Some potentially interesting shifts going on in US housing markets as a whole, but I think this could be more medium-term given these middleman (the Zillow’s becoming buying of homes and Opendoor’s of the world) in theory, creates inefficiencies in the actual price discovery, or matching natural market supply and demand, of this asset piece/housing. But one thing they might do in the medium-term is increase relative liquidity in the market by allow assets to change hands in a shorter time frame. It’s liquidity versus natural price discovery of an asset.
- Zillow to become cash buyer of homes – hitting on OpenDoor’s front, which raised $320M a portion via debt given the nature of their business model. GGV Capital is invested in them. $4B total equity raise puts their on par with that of General Catalyst, but timing of these raising might present another implications (ease of access to capital and historical timing)
Leo is a 2nd engineer hire at LinkedIn back in the days…and a GP at Susa Ventures (which happens to also be an seed investor in our beloved Andela and FLEXPORT (one I am personally damn optimistic about…got to go with the high potential, non-consensus/non-mainstream popular startups)
- Rabois, apparently has a full opposite dichotomic view, is apparently the founder of Opendoor (the company above). I remembered studying a question posted by a VC in terms of OpenDoor’s model in times of illiquidity and new and existing credit creation and pace of exchange slows down. But so far so good, I think they did transacted $1.0B since the founding of the year just a few years ago in Q4 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Rabois
There is actually a company in Austin (actually registered in San Marcos per US gov’t LLC record I think) doing this as well – can’t recall the exact name off the top of my head right now, but remember studying their strategies and financing option strategies a few quarters ago.
Potentially macro shift in US housing market as a whole…as if it hasn’t been transformed enough. Wall Street/private equity bought up most of the properties between 2008-2013 (horizontal integration) in our country and rent them out to everyday individuals. WSJ titled this article, Meet Your New Landlord: Wall Street. The housing unaffordability (>28% of monthly income dedicated housing is starting to get stretched in some US cities) and pleateaued income growth are two complex variables, could be independent, interdependent or dependent variables, which could be the cause or effect per the data in that WSJ article. But as some say, study the weakness and strengths in the system then play the games by the rules.
Intersection notepad 