As longtime readers know, I’ve been talking about the possibility of the 1099 exemption for real estate agents going away for quite a few years now. I first wrote about it in 2014, after raising the issue of real estate agents getting classified as employees at the 2013 T3 Summit, then again in 2015 in … Read more
As longtime readers know, I have often written about the issue of misclassification of employees as independent contractors, since that is the key linchpin of contemporary real estate practice. For example, you can start here: On California’s New Gig Economy Law: Don’t Relax Just Yet and just google the rest. So this is a brief … Read more
I wrote a VIP post recently talking about the Durable investment into Redfin and what it signaled for the future of brokerage. But while writing it, I thought of something that deserves wider discussion. Here it is: Furthermore, after the government response to COVID-19, I am reasonably confident that agent teams will be brought under … Read more
I feel pretty certain that anybody that is reading Notorious likely already knows that the legislature of California has passed Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) that tries to rein in the so-called “gig economy” workers. The bill is headed to Gov. Newsom for signature, and it appears that he will indeed sign it, especially given statements … Read more
I seriously thought about not writing this post. For one thing, this is complicated stuff, and I thought maybe it deserves to be a Red Dot Report in the near future. That might still happen, depending on how things play out over the next few months. This is also one of my Black Swans coming … Read more
A couple of weeks ago, I ran across an interesting little book review/think-piece on realtor.org, the official site of NAR, called Re-engineering The Real Estate Sales Process. I’ve been too busy to sit down and think about it, but have a bit of time this morning, so thought I’d get into it a bit. This … Read more
Yesterday, either Inman News or I broke the news that the California independent contractor case, Bararsani v. Coldwell Banker was settled. (I kinda think I broke it, because the settlement came down on the 13th, and since Inman has actual reporters and such, I’d have thought they’d have sniffed it out between then and the 18th, when my post … Read more
Thanks to reader Aileen Kane (who is one of you — the best informed readers in real estate) I just got word (via a comment on an old post) that the final settlement in Coldwell Banker v. Bararsani case has been ordered by the court. From Law360 (registration required): Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William F. Highberger … Read more
As my readers know, the recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) handed down its ruling in Monell v. Boston Pads. I wrote about that case and cautioned against irrational exuberance from the results, because the results were not exactly a huge victory for the real estate industry’s position. Thing is, Bararsani v. Coldwell Banker, the … Read more