As a follow-up to my recent post about the rise of the second home, here is a chart (via the WSJ) showing second home and investor mortgage applications as a share of all applications in the US. In February of this year (2021), second home… Read More
Real estate brokerage firm Redfin recently did an analysis of “mortgage-rate lock data” taken from the analytics firm Optimal Blue. A mortgage-rate lock is an agreement between a lender and a borrower guaranteeing a particular interest rate for a particular period of time. What’s potentially… Read More
Packy McCormick’s latest “Not Boring” essay is up and it’s about Opendoor. It’s a good follow up to last week’s announcement. Maybe that’s why housing is one of the last major categories that technology has left alone. Sure, companies have tried. Tons of them. The… Read More
Algorithmic home buying companies (or iBuyers) have now started to expand into Los Angeles. If you recall, most of these companies started in smaller markets where the homes are more homogenous, relatively inexpensive, and generally less liquid. Places like Phoenix. By tackling the second largest… Read More
There’s a lot of money at work right now trying to reinvent the way that homes are bought and sold. Perhaps the most popular trend is “instant buying” or algorithmic home buying. I have been writing about this for years, mostly because of Opendoor. But… Read More
Today it was announced that Zillow.com will be buying Trulia.com for $3.5 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction. Based on share of web visits, the biggest real estate website in the US has just acquired the 2nd biggest. Both companies make the bulk of their money… Read More
Unlike travel agents, real estate brokers are still prevalent. Website Redfin’s attempts to grab market share show just how stubborn they can be
Why Redfin, Zillow, and Trulia Haven’t Killed Off Real Estate Brokers
Unlike travel agents, real estate brokers are still prevalent. Website Redfin’s attempts to grab market share show just how stubborn they can be
Why Redfin, Zillow, and Trulia Haven’t Killed Off Real Estate Brokers
“Real estate, by far, is the most screwed up industry in America,” he told CBS News’s 60 Minutes in 2007. “We feel like things that Amazon or EBay (EBAY) or Yahoo! (YHOO) have done in other industries, we can do for the real estate industry.” Kelman [CEO of Redfin] now regards that statement… Read More
