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
Musings is a solo version of the Notorious POD in which I think out loud about issues in the economy, technology, and real estate industry. In this episode, I look at a report from Morning Consult on where consumers are with banking and finance, and zero in on two sections. The first section is on … Read more
My friend Sam Debord, with whom I debate a lot as I do with most of my friends, recently published an excellent piece on what crypto, nfts, web3 and the rest mean for real estate. He’s a very thoughtful guy, and it’s obvious that he’s done his homework on this post. He tries to make … Read more
Musings is a solo version of the Notorious POD in which I think out loud about issues in the economy, technology, and real estate industry. In this episode, I answer questions from a listener/reader from Ep. 33 with Jim Klinge, where we had discussed his predictions about the end of buyer agency from market forces, … Read more
It’s late at night. I do my best thinking right about now, when most sane people are asleep in their beds. And one topic that I was discussing with a friend earlier today keeps me awake. That topic is privacy. I read comments from time to time talking about privacy concerns. A recent comment on … 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
Happy Friday, everybody. Recently, a reader sent me this Inman article from last week in which celebrity real estate broker Ryan Serhant predicted that 50% of all transactions will be done on the blockchain: In his annual letter to clients, the luxury broker and star of Million Dollar Listing New York sang the praises of blockchain technology and its … 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
When it comes to topics in blockchain and crypto, real estate people often talk about transactions where a buyer used Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency to buy a house. For instance, here’s an article from BerkshireHathaway HomeServices called “Buying a home with Bitcoin.” Bitpay has a whole article on the same topic, which mentions Pacaso … Read more