I’m not at Inman New York for a variety of reasons, and apart from a hot karaoke night, I’m not feeling the FOMO yet. However, there is one interesting thing to come out of the event based on reporting on Inman. To make it interesting, I have to connect the dots from three separate articles. … Read more
I think it’s safe to say that I was reeling in a bit of shock and disappointment last quarter, when Zillow abruptly quit the iBuying business. I thought for years that Zillow’s overall strategy made perfect sense, and that becoming the market maker for residential housing was at the center of that strategy. So I … Read more
Welcome to yet another edition of the Seven Predictions, sure to be wrong or your money back. This is one of my favorite annual traditions around this time of year, and whatever the changes in focus to the blog, I’ll have to keep this one up. For those keeping track at home, I just published … Read more
Three years ago, I wrote a post titled, “The Case for iBuyer Becoming the Default.” It came up in my social media feeds, thanks to the hard work of my social media manager. And the timing couldn’t have been better, since I’ve been thinking that I need to reassess iBuying as a category in light … Read more
I’m still traveling around the country, but wanted to jot something down real quick from a random hotel room in Houston. Based on this story in Business Insider about Project Ketchup, I’m expecting fantastic things from Opendoor’s earnings call. [Note: I own OPEN in my personal portfolio.] All of the jubilation from the industry about … Read more
Ben Thompson at Stratechery, the man responsible for setting Zillow on its path into iBuying, has published a newsletter discussing Zillow’s exit from iBuying. He’s very generous to Rich Barton and to Zillow, and eats a bit of crow. I rarely find anything in Thompson’s writings and opinions to disagree with, because he is one … Read more
I was in mid-air when the Zillow Q3 earnings release happened. By the time I had landed, there were dozens of texts, emails, and of course, social media postings. There were and are a lot of hot takes. I’m reasonably convinced that all or most are wrong in some significant way. Many are laughably shallow. … Read more
I was asked multiple times over the last few days about Zillow pausing its iBuying business, over email from some of you and in person at Inman that concluded last week. I haven’t written on it because I didn’t think it was a big deal, and others have already written on it. But since I’ve … Read more
One of the lawsuits going on right now, which I’ve discussed in podcasts and such, is REX v. Zillow. I didn’t really write on it before for a variety of reasons, the biggest of which is that I regarded the lawsuit as an unfortunate waste of time for everybody involved. Another reason is that I … Read more