Musings On Direct Feeds

In the aftermath of the Listhub-Zillow divorce, which was my last post, I stumbled on a comment from the famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) Kipp Cooper and the main man at his vendor, Turan Tekin. [Disclosure: I’m friends with both men, like them both, have shared adult beverages with them, and my bias may … Read more

Initial Thoughts on the Listhub-Zillow Divorce

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AIYYjYWgWc By now, any reader of mine has heard about Listhub and Zillow waving goodbye to each other. As the great American philosopher Louis CK once observed, “No good marriage ever ends in divorce.” Clearly, this divorce was coming for years and years. I’m writing this in large part to figure out what I think … Read more

Seven Predictions for 2015: The Nouvelle Vague Edition

Welcome, faithful readers to an annual tradition here at Notorious ROB: making predictions for the coming year that are Guaranteed to be Wrong, or Your Money Back! The musical pairings for this edition comes from the extraordinary and extraordinarily unique French cover band, Nouvelle Vague. I mean, who else does remakes of 80’s new wave hits … Read more

Grading Time! Reviewing My 2014 Predictions

Welcome to another edition of an annual tradition, in which I go back and grade myself on my predictions made at the start of this year. My track record so far: 2010 Predictions: 6 of 10 (.600) 2011 Predictions: 4.5 of 7 (.642) 2012 Predictions: 2 for 7 (.286) 2013 Predictions: 4.5 of 7 (.642) When … Read more

Two Redfin Veterans Launch a New Brokerage Model…

Truth be told, I get a ton of press releases and the like announcing some OMGASM! DISRUPTIVE NEW THINGAMABOB!!!BBQ!!11 from one real estate related company or another. I tend to ignore most of them because said AMAZING GAME-CHANGING DISRUPTION turns out to be a slight modification of some CRM platform. “Now you can put your listing … Read more

Raising the Bar and Lawsuits… A Thought

I know I haven’t been blogging, but hey… when you’re sitting on the beach in Aruba staring at gently lapping waves of turquoise waters, diving into the Interwebz isn’t real high on your list of priorities. Trust me on that. 🙂 In any event, saw an interesting little tidbit this morning on Inman News that … Read more

On Rupert Murdoch Buying Realtor.com (Part 2): Wherefore Hope?

I meant to get this up days ago, but between travel, client engagements, other writings, and an upcoming vacation, I just couldn’t. But if you’ve missed Part 1, you can check it out here. In a nutshell, part 1 worries about whether the acquisition would be allowed to proceed without the government requiring that ListHub … Read more

On Rupert Murdoch Buying Realtor.com (Part 1)

By now, I’m sure any reader of mine knows that we have seen the second major blockbuster deal in the digital real estate space, with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp agreeing to buy Move, Inc., the operator of Realtor.com, Top Producer, Tiger Leads, ListHub, and other brands. It’s an all-cash offer of $21 per share, which … Read more

Antitrust Questions on MLS Decision to Screw With Syndication

Having just spent a couple of days at CMLS, a young man’s fancy turns to questions of MLS-related things. In this case, a middle-aged man’s fancy might turn that way too, since it’s been a while since I’ve been a young man with fancy of any sort. As most of my readers probably know, RealTracs, … Read more