Seven Predictions for 2020: The Rat Pack Edition

Earlier this year, Sunny and I made her third (my second) move across this great country of ours in three years, landing in Las Vegas. I have to say, so far, we’re quite in love with this city. Most of you only know Las Vegas from The Strip… which is unfortunate. It’s quite like judging … Read more

[VIP] Q3 iBuyer Comparison: Phoenix Market – Zillow, Opendoor, Offerpad

Q3 earnings reports are mere weeks away, which means that Q3 has been over for a couple of weeks. That means I got my hands on some new iBuyer data. I’m compiling some Denver data (which I’ll post later in a different post) but the easy comparison is for Phoenix. In case you don’t recall, … Read more

[VIP] Did Redfin Just Surrender?

Yesterday, Redfin announced that it was entering into a partnership with Opendoor to become a conduit for Opendoor’s direct purchase offers: SAN FRANCISCO and SEATTLE, July 11, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Opendoor and Redfin, two of the nation’s largest technology-powered real estate companies, today announced home sellers in Phoenix and Atlanta can now request an Opendoor offer through Redfin’s site and mobile apps. By … Read more

iBuyer and the Issue of Concessions

In a couple of recent VIP posts, I looked through limited number of iBuyer transactions of both Opendoor and Zillow. I then took the most interesting conclusion one can draw from those numbers and put it on Facebook, in the Inman Coast to Coast group, comprised of thousands of professional REALTORS. While some responses were … Read more

[VIP] Don’t Tell Yourself Pretty Lies, Part 2: Opendoor Sales Analysis

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

[VIP] Don’t Tell Yourself Pretty Lies About iBuyers, Part 1: Economics of iBuyer

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

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

Important Lesson for Brokerages from Opendoor’s Eric Wu

Over the weekend, I saw a video from a session at Startup Grind Global Conference in which Eric Wu, the CEO and Co-Founder of Opendoor.com, was interviewed by Elad Gil a “serial entrepreneur, executive (Twitter, Google, Color) and investor at leading companies like Airbnb, Coinbase, Instacart, Pinterest, Stripe, Square, Wish and others.” Inman ran a story … Read more