Union) as a forward-thinking company.”

In November, Pacific Union acquired The Mark Co., a real estate sales and marketing firm. In a statement, Pacific Union said it is making significant investment in data that would give its real estate professionals “definitive buyer profiles and specific marketing tactics,” as “the bar is being raised in the real estate industry for interactive technology … [and] market data.”

Pacific Union CEO Mark McLaughlin said that the company is creating a new department aimed at analyzing the company’s years of unused data and understanding consumer and market trends. He said he’ll be working with Hepp to build the department. They'll be hiring to staff it up and will continue to work with several third-party tech firms.

“I don’t think a department like this exists in a firm (like ours),” McLaughlin told the Business Times.

Big data is a trend sweeping across many industries, including real estate, Hepp said. “Data science is a new, sexy term. Everyone is leveraging the data they have to be more efficient,” she said.

Before her position at San Francisco-based Trulia, Hepp was a senior economist at the California Association of Realtors and an economist at the National Association of Realtors.

At Trulia, Hepp said she grew adept at using social media to disseminate relevant market information and receive input from consumers. She said she will use these skills in her new position to help agents build their own brand and understand what’s important to consumers, part of a larger effort to "turn anecdotal into empirical data."

“Knowing how to be more nimble in those mediums will help me going forward,” she said.

Hepp said that her jump to Pacific Union has worked for her personally, as well as professionally, as she'll be working in Los Angeles, where she can be closer to her parents.

Earlier this month Pacific Union helped broker a record-breaking deal: A 14,000-square-foot Berkeley/Oakland Hills mansion that sold for $20.5 million, the largest home ever sold in Alameda County. The firm has a large presence in the Bay Area, focusing on luxury real estate in eight regions, including San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa and Marin counties.