A reader sent along a short note that JP Morgan wrote after a meeting with CoStar “where management outlined the strategy for residential real estate and provided a couple demos/screenshots from its solutions.” It’s an interesting set of observations by Wall Street and I thought I’d tag along and see what I thought about their … Read more
As most of you know, I used to do in-depth updates for each of the publicly traded companies in the residential real estate sector. Since I’m not an investment analyst, my interest was always on what the public information these companies had to disclose signifies for the real estate industry as a whole. I still … Read more
Opendoor reported its Q4 and full year 2021 earnings last Thursday, and I needed to take some time to think through things. Long story short, Opendoor blew the doors wide open with its performance. It has replaced Redfin as the most important company in residential real estate, and it’s on the heels of Zillow to … Read more
As readers, listeners of Notorious POD, and people who have heard me present live know, I’m on the record as suggesting that we do not have a housing bubble. What we have is dollar devaluation caused by massive Fed money printing since the start of the pandemic. Accordingly, I believe that the “seller’s market” will … Read more
I think it’s safe to say that I was reeling in a bit of shock and disappointment last quarter, when Zillow abruptly quit the iBuying business. I thought for years that Zillow’s overall strategy made perfect sense, and that becoming the market maker for residential housing was at the center of that strategy. So I … Read more
I spent Sunday morning cleaning up some crap in my office. I threw out a bunch of old papers, crap I didn’t even know I had (how does this stuff just accumulate?), and then listed a couple of things on Ebay that I couldn’t bring myself to throw out. (If you need a cheap 1080p … Read more
Happy (?) Bloody Monday. Seems that as of this writing, the Dow is down over 630 points, NASDAQ down 273 points, and the S&P500 is down 90 points. The stock market is tanking like a mofo, and Gold is up $7.80 per ounce. (Though Bitcoin, which should be digital gold, is down sharply as well.) … Read more
Last week, I had what was probably my fifth conversation of the week with a proptech-brokerage-disruptor startup that went something like this: Save somebody (consumers, agents, brokers, MLS) a lot of money Build a large userbase Make money from referrals to service providers (appraisers, movers, mortgage, etc.) As a general matter, I don’t really see … Read more
Full disclosure: I have had a number of business relationships with HomeSmart in the past, hope to in the future, have spoken and will speak at some of their events, and I am friends with many of the people there. But they are not a client and I am under no confidentiality restrictions with them. … Read more