About a week ago, the judge in the Burnett v. NAR case (formerly Sitzer v. NAR) handed down his ruling in the motion for summary judgment. It did not go well for the defendants. The Inman story by Andrea Brambila does a good job of covering the highlights, so read that in full. The result … Read more
In my last post exploring the worst case scenario from the commission lawsuits (Sitzer, Moehrl), I mentioned that MLSs will be going through their own special hell. I thought I would expand on that. Because while NAR might be dealing with a huge crisis, NAR is very wealthy with enormous resources. They probably can cope … Read more
Had a conversation recently with the CEO of a large MLS who desires anonymity. But who he is is unimportant since the topic is the point. We were talking about the big lawsuits (Sitzer, Moehrl, REX, PLS) and the worst case scenario that could come from them. Specifically, the commission lawsuits of Sitzer and Moehrl … Read more
I have had to think about Redfin after Q3 of 2022. Redfin has been my favorite brokerage for years now for a few reasons. I have thought their commitment to the consumer was unshakable, and the desire to save consumers money and to improve things for buyers is written into the DNA of the company. … Read more
This will be, I think, relatively brief. Compass reported its Q3/2022 numbers and… well, it’s not good. That was expected since every real estate company had a bad quarter thanks to macro conditions. But it’s the future course of Compass that should concern us. To make a long story short, it seems to me that … Read more
As most of you know, I am a big giant iBuyer bull, which means I am a big giant Opendoor bull. I am long OPEN and remain long OPEN. I have a lot of faith in the company, in the business model, in the value to consumers, and in the team at Opendoor. And even … Read more
Zillow reported its 3Q/22 results last week and it was one of the most anticipated earnings calls for people following the real estate industry, the housing market, and proptech in general. As expected, it wasn’t a good report from a numbers standpoint. Zillow actually did okay, especially as compared to the disaster that was … Read more
Last year I published a special Red Dot on CoStar after its entry into residential real estate. I subtitled it, “The Rising Sun” for a few reasons. One of them was that CoStar was the most serious entrant into residential real estate in recent memory… perhaps ever. Even Sears or Merrill Lynch (who had entered … Read more
As longtime readers know, I’ve been talking about the possibility of the 1099 exemption for real estate agents going away for quite a few years now. I first wrote about it in 2014, after raising the issue of real estate agents getting classified as employees at the 2013 T3 Summit, then again in 2015 in … Read more