A new “transparent offer platform” called Haus has just launched in California to serve the residential real estate market. The way it works is that all offers are submitted online. And once an offer has been confirmed, it – along with all of its terms – gets revealed to every other potential buyer. See image below.

I’ve seen a number of different iterations of this same idea, which tells me that this is a well-identified problem in the real estate market. Here’s a snippet from a recent TechCrunch article announcing Haus:

“We think the openness will create a more efficient market and that the number of offers and price will ultimately be dependent on demand,” said Haus GM Sarah Ham. “Bidding wars are a common, almost accepted, part of the real estate process today. But with our approach, buyers know where they stand. Buyers will know what they need to offer to make their offer competitive, but they also won’t negotiate against themselves.”

I completely agree that this is a problem that needs to be solved. It will create a more efficient marketplace. However, in this market, I suspect that the current information asymmetries largely benefit sellers, to the detriment of buyers. So I wonder if the supply-side of the marketplace will be willing to participate at scale. What’s really in it for them?

Side note: Haus is the latest project from Expa, which is a “startup studio” that works on its own ideas, as well as partners with other founders. I am very interested in this approach to creation because I think you have to try and make a lot of things if you want to do truly innovative things.

Todd W. Schneider recently mined data from the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission to create a chart summarizing yellow taxi, Uber, and Lyft usage. 

The data only runs up until January 2016, but here’s what he found:

“…yellow taxis provided 60,000 fewer trips per day in January 2016 compared to one year earlier, while Uber provided 70,000 more trips per day over the same time horizon.”

The Uber data only begins in 2015, but you can still see how quickly it is growing and how yellow taxis are losing market share. Five years ago, yellow taxis were reaching over 500,000 trips per day (a pretty amazing number) and in January of this year they were at about 350,000 trips per day. 

It also appears that Lyft is struggling to gain traction.

A new “transparent offer platform” called Haus has just launched in California to serve the residential real estate market. The way it works is that all offers are submitted online. And once an offer has been confirmed, it – along with all of its terms – gets revealed to every other potential buyer. See image below.

I’ve seen a number of different iterations of this same idea, which tells me that this is a well-identified problem in the real estate market. Here’s a snippet from a recent TechCrunch article announcing Haus:

“We think the openness will create a more efficient market and that the number of offers and price will ultimately be dependent on demand,” said Haus GM Sarah Ham. “Bidding wars are a common, almost accepted, part of the real estate process today. But with our approach, buyers know where they stand. Buyers will know what they need to offer to make their offer competitive, but they also won’t negotiate against themselves.”

I completely agree that this is a problem that needs to be solved. It will create a more efficient marketplace. However, in this market, I suspect that the current information asymmetries largely benefit sellers, to the detriment of buyers. So I wonder if the supply-side of the marketplace will be willing to participate at scale. What’s really in it for them?

Side note: Haus is the latest project from Expa, which is a “startup studio” that works on its own ideas, as well as partners with other founders. I am very interested in this approach to creation because I think you have to try and make a lot of things if you want to do truly innovative things.

Todd W. Schneider recently mined data from the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission to create a chart summarizing yellow taxi, Uber, and Lyft usage. 

The data only runs up until January 2016, but here’s what he found:

“…yellow taxis provided 60,000 fewer trips per day in January 2016 compared to one year earlier, while Uber provided 70,000 more trips per day over the same time horizon.”

The Uber data only begins in 2015, but you can still see how quickly it is growing and how yellow taxis are losing market share. Five years ago, yellow taxis were reaching over 500,000 trips per day (a pretty amazing number) and in January of this year they were at about 350,000 trips per day. 

It also appears that Lyft is struggling to gain traction.