New real-estate rules mean searching for homes could be changed forever
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Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. Aspiring entrepreneurs, take note: A new AI startup founded by Yale students aims to compete with LinkedIn — and we got a hold of the pitch deck it used to raise $3 million.
On the agenda today:
- Her father created Spider-Man. She was cut off from the Marvel empire.
- Microsoft is mulling job cuts that could happen as early as next month.
- Trump is reviled from Canada to China. American tourists are paying the price.
- Our reporter visited Hooters and saw why the chain is facing bankruptcy.
But first: House hunting is about to change.
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This week's dispatch
Tyler Le/BI
The Great Zillow Zap
Many of us lurk on real estate portals like Zillow and Redfin, even if just for fun. Now, users are coming across properties on these sites that appear to be "off-market" but are actually for sale … if you know where to look.
Our housing reporter extraordinaire James Rodriguez published a must-read story this week about how new rules for real estate agents are pushing listings away from catch-all platforms toward exclusive brokerage sites. I sat down with James to learn more — and to get his prediction for what's next in the housing market.
James, this week you wrote about changes that mean fewer home listings are making it onto sites like Zillow, or are taking longer to land there. That's no fun for lurkers! But overall, does this shift benefit buyers, sellers, both or neither?
Buyers are, for sure, the big losers: They just want to see all the homes available for sale, and it's getting tougher to do that. For sellers, they might benefit from a private test run within a brokerage before their property hits very public Zillow. But Zillow says it will penalize sellers who try to do this, and there is certainly a benefit to reaching the widest possible range of buyers. The true winners will be the big brokers and agents who end up controlling access to listings and boosting their bottom lines.
In the last year or so, the rules around brokerage commissions and listings have changed — are home buyers and sellers truly better off? Or not so much?
The short answer is not really. The status quo is hard to overcome: Agent commissions are roughly the same, and consumers are confused about all the new rules (or don't even know about them). That said, as the news continues to spread, there will be more opportunities for savvy buyers and sellers to negotiate better outcomes. That's why I've spent a lot of time breaking down these changes and what they mean for the average person.
You wrote in October that it looked like the housing market would de-freeze by spring. How is that prediction working out?
There are definitely some bright spots. Buyers have a lot more options this spring: I wrote that inventory would be the big figure to watch, and the number of homes for sale in March was up almost 30% from a year ago. But both sides are, understandably, cautious right now: The typical mortgage rate jumped this week to around 7%, and there's a lot of economic uncertainty, to put it mildly. Stay tuned!
Growing up Marvel
Courtesy of J.C. Lee
JC Lee has been widely portrayed as the villain of the Stan Lee story: the spoiled, impossible child who exploited her father, then failed to protect him in his final years.
People close to JC and her father tell a different story. "The main thing JC inherited from her father is she has a real knack for surrounding herself with con men," one of Stan's closest confidants said. Now, JC is ready to tell her side of the story.
The tumultuous life of Stan Lee's only child.
Microsoft mulls more job cuts
REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Another round of Microsoft cuts could come as soon as May, focusing on middle managers, non-coders, and more low performers, according to people familiar with the matter.
It's unclear how many roles will be slashed. However, some Microsoft organizations want to increase their "span of control" and decrease the ratio of product managers or program managers to engineers, sources told BI.
Make America Hated Again
Getty Images; Jenny Chang-Rodriguez/BI
As spring and summer vacations roll in, some American tourists are finding an unseasonally icy welcome abroad. Treated with awkwardness, pity, or straight-up hostility, they're starting to rethink their travel plans.
For American expats, their home country becoming the global frenemy means some conversations about President Trump are unavoidable. Even when Americans leave the US, its politics follow them.
Warning: traveling while American.
What happened to Hooters?
Alex Bitter/BI
Hooters of America filed for bankruptcy in March. BI's Alex Bitter went to one location to find out why. He said the signature tank tops hadn't gone anywhere, and the fries were underwhelming.
Hooters is known for its scantily clad waitresses, but the CEO of the chain's founding group wants to make the restaurants more family-friendly.
This week's quote:
"I've been concerned about Elon Musk back since he was at PayPal, and then with the purchase and dismantling of Twitter."
— Actor Alex Winter, who helped kick-start the global Tesla Takedown movement.
More of this week's top reads:
- America is about to become one giant yard sale.
- Elon Musk's xAI is hiring workers to push its chatbot Grok to the limit.
- Mira Murati doubled the fundraising target for her new AI startup to $2 billion. It could be the largest seed round in history.
- Canada has billions in US real estate. Trump's threats put that at risk.
- A new wave of tech investors is supercharging a boom in female founders.
- MrBeast wants to build the next Disney. Here's what his company's CEO is pitching to investors.
Jensen Huang shot down comparisons to Elon Musk and yelled at his biographer. The author told BI what Huang is like.
The BI Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Elizabeth Casolo, fellow, in Chicago.