Recently, a bit of a brouhaha broke out in real estate social media around a new startup called Haus.com from a cofounder of Uber. Rismedia has the story: The co-founder of Uber today introduced a new platform that considerably boosts transparency in real estate transactions. The venture, named Haus, is an “open and fair real estate … Read more
‘Tis the season for year-end lists, best-of lists, lists for Santa, lists for New Year Resolutions, lists of lists, yay! I recently spent a weekend locked in a conference room working on an actually important list — the Swanepoel Power 200 — that was fun, exhilarating, and hard work. But as we get to the … Read more
Real estate journalism in the mainstream media is not exactly the stuff of Pulitzers. But even by that low standard, this “news story” from MarketWatch (via Realtor.com) is amazingly incoherent. Titled “Half of Americans Can’t Afford Their House“, the main thesis of the article is that housing affordability is a serious crisis: Over half of … Read more
I meant to get this up days ago, but between travel, client engagements, other writings, and an upcoming vacation, I just couldn’t. But if you’ve missed Part 1, you can check it out here. In a nutshell, part 1 worries about whether the acquisition would be allowed to proceed without the government requiring that ListHub … Read more
SEATTLE, March 5, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Zillow, Inc. (Nasdaq:Z), the leading real estate and home-related marketplace, today announced Shaun Donovan will join the company in the new position of Chief Association Persuasion Officer to lead the company’s relations strategy with REALTOR Associations. He will report directly to Zillow® CEO Spencer Rascoff, and also manage the … Read more
Last Thursday, Zillow released a report on minority access to mortgages in partnership with the National Urban League. In case you were wondering what the conclusion of the report might have been, it was titled, “A House Divided: How Race Colors the Path to Homeownership“. The topline conclusion comes from Stan Humphries, Zillow’s Chief Economist … Read more
I’m reasonably certain that 90%+ of my audience — that would be you — have no idea what Aereo is. And until recently, there was no real reason to know, unless you lived in the NYC area and just looooved over-the-air TV. But last Friday, the US Supreme Court chose to hear a case involving … Read more
Two weeks ago, Zillow organized a small event in Washington DC with the title “Getting Our House In Order: Solving the Lingering Issues of the Housing Recession”. The full program was filmed and is available here. If you’re pressed for time, you can get the highlights here. I was on an airplane to California then, … Read more
This is gonna get political, y’all, by necessity. You’ll see. I went over to the REALTOR Magazine website the other day to check out a piece by Lawrence Yun on something or another. Then I started clicking around as I often do, and ran across this piece on the fiscal situation and real estate. Here’s … Read more