Weekly Real Estate News Quiz: Think You're Up On The Biggest Headlines?
Opendoor CEO Eric Wu doesn’t think real estate agents will go extinct, but he believes their role will change considerably — and he wants Opendoor — whose services are expanding far beyond merely buying homes — to have a seat at the table for every transaction.
Those were some of the highlights during a frank interview that aired over the weekend with Wu from prominent tech columnist Kara Swisher, who said that Opendoor “seems like the closest thing to the next Airbnb.”
Wu mused at one point that, “I guess it’s good to be hated” when Swisher asked him about how Opendoor has coped with industry pushback. But he also noted that agents have embraced Opendoor as an option for sellers. And those that provide value as advisors are not going anywhere, he said.
Gary Gold told a packed crowd Wednesday that relying on “intense information” about the property, the comps, and the market is useful for giving clients realistic expectations. And, he added, agents need to be honest.
“Its a really bad time to tell people what they want to hear,” Gold said. “We’ve got to get into the habit of telling people the truth.”
A house erected on the land where mass murderer John Wayne Gacy once killed 33 people has hit the market for $459,000, but interested buyers may never know about its sordid history thanks to an Illinois law that allows owners to decide for themselves whether to disclose such gritty details.
The innocuous-looking property is a three-bedroom, two-bathroom brick house in the Chicago suburb of Norwood Park Township. As first reported by TMZ, it sits on a plot of land that’s just under 9,000 square feet. But despite its simple appearance, the lot is where, in 1978, the Illinois police discovered 29 dead bodies in the home’s trenches and crawl space.
Major East Coast multiple listing service Bright MLS announced Wednesday that it has rolled out a new policy on so-called “pocket listings,” requiring agents to add any properties they are publicly advertising to the system or, eventually, face steep fines.
The new policy gives members of Bright MLS, which has about 95,000 members in the Mid-Atlantic region, a day to post their listings “following consumer marketing of any kind,” according to a statement from the trade group. Marketing is defined as everything from flyers to yard signs to digital marketing on public websites to emails and more.
Compass CEO Robert Reffkin attributes some of the company’s biggest ideas to feedback received from its agents. So as Compass celebrates its seven-year anniversary this month, the New York City-founded brokerage is doubling down on agent feedback with two new tools.
“I believe that the only way for us to realize our full potential is to harness as many great ideas as we can from our agents and our employees,” Reffkin said in a company-wide email last week. “Compass’ long-term success depends on everyone being empowered to identify problems and solutions, big and small, and act on them themselves or suggest them to people who can.”
Compass has long had a feedback tool, where the company allows agents to suggest ideas in a forum-type setting and those ideas can be upvoted for more visibility. From that feedback tool, Reffkin said the company has implemented more than 650 ideas, including, Compass Concierge, Compass Coming Soons, the forthcoming bridge loans program and Compass Cares.
An historic mega-mansion in Los Angeles just hit the record books as the most expensive property currently listed in the United States.
The Casa Encantada, an eight-acre Bel Air estate that translates as "the Enchanted House," could well become the most expensive home ever sold in California if an interested buyer plunks down the current asking price of $225 million. As the Los Angeles Times reports, that perch is currently occupied by the Spelling Manor, which sold for $119.75 million in July.
Built in 1938, the Casa Encantada was designed to be the most opulent and extravagant mansion in Hollywood. Even during the Great Depression, building costs for the Bel Air estate ran up to $2 million. Hotel magnate Conrad Hilton purchased the home in 1950 for $225,000.
Both Opendoor founder and CEO Eric Wu and Compass founder and CEO Robert Reffkin won't be in attendance at Saudi Arabia's third annual Future Investment Initiative conference even as many U.S. executives return to the so-called "Davos in the Desert."
The conference, to be held at the end of the month in Riyadh, the country's capital, is billed as an "international platform for expert-led debate between global leaders, investors and innovators with the power to shape the future of global investment," two years ago featured some of the industry's top tech leaders.
That shifted last year after the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, allegedly at the order of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
Fast-growing and well-funded iBuying startup Opendoor announced Monday it has hired a handful of new executives and board members, some of whom have past experience at high-profile companies including Amazon and Netflix.
The new executives include Julie Todaro, who will serve as the company's president of homes and services, and Tom Willerer, Opendoor's new chief product officer. Todaro spent 13 years working at Amazon, serving most recently as a vice president of consumer electronics before departing the online retailer in 2013. More recently, she has spent time as an e-commerce consultant and worked with well-known companies such as Airbnb.
Just months after moving into an $8.5 million mansion in Beverly Hills, Justin Bieber may already have plans to sell the colossal property — that is, if you believe a series of middle-of-the-night Instagram photos he posted Friday morning.
In the wee hours of Friday morning, the 25-year-old pop star posted more than a dozen photos of his 6,100-square-foot villa to his 120 million Instagram followers. He and model Hailey Baldwin had purchased the mansion, which they nicknamed “The Tropics,” for $8.5 million back in March, a few months after getting married in a much-publicized ceremony.
Three Los Angeles City council members have requested an emergency moratorium on evictions as tenants in nearly 200 apartments have received eviction notices ahead of the new rent-control law, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Governor Gavin Newsom on Oct. 8 signed The Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (AB 1482), which prohibits landlords from raising rents more than 5 percent, plus inflation, annually.