According to its own creation mythology, Redfin was born in the dark as it was founded just before the Bubble burst. If any company knows how to navigate panic, turmoil, and a terrible housing market, it would be Redfin. They like to call themselves “the rabid squirrel.” The whole self-identity of Redfin is of a … Read more
One of my favorite moments in recent earnings calls came when Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, used the phrase “delayed blast fireball” in an actual call. I ended up naming my writeup that, because as a former AD&D Dungeon Master, I got a real kick out of just how legit a nerd Kelman probably is. … Read more
In the aftermath of a disappointing Q3, I wrote: One of my biggest takeaways from this earnings call is how much of the positive spin was put on October. For example, Karri Callahan mentions seeing some “positive traction” on agent count in October, contrasting with last October when RE/MAX lost hundreds of agents. Or there’s … Read more
I missed last week’s Quick Takes; mea culpa. I believe I was in the air somewhere over Louisiana when I realized. So we’ll just have to catch up on two weeks’ worth of stuff. Notorious TL;DR It’s been a busy couple of weeks since the last Quick Take, as public companies started reporting earnings. But … Read more
In the Q3/2019 writeup, I wrote that Zillow is not experimenting, but trying to pivot with great delicacy: My take on Q3 is that Zillow is in the midst of a BCG 2×2 Matrix exercise and a delicate point (in a good way) in the transition from Zillow 1.0 to Zillow 2.0. What they’re doing … Read more
It’s tough to deliver such a fantastic quarter as Redfin did in Q4 of 2019, and for the full year of 2019. I mean, they just beat ass all over the place. Revenues, profits, traffic, productivity — Redfin just about killed it across the board. The one exception comes from its iBuyer business, RedfinNow. And … Read more
It says something about the world we live in when a work of fiction makes a lot more sense than the news headlines. If you haven’t watched Succession on HBO (or Amazon), it’s worth a look. In any case, let’s look at the week that was. Notorious TL;DR For all you VIP members, there were … Read more
In the next couple of weeks, we’ll get earnings releases from Zillow. I wish we get earnings reports from Opendoor and Offerpad, but… hey, we can only look at what we can look at. So I completed my analysis of Q4 iBuyer numbers out of Phoenix, where I have the best dataset. Let’s see what … Read more
Well, I know the date says February 2, 2020 but… that was the Superbowl last night. So it’s going out the day after the historic victory by the Kansas City Chiefs and future Hall of Famer Andy Reid. Notorious TL;DR Since last week was Inman week, not a lot of writing or podcasting got done. … Read more