On March 13, 2020, Glenn Kelman, the chief executive of the on the internet serious estate broker Redfin, was biking to do the job when he bought a call from Henry Ellenbogen, a longtime trader in Redfin who had began his personal fund.
At Harvard, Mr. Ellenbogen majored in the heritage of engineering. Just one large point he uncovered, he has mentioned, was that know-how is designed perfectly in advance of people’s ability and willingness to use it.
“Tell me a thing,” Mr. Ellenbogen requested Mr. Kelman, in accordance to an account the chief govt posted on Redfin’s website. “When people today get started touring households via an Iphone, will not a great deal of them make a decision, even following this whole pandemic finishes, that this is just a improved way to see homes? And if this complete procedure of getting and selling residences mostly goes virtual, how will other brokerages compete with you?”
Mr. Kelman, a minimal preoccupied by how Seattle’s generally bustling streets ended up eerily vacant, explained he didn’t know.
“I do,” Mr. Ellenbogen stated. “The globe is altering in your favor.”
This was not a normal view then, and it unquestionably was not what Mr. Kelman was going through. The to start with confirmed coronavirus death in the United States was a nursing dwelling resident in a Seattle suburb on Feb. 29. Inside of hours, house sellers made the decision that probably they did not want strangers breathing in their living room and bedrooms. Potential buyers started to pull out as very well.
For Redfin, that was the commencing of a disaster. In a couple of days, it shut down its 78 offices all over the place. Its stock plunged, dropping two-thirds of its value.
“The magnitude of the drop was rising every single day,” Mr. Kelman reported. He agreed to provide Mr. Ellenbogen extra stock for $110 million, imagining Redfin may possibly need income to make it by way of a extended drought. In early April, Mr. Kelman furloughed 41 percent of the company’s agents, who ended up salaried personnel. Much more than 1,000 people were being influenced.