Home Flipping Becomes Virtual Reality --- Investors must ask whether scalability and sustainability of online real-estate platforms are mutually exclusive

"You can now sell your home online as quickly as you can sell a pair of shoes on eBay or Poshmark. But what is the return policy?

The pandemic bolstered popular concepts like online shopping. But it showed how more fringe applications could have mainstream use. We now know a workforce can function remotely, though the risk to companies is that there are downstream costs to that convenience. A similar risk is increasingly being taken by online real-estate platforms using computerized algorithms to automate a nearly $2 trillion industry with just about 1% online penetration today. The question is whether fortune will favor the bold.

The concept of using technology to flip homes was initially met with skepticism. On top of the financial risk of holding a fortune in inventory on the balance sheet, there was the open question of whether consumers would trust such a process with their most valuable possessions. When Zillow said it was going big on iBuying in 2019, roughly 90% of home buyers and sellers were still using an agent.

The pandemic seems to have dispelled some of those doubts as technology became a necessity rather than an option in many cases. In the end, things like virtual showings proved to be not only viable but often preferable, enabling consumers to avoid the hassle and cost of an open house.

After pausing their operations in the spring of last year, iBuyers have been on a buying spree, enabled by increasingly virtual capabilities. Offerpad, whose merger with a special-purpose acquisition company is expected to close this quarter, bought over 2,000 homes in the second quarter. Zillow said its home purchases more than doubled on a sequential basis in the second quarter, and Redfin said it bought 40% more homes in the second quarter than it did in all of 2020. Trumping them all, market leader Opendoor said it purchased nearly 8,500 homes in the second quarter and ended the period with contracts to acquire 8,158 more, representing $3 billion in value.

IBuyers like to say they aren't competing against each other but rather the traditional real-estate agent model. But like food delivery or other industries with several players offering similar products, the most pervasive brand is often the most likely to be used. For iBuyers, being in the right place at the right time is especially critical: You eat multiple meals a day, but you might sell a home once a decade.

Opendoor is now in 41 markets -- more than double that of Offerpad -- viewing the diversity as both an opportunity and a hedge. If demand for employment suddenly changes in one city, for example, it wants to be in the city that may be gaining traction.

To speed up, it is paring down the need for physical boots on the ground by building up technology. The company said it was able to launch this year in 18 markets in just five months, six of those in just one day. Where it used to hire several people in every city, the company said it can now launch in a market with as little as one person on the ground, using a growing repository of centralized technology to fill in the gaps.

It is so confident in this technology that it no longer has to see a home live -- even virtually -- before it will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on it. Last Tuesday, the company said it is offering homeowners to whom it has made preliminary offers the option to send over photos and videos of their home, avoiding even a virtual live walk-through. It is a process the company boasts could be done in about 10 minutes of consumers' time.

While capital is likely a limitation, not every iBuyer has the same game plan. By comparison, Offerpad seems to be more focused on nailing the cities it is already in. It is growing its own technological footprint, but touts its real-estate expertise on the ground as a key differentiator as it expands. Its investor presentations include before and after photos of renovations and profile on average how much it spends and how much time the renovation can take. Opendoor's presentations offer little in the way of that kind of detail. But the company said it is seeing the same quality of outcomes using its centralized technology today as it was in its early days with more physical help.

As iBuyers continue to grow and the market inevitably tops out, it is time to start asking whether scalability and sustainability are mutually exclusive and, if so, which is more important.” [1]

1. Home Flipping Becomes Virtual Reality --- Investors must ask whether scalability and sustainability of online real-estate platforms are mutually exclusive

Forman, Laura.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 31 Aug 2021: B.10.

APŽVALGA --- Knygos: iki atominės bombos --- užsitęsus Antrajam pasauliniam karui aukštųjų technologijų tikslaus bombardavimo pažadas užleido vietą žiauresniems metodams

„Rašyti gražias knygas siaubingomis temomis yra retas menas, kurį dažniausiai geriausia palikti didiesiems romanistams. Tai neatgrasė polimatiškojo Malcolmo Gladwello siekti sukurti savo naują pasakojimo istorijos kūrinį, kuris pirmiausia buvo sukurtas, kaip elegantiškai pagaminta audio knyga (Pushkin Industries, 51/4 val., 17,99 dolerių), bet taip pat leidžiama spausdinti – įsitraukite į vieną iš labiausiai liūdinančių Antrojo pasaulinio karo epizodų. Konfliktui baigiantis, sąjungininkų pajėgos pradėjo bombardavimą Japonijos miestus, kai šių salų gyventojai neturėjo jokių galimybių apsisaugoti nuo mirties iš oro Miestų bombardavimas kilimais buvo morališkai atgrasi karo forma, turėjusi suteršti JAV armijos oro pajėgų reputaciją. Prieš karą jokie kariniai lyderiai neplanavo tokios strategijos, tačiau sąjungininkų oro vadus pasirinkti privertė dėl konflikto poreikių, oro sąlygų ir techninių sąlygų. 

 

    Nė vienas iš tų oro pajėgų vadų perėjimo prie priešo miestų kiliminio bombardavimo nepriėmė taip noriai ir ryžtingiau, kaip įkyrus, patologiškai vedamas Ohajo gyventojas Curtisas LeMay'us. Jei pono Gladwello pasaka yra tragedija, kaip ji tikrai yra, generolas LeMay'us yra jos piktadarys. Autorius pradeda nuo vieno amerikiečių oreivių rinkinio – pavadinto „bombonešių mafija“, Oro korpuso taktinės mokyklos Maxwell Field, Ala, karininkų, kurie manė, kad naudojant itin sudėtingą specialų bombos taikiklį, jie galėtų pasiekti moraliai tinkamų tikslių atakų prieš priešo taikinius. Tačiau jo istorijoje dominuoja LeMay figūra ir jo siaubingas Japonijos miestų sprogdinimas.

 

    Prieš pradedant gilintis į P. Gladwello garsinį pasakojimą arba spausdintą knygą (kuri yra tiesiog jo sakytinės versijos tekstas), pravartu prisiminti du įtikinamus klausimus, kuriuos Šv. Augustinas uždavė apie „teisingą karą“ 1500 metų prieš II Pasaulinį  karą. 

 

Ar konfliktas buvo moraliai teisingas – karas su blogiu, karas su užpuoliku? 

 

O ar kova buvo vykdoma moraliai proporcingai ir diskriminuojant priešus nuo civilių? 

 

Iki 1930-ųjų atėjus oro pajėgoms – mašinoms, galinčioms iš tolo padaryti didelę žalą priešo tautai namuose – šis reikalas buvo labai sudėtingas.

 

    Apie oro karo elgesio moralę XX amžiaus ketvirtajame dešimtmetyje galvojo daugelis protingų karininkų, kurie visi buvo įsitikinę, kad jų įspūdingos naujos mašinos gali pasendinti ir sausumos galią (vangią ir kruviną, kaip parodė 1914–1918 m. kovos). ) ir jūros jėgą (lėtą ir neefektyvią), skirdama lemiamą smūgį iš oro. Vis dėlto, kai nedidelis būrys oreivių 1930-aisiais savo Maksvelo būstinėje taikymo strategijas, jie turėjo būti atsargūs su siaubingais naujais karo ginklais. Netrukus jie skris galingais B-17 lėktuvais, kurie galėtų nešti tonas bombų aukštai danguje ir tiesiai virš priešo gamyklų, uostų ir miestų.

 

    Taigi, kaip puiku, ši bombonešių mafija jautė, kad įkyrus, atsiskyrėliškas olandas, vardu Carlas L. Nordenas, praleido savo karjerą tobulindamas bombos taikiklį, kuris, tinkamai sukalibruotas, galėtų tiksliai tiekti aukšto lygio bombas. Tai buvo, kaip lakoniškai pastebi J. Gladwellas, „svaigus... viena galingiausių svajonių karo istorijoje“. Žadama, kad karas bus "tikslus, greitas ir beveik be kraujo. Beveik".

 

    Ta puiki vizija buvo žiauriai sunaikinta danguje virš Vokietijos 1943 m. Dėl nuolatinių pilkų debesų sluoksnių (tai buvo šiaurės vakarų Europa, o ne Arizona) žiūrėti pro Norden bombų taikiklį tapo nenaudinga, o greiti Focke-Wulf naikintuvai užgožė B-17; jų net 60-čiu sumažėjo per vieną dieną. Net kai Ramiojo vandenyno kare JAV bandė tiksliai bombarduoti su didesniais B-29 ir didesniais bombų kroviniais, „strateginis“ bombardavimas neveikė. O dabar jau buvo 1944 m. pabaiga. JAV oro pajėgų vadovybė nusprendė, kaip pasakoja ponas Gladwellas, išmesti pagrindinę Maksvelo mafijos figūrą, aukšto principo generolą Haywoodą Hansellą ir atvesti jo priešą, šiurkštų, cigarus mėgstantį sprogdinimo kilimais šalininką Curtisasą LeMay'usą. 

 

Kadangi Europos Liuftvafė čia netrukdė, o B-29 bombų aikštelės buvo užpildytos nauju amerikiečių išradimu (napalminėmis bombomis), LeMay galėjo išsiųsti žemai skraidančių lėktuvų armadas, kad nusiaubtų praktiškai neapsaugotus Japonijos miestus. Jo pirmas bandymas buvo siaubinga ugnies ataka prieš Tokijo centrą 1945 m. kovo 9 ir 10 d.

 

    „Bombonešių mafija“ yra nuostabi garso knyga ir meno kūrinys. G. Gladwellas turi užburiantį balsą ir retu meistriškumu surinko įvairią medžiagą: techniniai paaiškinimai, pagrindinių veikėjų (įskaitant Nordeną, Hansellą ir LeMay'usą) prisistatymas, lakūnų citatos ir interviu su vėlesniais istorikais.

 

    Reikia pasakyti, kad, skaitant „Bombonešių mafiją“ kaip paprastą seną istorijos knygą, ši magija sumažėja šiek tiek. Profesionalus istorikas sulėtėja, kad patikrintų ribotus pono Gladwello užrašus, ir dalis ištarto žodžio atmosferos prarandama. Jo paskyroje taip pat yra spragų (pavyzdžiui, RAF bombonešių komanda, kurią jis taip greitai atleidžia, iš tikrųjų bandė kruopščiai bombarduoti, kol debesys ir liuftvafė taip pat privertė pakeisti taktiką). Tada šioje knygoje taip trumpai minima atominė bomba. Tačiau jo kūrimas ir naudojimas yra tos pačios istorijos dalis.

 

    Pagrindinis generolo LeMay'uso valdymo veiksmas buvo tūkstančio miesto kvartalų sudeginimas per vieną naktį Tokijo centre, sukuriant švytėjimą, kuris, kaip teigiama, buvo matomas už 150 mylių. Maždaug 100 000 japonų žuvo per vieną kruviniausią dieną (iš tikrųjų šešias valandas) per visą žmonijos istoriją.  Skaitytojui nepagailėta daugybės šiurpių detalių apie sudegintus kūnus, ir apskritai ponas Gladwellas tai daro meistriškai. Kai jis praneša, kad JAV oreiviai grįžo iš reido „sukrėsti“, jo auditorija žino, kodėl. Nuo šio etapo šios audioknygos klausytojas tikriausiai imasi kieto gėrimo.

 

    Bet buvo daugiau. Tokijo ugnies antskrydžio skerdynės neprivertė LeMay'uso sustabdyti strategijos, o jo pajėgos ir toliau degino Japonijos miestus šešis mėnesius po to. Okajamos pastatai sudegė 69 proc., Tokušima – 85 proc., o iki rugpjūčio sudegė dar 67 miestai, praneša G. Gladwellas. Kiekvieną savaitę buvo ieškoma naujų taikinių, kol jų beveik nebeliko. 

 

Atrodo, kad tai primena gestapo nenumaldomas paieškas, artėjant karo pabaigai, ieškant Europos žydų, kurie galėjo išvengti ankstesnio sunaikinimo.

 

    Nuostabu, kad LeMay'uso daužymas iš oro nesiliovė, net numetus dvi atomines bombas – Manheteno projektas buvo atskira įmonė ir jam, matyt, tai nelabai rūpėjo. Tik po rugpjūčio 14 d., kai pasirodė žinia, kad Japonija paprašė taikos sąlygų, jų vadas pavargusioms lėktuvų įguloms pasakė, kad bombų jiems nebereikia.

 

    Kiek laiko būtų trukęs Japonijos miestų bombardavimas, jei visiškas atominių bombų netikėtumas ir Raudonosios armijos puolimas prieš Mandžiūriją nebūtų paskatinęs imperatoriaus reikalauti nutraukti konfliktą? Žinome, kad fanatiškajai Japonijos karinei vadovybei paskutinė viltis išgelbėti savo garbę iš tikrųjų buvo didelė sąjungininkų invazija, kuriai jie galėtų atsispirti. Ką jiems turėjo reikšmės, jei tuo tarpu LeMay'uso bombonešiai sutriuškino daugiau miestų, priversdami išgyvenusius bėgti į miškus?

 

    Čia ponas Gladwellas praleidžia progą pabrėžti dar vieną, siaubingai ironišką dalyką: dvi atominės bombos, niokojančios Hirosimą ir Nagasakį, sustabdė napalmo bombardavimo beprotybę. Niekada anksčiau negalvojau apie atominių bombų numetimus tokioje šviesoje. Jie tikrai užbaigė karą taip, kaip to negalėjo padaryti nei niūri JAV povandeninių laivų blokada, nei LeMay'uso miesto reidai.

 

    Ironija šioje nuostabioje knygoje tęsiasi iki karčios pabaigos. Bene groteskiškiausias buvo 1964 m., kai LeMay buvo įteiktas aukščiausias Japonijos apdovanojimas užsieniečiui už pagalbą atstatyti pokario Japonijos oro pajėgas. Vis dėlto, pastebi G. Gladwellas, Tokijas niekada nepripažino tos ankstesnės bombonešių mafijos, kurios tikėjimas tiksliu ir diskriminaciniu karu tapo karo užgaidų auka.

 

    Generolas Haywoodas Hansellas ir jo kolegos stengėsi kovoti gerą kovą, vadovaudamiesi teisingo karo tradicijomis, kurios būtų laikomos tinkamomis taisyklėmis. Kai po Antrojo pasaulinio karo praėjo pakankamas laikas, istorijos sprendimas tapo aiškesnis: sąjungininkų tautos iš tiesų kariavo teisingame kare, bet ne visada elgėsi pagal Augustino raginimą pasirinkti diskriminacinį ir teisingą kovos būdą. Ir iš nedaugelio pavyzdžių, kai sąjungininkų veiksmai buvo akivaizdžiai neteisingi, taip pat neveiksmingi kariniu požiūriu, išsiskiria Curtiso LeMay'uso Japonijos miestų tiesioginis sprogdinimas. Žmogus padeda šią knygą – arba klausosi jos pabaigos – kraipydamas galvą dėl viso to kvailumo ir žmogiškosios kainos.

 

    ---

 

    P. Kennedy, Jeilio universiteto profesorius ir daugelio darbų, įskaitant „Didžiųjų galių kilimą ir kritimą“, autorius, ką tik baigė studiją „Pergalė jūroje, 1936–1946 m.“ [1]

1. REVIEW --- Books: Before the Atomic Bomb --- The promise of high-tech precision bombing gave way to more brutal methods as World War II dragged on

Kennedy, Paul. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]01 May 2021: C.7

REVIEW --- Books: Before the Atomic Bomb --- The promise of high-tech precision bombing gave way to more brutal methods as World War II dragged on

"Writing beautiful books on horrifying themes is a rare art, and one which is usually best left for the great novelists. That has not deterred the polymathic Malcolm Gladwell from seeking to make his new work of narrative history -- which was created primarily as an elegantly produced audiobook (Pushkin Industries, 51/4 hours, $17.99) but is also being published as a printed volume -- engage with one of the most upsetting episodes of World War II. Near the end of the conflict, the Allied forces began firebombing the cities of Japan, when the populations of the home islands had no chance of protecting themselves against death from the air. The carpet bombing of cities was a morally repugnant form of warfare, which was to tarnish the reputations of the U.S. Army Air Forces and, in Europe, the RAF Bomber Command. No military leaders had planned on such a strategy before the war, but the choice was forced upon Allied air commanders by the exigencies of conflict, the weather and technical setbacks.

Among those air commanders, none embraced the switch to the daylight hammering of the enemy's cities more willingly and determinedly than the obsessive, pathologically driven Ohioan Curtis LeMay. If Mr. Gladwell's tale is a tragedy, as it surely is, Gen. LeMay is its villain. The author begins with one set of American airmen -- the "Bomber Mafia" of the title, officers of the Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field, Ala., who thought that, by use of a super-complicated special bombsight, they could achieve morally appropriate pinpoint attacks on enemy targets. Yet his story is dominated by the figure of LeMay and his harrowing firebombing of Japan's cities.

Before one goes further into Mr. Gladwell's audio narration, or the printed book (which is simply the text of his spoken version), it is useful to recall two compelling questions asked about "just war" by St. Augustine, 1,500 years before World War II. Was the conflict a morally just one -- a war against evil, a war fought against an attacker? And was the fighting being pursued in a morally proportionate and discriminate way? By the 1930s, the coming of air power -- of machines capable of inflicting great damage from a distance upon the enemy nation at home -- complicated the matter profoundly.

The morality of the conduct of air war was on the minds of many intelligent officers in the 1920s, all of whom were convinced that their impressive new machines could render obsolete both land power (sluggish and bloody, as the fighting from 1914 to 1918 had shown) and sea power (slow and ineffectual) by delivering a decisive blow from the air. Still, as a small bunch of airmen hashed out strategies at their Maxwell headquarters during the 1930s, they had to be careful with the terrifying new weapons of war at their disposal. Soon, they would be flying the powerful B-17 airplanes that could carry tons of bombs high in the sky and right over enemy factories, harbors and cities.

So what a great thing it was, this Bomber Mafia felt, that an obsessive, reclusive Dutchman called Carl L. Norden had spent his career perfecting a bombsight that, when properly calibrated, could deliver high-level bombs with pinpoint accuracy. This was, as Mr. Gladwell laconically observes, "intoxicating . . . one of the most powerful dreams in the history of warfare." It promised that war would be "precise and quick and almost bloodless. Almost."

That fine vision was brutally destroyed in the skies over Germany in 1943. Constant layers of gray clouds (this was northwest Europe, not Arizona) rendered looking through the Norden bombsight useless, and swift Focke-Wulf fighters clobbered the B-17s; 60 went down in one day. Even when the U.S. attempted high-level pinpoint bombing in the Pacific War, with larger B-29s and greater bomb loads, "strategic" bombing didn't work. And now it was late 1944. The U.S. Air Force leadership decided it was time, as Mr. Gladwell narrates, to toss out the leading figure of the Maxwell mafia, the high-principled Gen. Haywood Hansell, and bring in his nemesis, that rough, cigar-chomping advocate of carpet bombing, Curtis LeMay. With no Luftwaffe in the way in Europe, and the B-29s' bomb bays filled with a new American invention (napalm bombs), LeMay could send out aerial armadas of low-flying planes to devastate the virtually unprotected Japanese cities. His piece de resistance was the horrendous firestorm attack upon downtown Tokyo on March 9 and 10, 1945.

"The Bomber Mafia" is a remarkable audiobook, and a work of art. Mr. Gladwell has a mesmerizing voice and has assembled his various materials with rare skill: Technical explanations, introductions of the main characters (including Norden, Hansell and LeMay), quotes from the airmen, and interviews with later historians all flow together naturally.

Reading "The Bomber Mafia" as a plain old history book, it has to be said, takes away a bit of this magic. The professional historian slows down to check Mr. Gladwell's limited notes, and some of the atmosphere of the spoken word is lost. There are also gaps in his account (for instance, the RAF Bomber Command he is so quick to dismiss actually did attempt careful bombing, until clouds and the Luftwaffe forced it also to alter its tactics). Then there is the so, so brief mention of the atomic bomb in this book. Yet its development and use are part of the same story.

The central act of Gen. LeMay's reign of destruction had been the incineration in one night of a thousand city blocks in downtown Tokyo -- creating a glow which, it was said, could be seen 150 miles away. Around 100,000 Japanese perished during the single bloodiest day (actually, six hours) in all of human history. That is more than were killed during either of the two atomic bombings that August. One can spare the reader lots of grisly details about torched bodies, and on the whole Mr. Gladwell does. When he reports that the U.S. airmen came back from the raid "shaken," his audience knows why. By this stage, the listener to this audiobook is probably reaching for a stiff drink.

But there was more. The carnage of the Tokyo fire-raid did not cause LeMay to stop the strategy, and his forces continued to incinerate Japanese cities in the six months that followed. Okayama's buildings were burned down by 69%, Tokushima by 85%, and 67 more cities were incinerated by August, Mr. Gladwell reports. Each week, new targets were searched for until there were hardly any left. This seems reminiscent of the Gestapo's relentless search, near the end of the war, for pockets of European Jews who might have escaped earlier destruction.

Amazingly, LeMay's aerial pounding did not stop even after the two atomic bombs were dropped -- the Manhattan Project had been a separate venture and he apparently did not care much about it. Only after August 14, when news arrived that Japan had asked for peace terms, were the weary aircrews told by their commander that they need bomb no more.

How long would the firebombing of Japanese cities have gone on, had not the total surprise of the atomic bombs, plus the Red Army's attack upon Manchuria, moved the emperor to call for an end to the conflict? We know that, for the fanatical Japanese military leadership, their last hope of salvaging their own honor was in fact to have a large Allied invasion that they could stand up against. What did it matter to them if, meanwhile, LeMay's bombers crushed more cities, forcing the survivors to flee to the forests?

Here Mr. Gladwell misses the chance to stress a further, horribly ironic point: The two atomic bombs, while devastating Hiroshima and Nagasaki, brought the madness of napalm firebombing to a grinding halt. I had never thought of the dropping of the atomic bombs in such a light before. They really did end the war, in the way that neither the grim U.S. submarine blockade nor LeMay's city raids could do.

The ironies in this wonderful book continue to the bitter end. Perhaps the most grotesque came in 1964, when LeMay was given Japan's highest award to a foreigner for helping to rebuild the postwar Japanese Air Force. Yet, Mr. Gladwell observes, Tokyo never gave recognition to that earlier Bomber Mafia, whose belief in pinpoint, discriminate warfare had fallen victim to the vagaries of war.

Gen. Haywood Hansell and his colleagues strove to fight the good fight, in accordance with what just- war tradition would have considered the proper rules. When a sufficient distance followed World War II, the judgment of history became clearer: The Allied nations had indeed fought in a just war, but they had not always acted in accord with Augustine's call for a discriminating and just way of fighting. And of the few examples where Allied actions were plainly wrong, as well as ineffectual militarily, Curtis LeMay's point-blank firebombing of Japan's cities stands out. One puts this book down -- or listens to its ending -- shaking one's head at the folly and human cost of it all.

---

Mr. Kennedy, a professor at Yale University and the author of numerous works including "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers," has just completed a study called "Victory at Sea, 1936 to 1946."” [1]

1. REVIEW --- Books: Before the Atomic Bomb --- The promise of high-tech precision bombing gave way to more brutal methods as World War II dragged on

Kennedy, Paul. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]01 May 2021: C.7