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RealTrending podcast Ep. 97: Rex lawsuit, RT500 rankings insight and inflation

In Episode 97 of the RealTrending podcast, Steve Murray, senior advisor to HW Media, discusses the lawsuit Rex Real Estate filed against the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and Zillow, insight into this year’s RealTrends 500 top brokerages and what’s going on with inflation.

Here is a small preview of today’s interview. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity:

Rex Real Estate Lawsuit: Rex says that Zillow and NAR are conspiring to block their listings from being seen on their popular sites. This sets up a situation where discount brokerage Rex says that they can’t get their listing shown with the same frequency and visibility as other listings. I don’t know for sure whether in fact Zillow or NAR are setting this up themselves to do it this way. But I do recall a lot of Rex’s marketing materials saying we don’t need to market properties through the MLS. In fact, they say that consumers can market properties through the Rex platform and save money, time, and complication. So on that basis, I wonder what their complaint is? Listen to the RealTrending podcast for more.

RealTrends 500: Interesting enough, in the RealTrends 500 brokerage rankings, the top 500 firms ranked by Transaction Sides saw their total business increase 15.6% over 2019, versus a national increase of just 5.6% in existing home sales. So the larger brokers in the country just gobbled up a lot of market share. Listen to the RealTrending podcast for more.

Inflation: According to the Federal Reserve Board, inflation is running at less than 2% a year. The Board says it doesn’t fear any imminent danger of inflation, even though they added over $4 trillion to the nation’s money supply in the last 18 months alone. So, we have excess liquidity in the markets. What does that mean for real estate? Listen to the RealTrending podcast for more.

RealTrending features Steve Murray, founder and partner with RTC Consulting and a senior advisor to HousingWire. He offers insight and analysis on three trending real estate issues. Steve’s 30+ years in the industry allows him to give you a deeper understanding of today’s real estate business happenings. Hosted by Steve Murray and produced by Victoria Wickham.