Weekly Real Estate News Quiz: Think You're Up On The Biggest Headlines?
Multiple clients of customer relationship management (CRM) tool Contactually are dismayed over the lack of support the company is providing existing clients since it was acquired by Compass in February.
"To date, they have said they are continuing to support Contactually," David Hargreaves, an agent at Modern Living Sonoma, told Inman. "It looks like those days are now over after I got the email ... from Compass [Tuesday]."
Hargreaves passed along an email from Contactually's support team, which he received after he reached out with an issue regarding duplicate and synced contacts.
"As much as I would like to bring this to the engineers, the majority of our resources are focused on building the Compass CRM," the support staffer said in the email. "We are still resolving issues for Contactually but on a very limited capacity. We are primarily maintaining and monitoring the Contactually application to make sure major problems do not occur that affect large numbers of users and that the application remains up and available.”
RedfinNow primarily operates in California but it also boasts three markets in Texas and one market in Denver, Colorado. It does not currently operate in Arizona, a hotspot for its iBuyer competitors.
Zillow is seeking to raise $1.1 billion in capital through a new offering of senior notes, essentially short-term bonds, as it pursues a series of ambitious goals over the next three to five years, executives announced Wednesday.
The company will pay interest semi-annually on the notes, with full payment in 2024 or 2026 coming in the investors choice of cash, Class C capital stock or a combination of both. A portion of the funds raised – approximately $150 million – will be used to pay the cost of the capped call transactions. Essentially, if the stock skyrockets over a certain amount, Zillow can pay the investors back early with the cash so it doesn't dilute the stock for existing shareholders.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the entire state of Oregon have both recently moved to effectively eliminate single-family zoning, and, the National Association of Homebuilders appears to have lauded the shift. In a report released last week, the trade organization concluded that "traditional zoning has often been cited as a barrier to affordability.”
Realogy is making major changes to its organizational structure at a time when the company’s stock is trading at near historic lows, including the consolidation of Coldwell Banker, the 113-year-old franchise, executives told Inman Thursday.
The structural shift, which also includes launching an expansion brands portfolio and carving out a new product and innovation footprint, are intended to help the company grow, move more rapidly and support its agents and franchise brands, executives said. Such changes are expected to piggyback on lead generation partnerships like one announced this summer with Amazon, upcoming consumer value propositions and an open-architecture tech platform.
Nick Bailey, the former CEO of Century 21 Real Estate, is set to take on a new role at RE/MAX in his home state of Colorado. The real estate franchisor confirmed the industry veteran — who also served in an executive role at Zillow — is joining RE/MAX in the newly created role of chief customer officer.
When Bailey stepped down from Century 21 in January he cited a desire to move his family and children back to Colorado. Realogy, the parent company of Century 21, is headquartered in Madison, New Jersey.
New York City real estate developer Gerald Wolkoff has appealed the $6.75M judgment in favor of the 20 artists’ whose work he whitewashed before demolishing his iconic Long Island building in 2013.
Wolkoff’s lawyer, Meir Feder, argued before New York’s 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday that Judge Frederic Block wrongly interpreted the 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act in his November 2017 ruling when he determined all 45 pieces of art on Wolkoff’s 5 Pointz building were protected under VARA.
The 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) provides federal protection for distinguished works of art by enabling artists “which provides federal protection for distinguished works of art by enabling to prevent any intentional distortion, mutilation, or other modification of that work” and “prevent any destruction [of their work].”
Alexandra Thomas Schwartz, a Compass agent with the Jill Schwartz Group in Washington D.C., filed her countersuit Tuesday. In it, she argues among other things that her former team leader Jill Schwartz misrepresented both her real estate sales and the services she offered team members, as well as repeatedly made "false and derogatory statements" about Thomas Schwartz.
On the heels of announcing a program that will provide home loans to consumers, iBuying giant Opendoor revealed Thursday that it has acquired a large title and lending company.
The acquisition of Georgia-based OS National (OSN) will let Opendoor "deeply integrate title, escrow and closings," according to a company statement. Opendoor also believes that by owning OSN, it will be able to offer consumers the "most streamlined and easiest closing experience."
There’s no way that could possibly matter. But, for the record, the number is 10.