Adieu, house hunting! –
America may be copying the worst part of Europe’s real estate market
“In Italy, Boero says, he ended up having to carry out much of his search on foot, hoofing around town to peek at home listings posted in the windows of various brokerages. His real estate agent spent a lot of time on the phone, calling around to see what was available. For Boero, the whole thing felt like “feeling around in the dark.”
Great article from Business Insider.
It’s rare that a journalist outside our industry understands the nuance of the organized real estate market, but James Rodriguez gets it. I was especially glad to see the narrative shift from “banning listings” to something more constructive. Here’s another standout excerpt from the piece:
“In France, they’re laughing at the situation at this moment, honestly,” Ali Attar, a real estate tech executive in Paris, tells me. The system in the US, he says, is more fragile than people realize. “They are taking it for granted in the US,” Attar says. “And as soon as they destroy it, bringing it back will be extremely difficult.”
This is one of the best overviews I’ve seen of the real consequences of the infighting that’s dominating mindshare in the real estate industry.
