The Z team was in town today.
Here is a video of their presentation of the SD stats, plus Doug Harwood and myself discussing the future. My comments were based on this piece:
Donna thought my words were a little strong, but they need to be to emphasize the point. Zillow intends to change the whole game – they have from the beginning, and they demonstrate the killer instinct regularly. But they are so nice about it that they are sneaking up on most agents who don’t see it coming.
The lower-producing agents will be the first casualties, and they will just retire and watch from the sidelines as Zillow starts advertising that they have the best agents. They don’t mind spending $100 million per year on those ads, and no other real estate company comes close.
There are 11,000 agents in SD County, and around 3,000 sales per month. Agents who sell 2-4 houses per year won’t be able to keep up with superior agents teams that will be outfitted by Zillow to dominate the market.
Jim, history will show that you nailed the Zillow call just like you nailed the bubble call (and everything else you write about).