iBuyer and Conflicts of Interest

It seems pretty obvious now that the rest of the industry is waking up to the fact that iBuyer is not a blip on the radar, is not We Buy Ugly Houses with websites, and is something new altogether. The picture above and the quote from Glenn Kelman of Redfin at the recent T3 Summit … Read more

[VIP] REMAX Q1,2019 Earnings: Refusing Greatness

I don’t often talk about RE/MAX, because it’s not a brokerage. It’s a franchisor, with a business model that doesn’t tell us a whole lot about what’s going on with fundamentals of brokerage. But it is a public company, which reports numbers, and discusses what management thinks about things. From time to time, I do … Read more

Just Because You’re Paranoid Doesn’t Mean They’re Not After You

I just spent an hour glued to the TV, absolutely fascinated by what I was seeing and hearing. And no, it wasn’t the latest episode of Game of Thrones (which was rather disappointing in many ways… but I digress). I watched something normal human beings likely would not, since there are only 162 views on YouTube … Read more

[VIP] Redfin Q1, 2019 Earnings: Mystery Inside an Enigma Within a Puzzle

Redfin reported its Q1/2019 results earlier today… and it’s like one of those Russian nesting dolls, except it’s a bit of a mystery inside an enigma within a puzzle kind of a deal. For the first time in… well… ever as far as Redfin is concerned, I find myself not quite able to understand what … Read more

[VIP] Realogy Q1/2019: Things Done Changed

In my final Red Dot, where I looked at the full year 2018 earnings results for the public companies in real estate, I titled the section on Realogy as “The Deathwatch Gets Serious.” My concerns then were centered on not just the numbers, which were historically bad, but on the strategy. I wrote then that … Read more

Are Brokers Screwed?

The other day Rob wrote a post on how Competition in Real Estate is Changing. I don’t think anyone would disagree. And it reminded me of a comment that I can’t find on another post which simply asked “What can brokers even do about it?”. That’s a sincere question worth talking about, from this Recovering … Read more

60% of Home Sales by 2024 Will be iBuyer: For My Friend James Dwiggins

Okay, so just had an exchange on the Book of Faces with my good friend, James Dwiggins, the CEO of NextHome. He’s really one of the smartest and nicest guys in the business, and it’s always fun to talk industry issues. And I started to write a response and thought, why not, a short blogpost. … Read more

Do Not Minimize Ragnarok: Very Serious Legal Threat, Part 2

So my flight is delayed… for hours… which usually leads to drinking. I thought I might do something else instead. Since I posted about the antitrust lawsuit filed against NAR and four large real estate companies, I’ve read a ton of comments from people who are not antitrust attorneys about why this case is frivolous, … Read more