One for the record books

One for the record books In case you couldn't make it, catch the flavor of the Allan Dalton-Glenn Kelman-Bradley Inman Ultimate Fighting Championship (err, panel discussion) at Real Estate Connect NYC. Trulia video blogger Sean Black posted this clip on YouTube. See also Glenn Roberts' Inman News story, and not to miss is Kelman's take on the Redfin blog (which contains a video clip of Dalton, at another panel discussion in Long Beach last year, comparing Zillow to a guess-your-weight-and-age carny hustle).

For those too busy making a living to know the back story, Dalton, as president of Move Inc.'s Real Estate Division -- which runs the official site of the National Association of Realtors, Realtor.com -- represents the real estate establishment (in some people's minds). Kelman, CEO of the online real estate brokerage Redfin, is seen by others as the embodiment of the threat technology poses to the traditional real estate business model.

Last summer Kelman testified before a Congressional subcommittee looking at competition in the real estate industry, urging lawmakers to give companies like his access to the MLS data used by Realtor.com. Since then Move.com, Kelman says, has "threatened to sue Redfin to change our logo, which, after some ineffectual begging, threatening and groveling, we are now changing."

So this was expected to be a little contentious. John Treadway at CrunchBack sets the scene:

This was a room full of Realtors. Defensive Realtors. Occasionally to the point of being rude Realtors. Allan was particularly difficult at times, arguing semantics over the term 'traditional' and if there is anything such as a 'standard buyer's agent commission' as listed on the Redfin website.

So who won? Kelman says he's not sure, "which probably means I lost." Although he saves face by offering that he wouldn't say if he thought he had won, and that "Allan and I both blathered, though he blathered well."

When a New York board member asked Kelman how he did, he concludes, "A Hamptons broker with a magnificent head of hair and a Bluetooth embedded in his ear interrupted us to say, confidently and happily, that I had bombed."
--Matt Carter, Inman News

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