Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Listing Bits Podcast: Meet Ben Kinney, the new owner of Remine

The latest Listing Bits episode in now available on your favorite podcast player!

In this episode, Greg Robertson sits down with Ben Kinney, CEO and co-founder of Place, to talk about Place’s acquisition of Remine, how Ben built his PropTech empire from the ground up, and what’s next for the platform. Ben shares his personal journey from growing up in rural Washington to building a half-billion-dollar business, and lays out his vision for supporting agents, MLSs, and consumers through technology, services, and long-term stability.

Key Takeaways

  • Place Acquires Remine – Ben shares why his team bought Remine out of bankruptcy, what they plan to do with the platform, and how MLSs can expect immediate support.
  • A Business Built for Agents – Place focuses on helping top teams across brokerages run more profitable and efficient businesses without trying to replace brokers or compete with their models.
  • Three Keys to Product Adoption – Ben breaks down his framework for driving usage: show users how, show them why, and show them others who’ve succeeded.
  • From CRM to Services – Place provides agents with everything from CRMs and marketing tools to bookkeeping, HR, title services, and even AI-powered handwritten notes.
  • CCP and Cooperation – Ben shares his views on Clear Cooperation and listing exclusivity, emphasizing transparency, consumer benefit, and the importance of cooperation.
  • Long-Term Vision – Ben discusses Place’s public company aspirations, upcoming acquisitions, and consumer-focused services like moving support—all while keeping control of the business.

Links

Place.com https://place.com

Active Rain https://activerain.com

Mom’s “No Bake” Cookie recipe

1 stick of butter

2 c sugar

1/4 c cocoa powder

1/2 c milk

3 c oatmeal

1/2 c crunchy peanut butter

1 tsp vanilla

Stir butter, sugar, cocoa, milk in saucepan until boil. Boil at low for 2 mins. Remove from heat and add in oatmeal, peanut butter, vanilla.

WAV Group Interview: Meet Ben Kinney and Chris Suarez of Place – new owners of Remine –

Meet Ben Kinney and Chris Suarez of Place – new owners of Remine

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Ben Kinney’s Place acquires Remine for $1.5

Place buys Remine at auction for $1.5M in cash

“Real estate tech and agent services company Place is acquiring real estate software firm Remine for $1.5 million, all in cash — less than 3 percent of what four multiple listing services paid to buy the company 3.5 years ago.

The deal is expected to close in about 14 days, Place co-founder Ben Kinney told Inman exclusively Thursday.”

“Less than 3 percent…” — ooof.

Probably the best outcome for Remine, though. Ben Kinney is legit. Still, a long road ahead.”

The consolidation continues…

The ruins of Remine

Mega MLSs are attempting to sell Remine — either whole or in parts

“The MLSs collectively paid $53.5 million to buy Remine. Remine is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MLS Technology Intermediate Holdings, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MLSTH.

According to legal filings, on February 19, MLSTH hired Rock Creek Ventures, a financial advisory firm that specializes in business restructuring, to run an eight-week sale process for Vienna,Virginia-based Remine under a proceeding known as an assignment for the benefit of the creditors or ABC.

According to the American Bar Association, an ABC “is a business liquidation device available to an insolvent debtor as an alternative to formal bankruptcy proceedings”

Embarrassing. And it couldn’t come at a worse time.

Remine shareholder sues founders and directors

Remine Shareholder Sues In Del. Over $53.5M MLS Merger

“The deal was supposed to give holders of Remine common stock 3 cents per share in cash and 61 cents of equity in the new company, according to the complaint. But shareholders were not paid directly; instead, their portion of the merger consideration was contributed to an operating fund of a company called RM Rollover Holdings LLC.
Spinetto, Remine’s chief operating officer, secretary and director, was given control of the operating fund after the merger, the complaint says.
Spinetto was given a new job post-closing and got a management bonus. The information statement said nothing about how many shares of common stock he owned, how much of his equity was rolled into the new company, his salary post-closing or the amount of his bonus, the complaint says.
Schacknies — who served as Remine’s president, CEO, chief financial officer and a director at the time of the sale — resigned from his role as CEO when the acquisition took place and got a severance package at closing, the complaint says.”

Law360

Shocking.

Has Frederick Townes, CEO of Remine, left the company?

Rumor on the street is… yes. If so this means he only lasted 7 months. The story is developing….

Investors sue MLS-owned Remine

Investors sue MLS-owned Remine, demand payment for shares

“Three shareholders of real estate software company Remine filed a lawsuit against the company Thursday following its acquisition by four multiple listing services.

The investors — Alexander Atwood, Brian de Schepper, and Jonathan Ferris — are demanding their shares be appraised and that Remine pay fair value for them.

What a shit show.

“Remine, a company that in its short history has been plagued by financial troubles, plunging personnel rolls, and a toxic work environment, is now a subsidiary of MLS Technology Holdings LLC, a joint venture owned by four MLSs, that acquired Remine in October 2021.”

Exactly what valuation would you give a company “plagued by financial troubles, plunging personnel rolls, and a toxic work environment“?

“Before its acquisition, Remine had more than 100 private investors and those shareholders rolled forward into MLS Technology Holdings, according to former Remine CEO Mark Schacknies.“

When do these other guys start popping out of the woodwork? And what if they are successful? Who pays them?

Jon Ferris, latest exec to leave Remine

Via LinkedIn

“I’m very excited to start my journey with Howard Tager, juefeng ge and the entire Ylopo, LLC team!”

Jon Ferris, VP Business Development and Sales

Quite a journey at Remine. If memory serves Jon wasn’t a big fan of Vendor Alley.

????‍♂️ Can’t please everyone I guess…

Joe Kazzoun leaves Remine joins Dotloop as GM

Smart move.

The nine lives of Remine

Andrea Brambila writing for Inman News

Remine investors drop company’s valuation, hold founders’ feet to fire

“A year after raising $30 million, real estate tech firm Remine is whipping up another round of funding, but on terms that indicate the company’s valuation has plunged and its investors are holding the founders’ feet to the fire.
In a term sheet obtained by Inman and confirmed as authentic by Remine, two of Remine’s previous investors — New York-based growth equity firm Stripes LLC and Canada-based boutique investment firm Ayrshire Real Estate Technologies LP — have agreed to invest about $4 million and $2 million, respectively, in Remine as part of a Series B round in which Remine hopes to raise a total of about $14.1 million from new and existing investors by or before May 30.”

Losing control of the company you founded can’t be a great feeling. These guys are in a really tough spot. But you can see some of the issues in the response from Remine’s CEO Mark Shacknies about the use of the new funding.

“to fuel our growth and expansion of our MLS front end, SSO [single sign on], add/edit, and transaction management platform. “

From their product page, I count 8 different products. Perhaps a bit of focus might help them turn the corner to making money instead of the current cycle of laying people off and needing to raise more.

But, unlike some, I’m impressed they have been able to raise any money at all during this environment. Especially if you include past issues, like the original debacle of trying to poach a CoreLogic employee and only to have that employee go back to Corelogic, the switch in business models (twice, three times?), 2 layoffs rounds, the failed portal attempt, Zillow pulling their API access and their system be compromised by a hacker. It seems they have nine lives. So if they are able to close the existing Series B round the total amount of funding Remine has captured would be around $64 million dollars. Those aren’t RPR numbers, but still. The patience of their investors is remarkable.

The industry needs companies like Remine. The big traditional vendors need an upstart to keep them on their toes. The question is whether Remine’s current leadership has the character, resolve, and most importantly the confidence of their current team to pull this off.

If they can’t execute, if they have any further blunders, I fear there will be another round of layoffs, but this time it will consist of only 3 employees. I hope that never happens.

Bill Andrews leaves Remine Annette Sheffler leaves SentriLock, both headed for Black Knight

Bill Andrews, and maybe at this point I should clarify, Bill Andrews Sr. since he has made this industry a family affair. His son Bill Andrews is National Sales Manager- MLS relations at RateMyAgent and his other son, Ryan Andrews is Director of MLS relations at LionDesk. ????

Bill Sr. has joined Black Knight, this is after joining Remine back is October 2019. Bill has worked for several companies in the industry, I think it goes something like this. Rapattoni, Tarasoft, CoreLogic, Zillow, Remine, a little consulting, and now Black Knight.

Also, fellow DeVry grad, Annette Sheffler, has left SentriLock and joined Black Knight as a product consultant.

I’m also hearing rumors about one or two others that could be making moves. Don’t know who or where yet, seems like the powers to be haven’t taken their finger off the chess piece yet.

Great to see that Black Knight is not sitting still during this crazy time and making investments in what matters most, good people.

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