This Week's Industry Headlines with Kevin Kauffman & Fred Weaver

Ben Kinney launches new brand-agnostic platform

Place Inc. will handle a variety of business tasks for teams, which will be able to keep their existing branding and remain in their brokerages.

 

The new platform meant to help teams deal with an array of business tasks while also allowing them to keep their existing branding.

 

The new platform is called Place Inc., and in a statement is described as “a full service real estate and technology platform that partners with the top 1 percent of agents and teams.” The idea, the statement continues, is to help agents become more profitable, boost their value proposition to customers and “grow their unique local brand, all without having to leave the brokerage where they are currently affiliated.” Ben Kinney In a conversation with Inman, Kinney said that Place’s goal is to help agents grow their business.

“The majority of these individuals struggle with the business side,” Kinney explained. “They lose staff or can’t grow or double their business.” Place is meant to solve that problem.

 

 

Redfin blows away expectations, posts $233M in revenue

The company's revenue jumped a whopping 88% year-over-year during the final 3 months of 2019.

 

$233 Million: Redfin’s 2019 Q4 revenue

Between October and December last year, Redfin raked in $233 million.

The company also had a gross profit of $40 million, and a net loss per share of $0.08, compared to $0.14 during the same period one year prior.

In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Redfin also claimed that it saved consumers “over $44 million in the fourth quarter and over $180 million in 2019.” Those numbers include savings the company counts from the refunds it directly hands over to customers after a deal closes, as well as from lower listing fees.

During the first quarter of 2020 — which we are in the middle of now — Redfin expects to bring in between $179 million and $188 million in revenue, which would represent a jump of between 63 percent and 71 percent.

 

 

Jeff Bezos' $165M mansion deal shatters Los Angeles sales record

Bezos bought the Beverly Hills estate from Hollywood mogul David Geffen in an off-market deal without the involvement of any agents.

Amazon’s CEO and the richest man in the world just bought a Los Angeles mansion for $165 million, shattering a previous residential sales record for the city set just months earlier.

Jeff Bezos bought the Beverly Hills estate from Hollywood mogul David Geffen and, in doing so, set records with the most expensive residential deal to ever take place in the Los

Angeles area, according to the Wall Street Journal. The sale took place off the market and without an agent.

 

 

KW Posts Net Agent Loss for 4th Consecutive Month in January 2020.

Agent count has dropped by 3,499 over this span.