The central metric: consumer trust

From deep inside the world of real estate portals, Scott Bond and I have an intelligent conversation about the past, present, and future of the Portal Wars.

We look at the competitive landscape, how we got to today, why it’s trendy to hate Zillow, evaluate Homes.com’s strategy, look at the most important metric to track (trust), and sprinkle in international examples and learnings.

We then shift to the two Power Plays that will shape the portal landscape for years to come: the end-to-end ecosystem and exclusive inventory. We talk about why it’s going to be an absolute grind, the challenge of selling mortgages, why I don’t do all my shopping at Target, and, yet again, why agents are absolutely indispensable.