I feel pretty certain that anybody that is reading Notorious likely already knows that the legislature of California has passed Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) that tries to rein in the so-called “gig economy” workers. The bill is headed to Gov. Newsom for signature, and it appears that he will indeed sign it, especially given statements … Read more
One of the more interesting things that happened last week was news that Keller Williams will roll out a new “concierge” program in California, Georgia and Texas. Designed to compete against similar offerings from Compass (note that KW says they pay no attention whatsoever to competitors, but I do think the lady doth protest too … Read more
From Inman News (Subscription Required) comes word of a new Redfin initiative whose time has come: Redfin believes that real estate consumers don’t really understand the way commissions work, and so as of Thursday the online brokerage and portal is doing something about it: Now, all Redfin-listed homes will publicly display the commission that sellers are offering … Read more
Brokerages and national franchises partnering with big money companies to offer iBuyer services appears to be all the rage these days. Realogy was first, partnering with Home Partners of America, for its cataLIST program. Redfin was next, partnering with Opendoor… while saying that they plan to compete head on against their partner in overlapping markets. … Read more
Realogy reported its Q2 results last week, and on balance, it was a very nice quarter. The highlights of the presentation are improved profitability, strong cash flows, paying down debt, and a narrative that the broken fundamentals at the NRT are changing. Or trending like it’s changing. Maybe it’s more of a looking like it’s … Read more
Happy Friday everybody. I realize most of you won’t get to this until tomorrow or perhaps Monday, but since I’ve been working on the Zillow Q2 earnings analysis (likely publishing on Monday), I wanted to end the week on a… well… interesting note. Most of you have seen the headlines on Inman about Zillow’s massive … Read more
After RE/MAX reported last quarter, I wrote a post saying that RE/MAX was poised on the brink of greatness, but was refusing to make the jump. Q2 earnings results do nothing to make me change my mind on that, but now, there are signs that RE/MAX is going to have to make some difficult choices … Read more
If you haven’t done so already, or were not present when the panel happened, go watch the Inman News video on the big commissions lawsuit(s) panel discussion. Inman Select membership is required. I thought it was great, especially since Jack Bierig, one of NAR’s outside attorneys on this case, was present to provide some insight … Read more
As a former Dungeon Master all through junior high school and part of high school, I found it absolutely thrilling that Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, used the phrase in the Q2 earnings call. Thank you Glenn for making all of us former (and present day) nerds feel a little bit better about our misspent … Read more