Redfin vs. Realogy: The Key Trend Beneath Different Results Q2/2020

I’ve decided to change up how I go about analyzing the quarterly earnings reports from the five public companies in residential real estate. Part of it is that I’ve started a new investor-focused set of products and services (contact me if you want more information) but the other part is that the old way of … Read more

Is a Compass-Keller Williams Merger In the Works?

[UPDATED WITH RESPONSE FROM COMPASS] This will be a brief one, but it’s so interesting I had to share. I just got off the phone with a very senior executive at a major national brokerage who relayed a rumor that he or she has been hearing from other senior executives throughout the industry that the … Read more

A Few Thoughts About Rentals

This morning, I woke up to not one but two emails about Rental Beast, a new startup that proposes to become the MLS for rentals and integrate it with existing MLSs. One was from WAV Group, doing their PR thing, so I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention. But the second one was from … Read more

iBuyers and Brokers: A Rebuttal to Mike DelPrete

After the past week, it is rather delightful to be writing about real estate issues for a change, rather than big social questions and difficult issues. Without further ado, let’s get into it. Mike DelPrete, a consultant and analyst of real estate technology, sent an email to his list today with the title, “iBuyers Turning … Read more

The Hard Stuff: Systemic Racism and Real Estate

This is the followup to the first post, in which I asked whether the real estate industry was serious about race and racial issues. I am choosing to believe that we are, and that the various leaders speaking out about the need to do something are serious about that. If so, we should see more … Read more

Is the Real Estate Industry Serious About Race?

Every American of good conscience is hurting now, both from the evil of police brutality and the evil of looting and rioting. I have been silently seething because I felt I had nothing useful to add that literally everyone with a conscience agrees on. What happened to George Floyd was a shocking and horrifying murder … Read more

Thinking Through Platforms in Real Estate, Part 2: Contenders

In Part 1, we looked at what a Platform in real estate might look like, having been inspired by Ben Thompson at Stratechery who talked about platforms in an aggregator world. We then decided that such a platform does not exist in real estate today because of all of the disparate parts that have to … Read more