“Praise a dog for soiling your house and watch what happens…”
They won’t learn. The only successful “disruption” in proptech, so far at least, belongs to Zillow: They replaced supermarket real estate magazines with the Zestimate™. The difference is, the sleazoids who published those cheesy shoppers knew where the bread was buttered – bilking an endlessly-renewing stream of gullible morons. This is Zillow’s actual business, but, like Redfin, Coke and so many other publicly-traded companies, they’re not happy making money.
Zillow wants to be a real boy, so it admits to pissing away $30K per iBuyer “investment” in the most amazingly easy seller’s market in the history of time.
People like to smooth numbers, but Zillow is smooth about nothing: They will have made a little money on a few houses, lost money on most – and lost $100K or more on a few. They don’t have a plan, but they do have buckets of money to finance their ineptitude.
When the market turns, Zillow will be able to lose six-figures on every iBuyer “investment.” I’m assuming that will make them even prouder of themselves.
In other news:
Mike DelPrete: What Zillow’s Results Reveal About Its Momentum Towards Zillow 2.0.
Housing Wire: More renters and homeowners are making payments.
Christopher Rufo: The Shaky Foundations of L.A.’s Housing ‘Entitlement’ for the Homeless.
The Federalist: The Census Rewarded Red States, But Democrats Are Scheming To Reverse That.
Heather Mac Donald: Diversity Over Discovery: Biden’s war on merit puts America’s scientific edge at risk.
