Rob Hahn

Managing Partner of 7DS Associates, and the grand poobah of this here blog. Once called "a revolutionary in a really nice suit", people often wonder what I do for a living because I have the temerity to not talk about my clients and my work for clients. Suffice to say that I do strategy work for some of the largest organizations and companies in real estate, as well as some of the smallest startups and agent teams, but usually only on projects that interest me with big implications for reforming this wonderful, crazy, lovable yet frustrating real estate industry of ours.

Forest for the Trees: the NAR #Logogate Edition

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Look, the past 24 hour or so has been a lot of fun. I know I had a few laughs. But things are getting a little out of hand, y’all. Plus, it’s far too late, and I have real work to do and too little time to do it all. Nonetheless, this whole NAR #Logogate … Read more

Can We Talk About HomeServices for a Minute?

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I know, I know. We have talked a ton about Redfin and Realogy and Keller Williams in these pages the past couple of months. It’s because the 2017 earnings reports were released for two of them, and the other one… well, made some bold moves and bolder statements. And the rest of the industry wants … Read more

Musings on the Parker Principles, Part 1: Principle 7 – Open Data

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As many of you know, I was privileged to be at Inman Disconnect this year. This was a different kind of event than ever before — one aimed at getting something done, rather than hearing about what others have done. At the very start of the event, Brad Inman told the gathered leaders that the … Read more

7 Questions on NAR’s S.M.A.R.T. Initiatives

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The latest word out of National Association of REALTORS is that the Budget Committee, together with Leadership, has approved a new set of initiatives (not sure what that means, as we’ll discuss below) called S.M.A.R.T. Initiatives and passed a budget to support it to the tune of $35 million per year: We cannot afford – … Read more

Method to the Madness: Thoughts on the Redfin 2017 Earnings Call

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One of my recurring dreams is that some kind of IPO fever sweeps real estate, and dozens of brokerages go public. I want to see KW’s numbers, hear Hoddy Hanna on an earnings call, gain transparency into what Kuba over at RealtyOne is thinking, etc. I can’t wait for Compass to go public, so we … Read more

Realogy Enters the Schneider Era: Thoughts from the 2017 Earnings Call

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One of the biggest changes in the industry as we entered 2018 was a changing of the guard atop the largest real estate company in the U.S. as Richard Smith, CEO of Realogy stepped down, and Ryan Schneider, formerly of Capital One, stepped up. I thought it was all kinds of interesting that Realogy, which … Read more

Brief Reflection on Brand: CB and C21 with Promising Starts

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As you might have noticed, the last few days here on Notorious have been a touch heavy. That’s not a bad thing, because heavy topics like the future of the industry and the tipping point of brokerage deserve serious (and long) discussion and debate. I’ll likely get back into that soon, as I’ve been reading … Read more

The Keller Williams Vision Speech: Followup and Further Thoughts

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Yesterday’s post on the keynote Vision speech by Josh Team and Gary Keller at this year’s Family Reunion generated… ah… let’s call it “a bit of passion.” The early batch of commenters took issue — and not in a civil fashion — about what I wrote based on the Inman story. Except for the tone, … Read more