I got two URGENT RED ALERT emails this morning from the California Association of Realtors—of which I am a member (and the Realtor® Party, which I guess I fund out of my dues...?)—with a strident warning and call to action against AB 736.
The subject line said, "Dramatic Increase to Transfer Taxes." The math was scary: on a $930,000 [...]
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FOR THE PIEDMONT POST JUNE 24, 2026
Taxes, Anian Tunney and 43 years of Piedmont Real Estate… Oh and the fines too.
Remember Jan from The Brady Bunch? Taxes, Taxes, Taxes…
Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way first. Piedmont is putting a real estate transfer tax increase on the November ballot. The proposed [...]
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FOR INMAN SELECT JUNE 2026
I Google myself occasionally.
Recently, I found myself reading a column I had written for the San Francisco Bay Times in 2014. The Bay Times is a legendary LGBTQ+ publication with roots going back to 1982, one of the longest-running independent LGBTQ+ newspapers in the United States, and [...]
Consumers have relied on Zillow and Redfin for years, not knowing they were trading convenience for curation. The search experience feels clean, fast, and complete, but the truth is more complicated. These platforms are not neutral collections of properties. They’re businesses built on MLS data, and their business models guide what [...]
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FOR INMAN.COM APRIL 27, 2026
From the outside looking in, it appears Compass has been on a mission to monetize agent data. Redfin, Zillow and all the other real estate portals curate and monetize agent data via the MLS. Compass is a masterclass in revenue generation and has seemingly determined that it’s missing a
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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FOR INMAN.COM APRIL 2026
The housing industry keeps talking about single women like they are a specialty segment. For much of modern history, they were treated that way by the financial system, too, because women were blocked from basic access to credit on their own [...]
Originally Published March 2026 for Piedmont Post
Those of you that are attorneys may be familiar with the saying, “The wheels of justice grind slow, but grind fine” well Lady Justice hold my beer because the wheels of municipal government have the option to grind at a pace that rivals Bleak [...]
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FOR REALTYTIMES.COM MARCH 2026
The MLS was never about software or real estate platforms or monetizing data. It was about a group of competitors deciding they were better off sharing what they knew than hoarding [...]
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MARCH 2026 FOR @INMAN SELECT
Compass’s assault on the MLS: How a private deal with Redfin threatens the open market
The Multiple Listing Service has been the backbone of American real estate for over a century. It is the shared, transparent marketplace where every broker and buyer has equal access to inventory, where [...]
