So… I just learned today that my Mailchimp was on the fritz again, so you might not have received any Quick Takes for a while. I apologize about that, but you can find all past Quick Takes along with all VIP articles in the Notorious VIP Section of the website. (Make sure you’re logged in.)

Notorious TL;DR

There is one massive post that is new, as in I just published in 5 minutes ago so I can get it into this Quick Take update.

What Shutting Down Climb Says About Realogy, Part 1: The Story and Questions

This is one of the longer posts on Notorious, even by my standards, which is saying something. But I actually engaged in acts of journalism, like interviewing Ryan Gorman and Mark Choey and perhaps a dozen people on the ground in the Bay Area and elsewhere.

If you have an interest in Realogy, this post might be worth taking the time to read.

I will be following up as soon as I have my thoughts in order with Part 2.

NAR’s New Fair Housing Action Plan: Add One Key Missing Element

This is a public post I put up that will be of interest to those in the REALTOR Association world. I discussed the new Fair Housing Action Plan that NAR put together recently, and promoted with a photo op with HUD Secretary Ben Carson.

My main point: it’s a good plan, but NAR needs to add an enforcement component to it.

Tylenol vs. Chemotherapy: Brokerage Edition

The first post of the new year was inspired by an email newsletter I read that I felt was telling brokers a lot of pretty lies designed to make them feel better, instead of pointing out real problems and suggesting real (painful) solutions.

So I pointed out real problems and suggested real (painful) solutions… as well as a different approach to things that looks a whole lot like palliative care for brokerages.

Quick Takes

So what happened this past week worth noting? A lot happened, that’s for sure.

Realogy Shuts Down Climb Real Estate

I broke this story, but the link goes to Inman since my breaking the story happened on Facebook in a couple of short posts.

I won’t bother saying too much about this since the first item in this Quick Take is the 5000-word plus giant article on the topic. Go read it.

David Doctorow Named CEO Of Move, Inc.

It appears that the interim CEO period of Tracey Fellowes did not last too long. Move, the parent company of Realtor.com, has named a new CEO: David Doctorow. He comes from eBay and Expedia, and has experience turning around companies:

Mr. Doctorow helped eBay through a successful turnaround in recent years, leading a versatile global team and implementing significant marketing tech and workforce advancements at the company. eBay was named one of the 10 “top-rated” workplaces of 2019 by Fast Company magazine.

Well, he has his work cutout for him. Given his marketing background (“Forbes Top 50 Most Influential CMOs”) I am excited to see how he tackles the challenge of Zillow, Opendoor, Redfin, and others.

Trump administration rolling back controversial Obama fair housing rule

Given that we’re talking about federal regulations, it is not clear exactly what the impact will be… but it does look like the Trump administration is seeking to undo the damage from the “disparate impact” ruling of the Supreme Court case Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. (576 U.S. ___ (2015)).

That case is super legalistic and really of interest primarily to legal scholars but the practical impact was that people suing local governments for discrimination in housing did not need to show intent, just racial imbalance.

So this “rollback” was telegraphed way in advance, for example here: New, Leaked Disparate Impact Standard from HUD. It appears that the Trump administration wants to go back to dealing with intentional discrimination as opposed to unintentional discrimination.

Well, it’s interesting as hell to me as a retired member of the NY Bar. 🙂

Redfin Report: Bidding War Rate Fell to Another 10-Year Low in December

It’s just a little item, but I’m thinking that the housing market cooldown that everyone was expecting in 2020 might actually get here. Maybe, like Redfin suggested, the spring market will bring more buyer demand than there is supply, but… 10-year low is a 10-year low… so the spring market might also be a 10-year low.

We shall see!

Housekeeping Notes

I keep threatening you with changes/updates to the website. It will happen, I promise, soon. The designer and I are finishing up some last minute testing, make sure everything is working, then we’ll migrate over next week or the week after.

Once again, if you are attending Inman New York (or in NYC area during the week of January 27th) and you’d like to meet up, drop me a line! Would love to say hello in person. 🙂

Finally, I am working on a project that might be of interest to people in the finance and investment world. If you are such a person (analyst, fund manager, etc.), please drop me a line. I’d love your thoughts on this project I’m working on.

Thank you all!

-rsh