Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Regarding the rumor of Zillow acquiring Trulia

A few thoughts on this.

“Blue horseshoe loves….”
This could all be just Wall Street trickery. Remember how much MOVE stock bounced when it was rumored they were going to be bought by Trulia? It was significant. So maybe someone got the idea to make a bigger play by spreading a Zillow buying Trulia rumor.

Seattle vs. San Francisco
Executive leadership at both companies couldn’t be more different. Think Frank Underwood and Mr. Chips (you make a guess of which CEO fits the part) It’s really hard for me to imagine both teams being on the same page of anything, besides all money they will be making.

A deal could be a good for MOVE.
A Zillow and Trulia merger could be a good thing for MOVE, Inc. Such a large acquisition would be a huge distraction for Zillow, something MOVE could act upon. Plus they immediately bump from the #3 listing site to the #2 listing site. : )

LinkedIn ripple
If you start getting LinkedIn requests from anyone at Trulia then you know the deal is real.

Is it a good or bad thing?
Personally I think it would be bad for the industry. Competition is a good, and with less of it the industry will suffer.

The biggest loser.
Another thought occurred to me. Dominion Enterprises (a privately held company) owns Homes.com. Zillow and Trulia’s market cap is about 8 Billion. Hindsight is 20/20 but you gotta wonder if back in the day Dominion spun off Homes.com and did an IPO what that asset would be worth. Is it too late? Or is the Batten Family too fat and happy? There is big money in this space, without proper investment it will be harder and harder to take them seriously.

28 Billion Dollars?
In an article yesterday the CFO of Trulia was quoted:

““Long-term, we see this as a two-player market and evolving much like e-commerce” with EBay Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., Sean Aggarwal, chief financial officer at Trulia, said at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Technology Conference in June.

He also described online real estate as a “very large category,” with real estate professionals spending about $28 billion a year on marketing. Trulia and Zillow collectively are doing about $500 million to $600 million a year in revenue, he said, leaving $27 billion plus of “potential money” that could come into that realm over the next several years.

Does anyone else think that number is crazy?

Will a deal happen?
No comment from either side. Typically where there’s smoke there’s fire, but I say no.

UPDATE: 7/28/2014 Looks like I got this wrong. Zillow is acquiring Trulia for 3.5 Billion in an all stock deal.

See you at Inman’s Real Estate Connect SF next week

I’m looking forward to attending Real Estate Connect in San Francisco next week. I’m participating on a couple things that I think are worth sharing.

CEO Summit
This is being held on Tuesday the 15th (a “pre-conference” event) I’ve been before and its a good mix of people. I’m scheduled to give 3 live interviews.

David Charron, CEO of MRIS
Pete Flint, CEO of Trulia
Steve Berkowitz, CEO of MOVE, Inc.

I did something similar at NAR Midyear that was a lot of fun. Brad has asked me to ask each of these guys some really “tough questions”. I’ve got a few, and really looking forward to mixing it up. (And if you have a few tough questions of your own hit me up via email or leave something in the comments.)

Marketing Track – “How to Create, Build and Launch Things People Want.”

Dan Woolley and I will also be co-presenting on the Marketing Track Thursday, “How to Create, Build and Launch Things People Want.” We will be joined by the super talented Michele Serro of Doorsteps (Swipe), Winston Welborn of Hawaii Life Real Estate. Marc Davison from 1000watt Consulting will be moderating.

Getting Dan on stage is like pulling teeth, so I’m really psyched to be able to show off the brains of our operation and share our creative process.

Looking forward to seeing everyone. Just email or DM me if you want to hook up.

Court grants MOVE and NAR preliminary injunction against Zillow and Errol Samuelson

Word on the street is that the Washington State Superior Court has granted MOVE and NAR a preliminarily injunction against MOVE and Errol Samuelson relating to misappropriations of trade secrets.

More details soon…

CoStar and Realtor.com?

The Motley Fool:

“I recently wrote a Motley Fool article Why Investors Who Like Zillow Should Love CoStar Group, for investors interested in the fast growing real estate technology space. It was syndicated a few days before rumors and reports began circulating regarding Trulia, (NYSE: TRLA ) acquiring Move, (NASDAQ: MOVE ) , operator of Realtor.com.

My article concluded with an observation that CoStar Group (NASDAQ: CSGP ) — rather than Trulia — would be a great marriage. Here is a quick chart that shows at a glance why Move, looks like a bargain for the other major players in this space:”

Interesting analysis.

Realtor.com hit with DDoS attack.

Move, Inc. Reports a Distributed Denial of Service Attack

“The attack directs massive amounts of traffic to our websites and makes realtor.com®, Top Producer® Systems, and Move’s other Internet services inaccessible. Move operates realtor.com®, the official website of the National Association of REALTORS®.

”

This can happen to anyone. As a business owner that relies on the internet to generate revenue it’s something I worry about everyday. I can only imagine the stress their tech teams have been under. I hope they are able to resolve this soon.

Move adds new execs.

Move, Inc. Expands Industry Leadership as Cofano, Damon and Pigman Assume Key Roles

Breadth of knowledge and experience spans agent, broker, MLS/Association and portal audiences

” Move, Inc. (NASDAQ:MOVE) announces the appointment of veteran industry executives Russ Cofano, Rhett Damon and Max Pigman to key leadership roles within the organization. The appointments further strengthen the company’s position as the premier provider of real estate information and services to the industry, and foster deeper connections with Move’s agent, broker and Association affiliates and their related organizations.”

Seems with Russ they have a association guy now working with brokers. And with Rhett they have a broker guy now working with MLS providers/associations. So crazy it just might work!

Glass and Starchild promoted at MOVE.

Move Promotes Glass To Lead Industry Platforms, Kane To Lead SaaS Business, And Starchild To Lead ListHub

“”Luke, Michael and Celeste have grown and improved Move’s business services with strong leadership, integrity, expertise and passion so we are delighted they will continue to lead and build our relationships with our partners and customers,” said Steve Berkowitz, Move’s chief executive officer and director. “Their promotions are examples of the depth of executive leadership within our company.”

Move Inc Luke GlassI couldn’t be more happier with these promotions. Luke is an excellent fit and will do a great job for MOVE and the industry. It’s also great to see MOVE recognize Celeste. Her promotion is well deserved. Both have a lot of work to do, but nothing worth while is ever easy.Move Inc Celeste Starchild

I’m not as familiar with Michael Kane. What did strike me is the number of products/companies MOVE has under its belt.

Realtor.com
Doorsteps®
HomeInsightSM
SocialBiosSM
Moving.com™
SeniorHousingNetSM
homefairSM
Relocation.com
ListHub™
TigerLead®,
Top Producer®
FiveStreetSM

Looks like Michael will be in charge of many of these, mostly on the agent/broker facing side. The list itself is pretty long. Seems like some branding thought should be put it to this menagerie.

My congrats to Luke and Celeste!

Opera singer? I had no idea.

doorsteps_1Great write up on Michele Serro. Michele company DOORSTEPS was acquired by MOVE, Inc last year.

The article reveals, among other things, that she was an opera singer once.

Her team recently launched the Swipe app I featured here a few weeks ago.

How a Home Buying Site Went From Beta to Bought in 18 Months

How does your design background play a role in Doorsteps?
Design is a value, and everything we put into the world is well-designed. Well-designed is not necessarily about how [something] looks; it’s how it behaves [and] how it feels. Design can be extended to taking complex information and making it simple and understandable.

That extends to how the code is written and how we think about error messages on the site. An error message that is unfriendly is not going to help with making you feel confident about us or the process. We want to make sure those error messages feel good, and the pages where you are giving really personal information, that they give you a message back that you completed [the form]. That’s very tactical.

We’ve tried to infuse that into everything we do, from the code and the technology to the actual visual design and community management. It’s about getting back to people in a really timely way, responding to them like a human being, not like a robot, and using human language that people understand.”

I’m super curious to see what the team at DOORSTEPS comes up with next or how their influence will shape MOVE’s products going forward.

“The Big Three”, What Now?

I’ve been asked to conduct 3 interviews next week at the MLS Executive Session at NAR Midyear. The session is called – “The Big Three”, What Now?

I will be speaking with Curt Beardsley of Zillow, John Whitney of Trulia and Steve Berkowitz,CEO of Move, Inc./realtor.com

If you have any questions you would like me to ask, drop me an email. The interviews will be conducted separately.

The MLS Executive Session is co-chaired by Wes Wiggins and Chris Carrillo. It will be held Wednesday, May 14th at the Omni Shoreham Hotel – Regency Ballroom, Lower Level from 3:00PM to 5:00PM.

Should be a lot of fun! See you there!

Is WestsideRentals.com a scam?

lgsANMFcWSKJtD3q4MzR3k9PQtpnfKnMJd0EejKTgjgSomeone I work with is looking to rent a home. They pulled up a rental listing on their trusty realtor.com iPhone app. Right area, right price range, perfect. So they give the company (WestsideRentals) a call. The person on the other end of the call said that in order to get anymore information or see the home they needed to buy a membership to their company.

Really?

My question is this, is this common practice nowadays with rental listings? Does realtor.com (or any of the other portals) allow this “pay to see more” type of rental listings?

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