Rob Hahn

Managing Partner of 7DS Associates, and the grand poobah of this here blog. Once called "a revolutionary in a really nice suit", people often wonder what I do for a living because I have the temerity to not talk about my clients and my work for clients. Suffice to say that I do strategy work for some of the largest organizations and companies in real estate, as well as some of the smallest startups and agent teams, but usually only on projects that interest me with big implications for reforming this wonderful, crazy, lovable yet frustrating real estate industry of ours.

Integrative Moves Means What, Exactly?

by

There’s a bit of buzz building out there in the RE.web about a new… company? nonprofit organization? called MoveSmart.org. It’s a website that is looking launch in Q3 of 2008, and I gather that they are doing fundraisers and lining up corporate sponsors and such. From the MoveSmart.org website itself we get the following description. … Read more

How Many Homes For Sale in the U.S.?

by

Doing some market research, I ran across a curious problem.  Apparently, no one knows how many homes are available for sale in the U.S. at any given time. Realtor.com — the closest thing we have to a national real estate website — claims “Over 3 million new, existing, and rental properties listed by Realtors” right … Read more

Tragic, tragic, tragic

by

From the Victoria BC Real Estate Blog comes this shocking story about Lindsay Buziak, a 24-year old real estate agent who was found dead, murdered, in a vacant house she was presumably showing. Her website shows a picture of a beautiful young woman in the flower of her youth. It’s such a tragedy. And Tim … Read more

Occupational Licensing and Capitalism Perfected

by

Once again, Bloodhound has a fantastic post up on a topic that is tangential to much of a theme I’ve been hammering since I started this blog. Greg Swann tells the story of an unfortunate eBay merchant who is being threatened with legal penalties for “auctioneering without a license”. Read the whole thing — it’s … Read more

Dear NAR: Whatever You're Doing Ain't Working

by

Over at TechCrunch, a hugely influential web technology site, there’s a profile of Redfin up. The profile itself is pretty bland and content-free. But the comments to that post has some… ah… action in there. For example, here’s a “Kerry R“: I’m not paying an F-ing real estate agent any fees, they don’t do anything! … Read more