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
Zillow reported its Q1/2019 earnings yesterday, and it was the first “real” earnings call with Rich Barton at the helm. As much as I missed hearing Spencer Rascoff on the call, I have to tip my hat to Barton and team (his style appears to be having the senior operators on the earnings call) for … Read more
In Part 1, I looked at the economics of iBuyers generally, and concluded that we need to analyze them as market makers, using market maker economic models, rather than as investors or brokerage companies. In this part 2, I wanted to get a bit more detailed and granular, using some data I was fortunate enough … Read more
Recently, there was an excellent post about iBuyers from Homebloq, a company that appears to sell some sort of a mobile app “connecting Chicago brokers and buyers” according to the website. The blog is not signed, but I think it’s written by Austin James, the co-founder of Homebloq, and is titled, “How iBuyers Die.” I’ve … Read more
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
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
(Pardon me a moment while I go put on my asbestos suit for the inevitable flames coming my way.) The Zillow Group Q4/2018 earnings call yesterday was a shocker in many ways. What most people immediately focused on was the change at CEO from Spencer Rascoff to Rich Barton. I gather from social media this … Read more
Recently, I saw a thread on Facebook that referenced this post from TheStreet.com, in which Jim Cramer and Marc Chaikin just trash Zillow: Marc Chaikin, founder and CEO of Chaikin Analytics, compared the company to a “landmine” in his webinar with Jim Cramer Wednesday, Nov. 7. Cramer jumped in and said, “if you have Zillow … Read more
Over at Inman News, Jay Thompson, one of the original RE.net bloggerati, has returned to blogging in triumph with his post “Are iBuyers Going to Ruin Everything for Agents.” Read the whole thing. Jay has been busy with other things, like being the face of Zillow to the real estate industry, the last several years, … Read more