Last week, I imagined a world where Zillow Offers is the greatest strategic mistake in the company’s history. Flipping houses directly adds significant operational complexity utilizing on the ground employees and contractors, with low margins. Was their original entry to the market, a marketplace enabling…

Founders, there’s only two days left to apply to MetaProp’s Accelerator at Columbia University. Benefits include: Up to $250,000 in financing 22-week program focused on driving business growth and accelerated market penetration Participation in exclusive Pilot Days and Demo Days, as well as discounted or…

Businesses avoid innovation from fear of not understanding how to effectively manage the unknown. The leaders of these organizations see the value of being innovative, but are disincentivized by the uncertainty and by their lack of expertise and commitments in time and resources to make…

In our latest real estate tech entrepreneur interview, we’re speaking with Luke Tomaszewski from ProxyPics. Without further ado… What do you do? I am the founder and CEO of ProxyPics. I also own an appraisal management company in Chicago, eValuationZone. What problem does your product/service…

[Note from editor: Originally published on Thomvest’s Blog] We recently published a real estate market map, which includes hundreds of technology companies that are transforming how residential real estate is bought and sold. Today, we’re following that post up with a new market map focused on commercial real estate (the map is…

I saw this Tweet by Spencer Rascoff today showing a listing photo with selective coloring of property boundaries for 1223 Ocean Road in Bridgehampton. The tactic certainly makes the image pop. I thought it to be quite a smart marketing angle on the luxury side of…

RaiseMe’s recent fundraising caught my attention: A startup that uses micro-scholarships to motivate students and demystify the cost of higher education. In partnership with over 300 colleges and universities, RaiseMe has extended over $2 billion in scholarships for milestones like an “A” in an AP course…

In our latest real estate tech entrepreneur interview, we’re speaking with Daniel O’Toole from TowerHouse. He and I had a great discussion in San Francisco during Inman, and he recently joined the Geek Estate Mastermind. He’s working on a product that has traces of “history…

Are you still paying to design and print your real estate folders? Presentation folders can cost up to $3000 in design and printing. If your office regularly provides real estate folders for your clients, you may be eligible to save thousands of dollars with the…

I’ve attended about 30 RE BarCamp’s all across the country. Most of them were on behalf of Zillow, but have certainly attended numerous since I departed in 2010 (including Phoenix, Austin, and helped organize a Seattle one). A couple weeks ago, I attended RE BarCamp X held…