I got an email this morning from Mike Delprete about Redfin and Opendoor “pausing” buying activity due to the COVID-19 situation: By temporarily pausing the purchase of homes, Opendoor has shut off its only source of revenue; there’s no iBuying without buying. The effect is akin to an airliner losing both engines while in flight. … Read more
This is a special pandemic edition of the Notorious Interview, which I am making public for everybody. With all that is going on, one of the things that people have gotten interested in is the question of security and home protection. It makes sense. Suddenly, the entire family is home, the kids are being homeschooled, … Read more
I’ve been asked by many of you to offer my opinions on COVID 19 / coronavirus and how it will impact real estate. Obviously, I have zero expertise on infectious diseases, am not an agent on the ground, and have very little to add other than what everyone has been reading from the CDC and … Read more
I realize this is almost two weeks after Realogy reported, but… between international travel and my computer giving up the ghost, it’s been a bit of a challenge to write this. It likely would have been a challenge anyhow, because of how much I like Realogy (I have written often about my biases). Q4 was … Read more
I got my laptop back, finally, after spending three days in intensive care and undergoing surgery. So to celebrate, I thought I’d put up a brief (hopefully) post for your weekend reading pleasure. Well, “pleasure” might be the wrong word here, given the topic and the issues… but it will give you something to think … Read more
Since it’s been a few days since my VIP subscribers got to check out my analysis of Zillow’s Q4 earnings, I wanted to have more of a public open discussion on two incredibly important things from the Q4 earnings. Rich Barton, Zillow’s CEO, mentioned the Bob Seger song, “Turn the Page.” He was talking about … Read more
In the aftermath of a disappointing Q3, I wrote: One of my biggest takeaways from this earnings call is how much of the positive spin was put on October. For example, Karri Callahan mentions seeing some “positive traction” on agent count in October, contrasting with last October when RE/MAX lost hundreds of agents. Or there’s … Read more
I speak again with John Campbell, Managing Director of Equity Research at Stephens, Inc., a powerhouse regional investment bank and private equity firm based in Little Rock. He is one of the finest analysts of the small corner of the public markets that real estate represents and I have consistently found his coverage to be … Read more
In the Q3/2019 writeup, I wrote that Zillow is not experimenting, but trying to pivot with great delicacy: My take on Q3 is that Zillow is in the midst of a BCG 2×2 Matrix exercise and a delicate point (in a good way) in the transition from Zillow 1.0 to Zillow 2.0. What they’re doing … Read more