Forest for the Trees: the NAR Expenses Edition

I’ve been really, really busy with a project I’m getting ready to announce/roll out (speaking of which, if you’re an Association Executive or Association Leadership, I’d like to chat with you 🙂 ) but I couldn’t help but chime in on a minor storm in a teapot that Inman News brewed up recently. I speak of … Read more

NAR Midyear 2016: Rumors, Questions, and Observations

[UPDATE: Please see the Comment below the post, in which Cary Sylvester clarified a couple of things raised in this post.] I had originally planned on writing a day-by-day diary of sorts for Midyear as I did a while back, but… frankly, things were moving so fast, and I was too busy sitting in meetings … Read more

The Church of REALTOR Faces A Fundamental Question

[You can consider this Part 2 of an ongoing series that started with my last post about comments on MLS and Upstream, but really this is more like Part 372 of an ongoing series about the future of organized real estate. You can blame my pie-in-the-sky high-level theorizing on my philosophy degree. But anyhow…] Organized … Read more

Clarifying My Remarks About Upstream and the MLS at the Zillow MLS Summit

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak to a group of MLS executives and leadership at the Zillow MLS Summit in Las Vegas. It was a Q&A format with Mitch Robinson from Zillow interviewing me on a number of questions and issues related to Project Upstream and the MLS. The video … Read more

In Which I Propose an Affordable Housing Solution

It’s way too late, but I have insomnia. Plus, Brad Inman of Inman News published a rare Op/Ed about Bernie Sanders’s housing plan with what seems like approval: I don’t agree with all of it, but Bernie Sanders was not afraid to put it forward. Cheers to that. Moreover, it is not a plan guided by … Read more

Inside Baseball Issue: IDX and Internet Display

In doing some research for a couple of assignments, I’ve run across something that’s quite frankly not all that interesting to anybody not in the real estate industry, which falls under the “Inside Baseball” type of stuff. For that matter, this might not be of any interest except to MLS nerds. But that’s what I … Read more

Taking AI Seriously in Real Estate

For the second time this week, I’ve had the topic of AI (Artificial Intelligence) come up vis-a-vis the real estate industry. The first time was when Aaron Norris of The Norris Group asked me about it on an upcoming radio show. The second time was today, when I saw this interesting article on Inman by … Read more

The City, Post Self-Driving Cars

My April Fool’s experiment has taught me that most people simply do not click on links. 🙂 Accordingly, I’ll minimize the links on future posts, including this one, unless I feel it’s absolutely necessary. Heh. In any event, back to semi-serious topics… and there’s a great one on LinkedIn by the one and only Glenn Kelman, … Read more

BREAKING: Bernie Sanders Proposes Universal Housing

Although the current candidates for President have been relatively quiet about the issue of housing, Bernie Sanders has finally released a major plan calling for universal housing: “Homeownership has always been the American Dream. What’s more, housing is a fundamental human right. Yet, our housing market is completely broken. It benefits Wall Street while screwing … Read more