In Which I Propose a New Role for the REALTOR Association

I’ve been in the real estate market the last few months. It has been an interesting experience all around to be a straight up consumer, both selling and buying. And I’ll tell you what: it has been absolutely amazing to see the good, the bad, and the ugly of the industry personally from a consumer’s … Read more

Concerning A Challenge for Positive Change, A Few Thoughts

Every once in a while, some thought leader in the real estate industry issues a challenge, a plea, a lamentation about the inability of various parts of the industry to work together. If only we could set aside petty politics, set aside irrational suspicion, and figure out how to work together for mutual benefit, things could … Read more

Association Leaders: Look, Listen, Learn

From Bloomberg comes this story about how Democrats are taking a run at Texas, the home of Rick Perry and Ted Cruz. Personally, since I’m a conservative, I will be doing what I can to make sure that Battleground Texas fails, and fails miserably. But that isn’t the point of this post. The point of … Read more

[PROMO] Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com: A Strategic Analysis Report

The 2012 results for the Big Three publicly traded real estate portals — Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com (Move, Inc.) have been filed, and their senior executives have endured the grilling by Wall Street analyst types. There have been volumes of words already written about them, by financial analysts, by finance bloggers, by real estate industry … Read more

Rethinking the REThink Future Program, Part 2: The Ostrich Scenario

In part 1, I began to tackle the REThink Future program that is currently underway. I have posted Nicole-Anne Boyer’s gracious response to that post here. And now, we dive into the Scenarios themselves… because… well, because it’s fun for me. Let me reiterate my agreement with the idea that if the purpose of these scenarios is … Read more

A Response to My Rethinking REThinkFuture Post

I haven’t forgotten about the massive series on REThink Future I’m working on. Hell, at this rate, I should look for a publisher as it’s trending north of 15K words in multiple parts. In any event, Nicole-Anne Boyer, the Managing Director of Adaptive Edge — the company working with NAR on REThink Future — was … Read more

Rethinking the REThinkFuture Program: Part 1

At Inman Connect this year, I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate in REThink Future, an initiative of NAR that attempts to open up the strategic planning process to the membership and to some non-members (like me). Given that I do strategic planning for a living, and given that I have a few … Read more

Zillow Hires Bob Bemis of ARMLS; I Become Paranoid, or Preserve the Peace

  One could quibble with the title of this post. Someone could say, “Rob, you were paranoid long before any hiring of anybody happened” and I’d not have a whole lot to say in response. But first, the news. ARMLS (Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service), the fourth largest MLS in the country with over 32,000 … Read more