This morning, I woke up to not one but two emails about Rental Beast, a new startup that proposes to become the MLS for rentals and integrate it with existing MLSs. One was from WAV Group, doing their PR thing, so I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention. But the second one was from … Read more
This is the followup to the first post, in which I asked whether the real estate industry was serious about race and racial issues. I am choosing to believe that we are, and that the various leaders speaking out about the need to do something are serious about that. If so, we should see more … Read more
Every American of good conscience is hurting now, both from the evil of police brutality and the evil of looting and rioting. I have been silently seething because I felt I had nothing useful to add that literally everyone with a conscience agrees on. What happened to George Floyd was a shocking and horrifying murder … Read more
In Part 1, we looked at what a Platform in real estate might look like, having been inspired by Ben Thompson at Stratechery who talked about platforms in an aggregator world. We then decided that such a platform does not exist in real estate today because of all of the disparate parts that have to … Read more
Over on Inman, Sam Debord, CEO of RESO, longtime friend of ours (even if we argue a bunch in public), and all around great guy penned an Op/Ed titled “Unshackling MLS data: It’s time to accelerate NOW.” I figured Sam was a supporter of the National Organization of Women, but… oh wait, different NOW. Sam … Read more
Ben Thompson at Stratechery is a great read, and he really does get my gears turning. Today’s email/post is particularly interesting as it raises some questions as to what a platform actually is and what it might look like in real estate going forward. Consider this a “big think” post in which I try to … Read more
Earlier today, I posted a request to speak to some of my Facebook friends who are deeply involved with REALTOR Associations, local, state and national. I’m trying to work out something for the future of the Association, post-COVID. Turns out, I have numerous friends who are deeply involved, which isn’t surprising given my career path. … Read more
I wrote a VIP post recently talking about the Durable investment into Redfin and what it signaled for the future of brokerage. But while writing it, I thought of something that deserves wider discussion. Here it is: Furthermore, after the government response to COVID-19, I am reasonably confident that agent teams will be brought under … Read more
In Part 1, I looked at the possible aftermath for real estate brokerages in the wake of the current crisis with COVID-19. In this part, let’s think about how organized real estate might be impacted. Since I laid out the possible scenarios in Part 1, if you need a refresher, please go refer to those … Read more