Potential Damages from Moehrl v. NAR

Last couple of days, I’ve given presentations and sat on a panel discussion talking about the class action lawsuits against NAR over the issue of commissions. I thought most people knew about these all-important cases that are making their way through the federal courts. Apparently, only about half of the REALTORS had even heard about … Read more

Somebody Call 911: Thoughts on the Opendoor + Zillow Partnership

I was at Inman doing the #lobbycon thing when Opendoor and Zillow both released their 2Q/2022 earnings. So I saw the news about the multi-year exclusive partnership on the iPhone, then couldn’t really look into it until the weekend. While there are other interesting tidbits in both earnings reports and the discussions from the management … Read more

On Opendoor’s Settlement with the FTC

It appears that Opendoor has preemptively caved in to the Federal Trade Commission, agreeing to a consent order. As is usually the case, the Complaint was filed along with the Consent Order agreement earlier today. I initially thought, “Oh wow, this is bad for Opendoor.” Then I read the Complaint and the Consent Order, and … Read more

Red Wall Coming?

From Prof. Anthony Sanders over at Confounded Interest, one of the best housing economics blogs out there, we get this story: Miami, Tampa, Dallas and Phoenix (red states) are growing at over 30% YoY. Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, New York, Portland and Washington DC (blue states) are all growing at over 10% YoY. Cleveland … Read more

Renting vs. Buying – RealPage Market Rent Report

This is just a quick look-see. Thanks to Jay Parsons, an economist with RealPage, I found the RealPage 2022 Market-Rate Apartment Affordability Report. There are some interesting findings in there with the main takeaway being that market-rate (i.e., non-subsidized) rentals are doing just great: But this first-of-its-kind study into one of the largest segments of … Read more