Editor’s note: Glenn Kelman is the CEO of Redfin, a technology-powered real estate broker backed by Madrona Venture Group and Greylock Partners. He previously co-founded Plumtree Software. His last TechCrunch essays were The Maximum, Beautiful Product and Searching for Beasts in Silicon Valley’s War for Talent. Follow him on Twitter @glennkelman.

Well what do you know! After writing on TechCrunch for the past year about how Silicon Valley’s Gatsbyesque wealth couldn’t find much real estate to buy, Bay Area inventory is up. Bidding wars are down. And rising rates are squeezing buyers who have to borrow money. Below is Redfin’s quarterly rundown of what’s happening in Silicon Valley real estate.

Bidding wars are less intense. Bidding wars are still common, with Redfin agents facing competition on 95 percent of all homes in May 2013, the highest of any of the 21 markets Redfin serves. For example, Redfin Silicon Valley agent Brad Le reports that this nice-enough $2 million Cupertino listing got 12 offers, and likely went under contract in June for well above $2.4 million. But fewer bidders are competing. Since Redfin publishes competitive dynamics for every offer our agents write, we measure the average number of competitors in a bidding war, which has declined from a peak of 16.3 in January to 7.8 in May. As agents, we know that demand is waning not because buyers no longer want a home but because they’ve despaired of ever being able to get one. About one in four of our Bay Area homebuyers have told us at some point in the last three months that they’re taking a break from their search out of sheer frustration.

Also-rans are left behind. The decrease in competition hasn’t changed the pricing of the most sought-after properties. But occasionally, close also-rans languish. Redfin Silicon Valley agent Mia Simon noticed that two nearly identical Mountain View homes, one slightly better looking, sold at the same time last week: The beauty queen sold for $200,000 over asking, drawing all the attention away from its neighbor, which got only one offer and sold for $150,000 less than comparable properties in the area.

Flash sales. The fact that homes are still selling very quickly may reflect a fundamental change in consumer behavior rather than simply a hot market; the median days on market for Bay Area homes that sold in May was 12 days; last year at this time it was 18. Mobile instant alerts triggered by the debut of new listings have been behind this trend, with 302 listings in May going under contract in less than 24 hours. Some of our buyers don’t even like to go into a Costco for too long if it will block the cell signal they need to get instant alerts. This has also put pressure on real estate websites to get inventory quickly. On average, brokerage sites like APR.com, ZephyrSF.com, and Redfin.com get new listings days earlier than national portals; the reason is that the brokerage sites employ real estate agents with complete, direct access to the Bay Area’s four local Multiple Listing Services.

More homes for sale. Higher prices, and perhaps the fear that higher interest rates could dampen demand later, have at last drawn would-be sellers into the market. Bay Area inventory began the year down 59 percent from 2012, but has now improved to the point that it’s only 28 percent down from this time last year; by year-end we expect 2013 inventory to be up year-over-year for the first time since 2011. Redfin’s own Bay Area listing business has increased more than 100 percent over last year. In 2013, real estate’s spring may come in summer, and summer may come in fall. Sales volume will increase, and price increases may lose steam.

More new construction coming in the East Bay and in San Francisco: Builders are often slow to respond to inventory crunches, in part because it takes time to finish projects, in part to drive profits from a run-up in demand. This is why we’ve seen line-ups, lotteries and camp-outs among buyers competing to get units as they’re released by builders. But four new projects are releasing units this summer in San Francisco, where the total number of homes has barely budged since World War II: 300 Ivy in Hayes Valley, One Rincon Hill Phase Two near the Bay Bridge, The Icon in the Mission, and Linea-built projects in the Mission like Nove.

More inside jobs: We hear more reports of pocket listings, where the listing agent sells the home to one of his own clients or to one of his partner’s clients, without offering the property to the broader market. The actual data suggests that this is common only for homes priced above $5 million. Few sellers at lower prices would ever bypass the larger market, which can draw in enough buyers to spark a bidding war. But there are other types of inside jobs. “Some Redfin clients are trying to get creative,” reports Landon Nash, Redfin San Francisco agent. “I just closed one deal with a client who asked his landlord to sell, and I have another two — which may or may not close — in the works.”

Interest-rate anxiety: With interest rates increasing since May 1, and sharply since May 22, Bay Area homebuyers have felt more pressure to buy a home soon. On June 4, interest rates exceeded 4 percent for the first time in a year. “You know how analytical we can be in the Bay Area,” said Redfin agent Brad Le. “Some of my clients know down to the dollar how much more their mortgage is per month with the current rates, and others already stretching to afford a home have been priced out by the rate increase. The buyers who remain are even more motivated to find something.”

Buyers are withdrawing money from retirement accounts to compete with more cash in bidding wars. In the past week, three different Bay Area buyers did this, despite the penalties associated with withdrawals from 401(k) accounts. Bay Area sellers continue to have a strong preference for cash buyers, to avoid a second price negotiation if an appraisal comes in low from the buyer’s lender. Buyers are also getting help from their parents. Just last month, Redfin clients living in a one-bedroom San Francisco apartment with two small children needed extra dough to avoid being priced out of the Oakland Hills market, so the parents — who were already tired of staying in hotels during visits from the East Coast — just became a party to the purchase. Virtually every Redfin agent in the Bay Area has a story about this.

Surprisingly, fewer for-sale-by-owner listings: Of the Bay Area sales closed in May, 89 percent had been listed by an agent. By comparison, 85 percent of May 2012 sales were agent-listed. Usually, when the market makes it easier to sell a home, more sellers try to do it themselves. But the Bay Area is in such a frenzy that people here are hiring an agent in even greater numbers to play the game to perfection, and to get top dollar. Of course, as real estate agents ourselves, Redfin benefits from a decline in for-sale-by-owner sales. Nonetheless, Redfin’s website is the only one I know of that shows both all the agent-listed homes for sale as well as for-sale-by-owner listings.

A decline in commissions offered to buyers’ agents, from 2.65 percent for Bay Area listings that debuted in May 2012, to 2.56 percent in May 2013. Sellers have been emboldened by the market to offer the buyer’s agent less, with no fear of steering.

A still-exclusive club: Booms usually bring an increase in the number of agents. Not in the Bay Area. In May 2012, 6,008 Bay Area agents represented homebuyers on 9,456 transactions. By May 2013, 5,540 Bay Area agents represented buyers on 8,295 transactions. Because the market here has been inventory-gated, 2013 sales actually declined 12.3 percent, whereas the number of active agents declined 7.8 percent.

What does it all mean? The Bay Area real estate market is getting back to its own version of normal, which still isn’t that normal at all.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

TechCrunch Disrupt SF is back! We’re very excited to announce tickets are on sale and that companies in stealth mode can apply for Startup Battlefield for until Wednesday, the 19. After that, we’re pulling the plug on submissions. You have less than a week.

This September 7-11, we’re bringing Disrupt back to San Francisco to welcome an all new slate of outstanding startups, influential speakers, guests and more to the stage. It marks the seventh time we’ve set up shop here in SF and once again all the action — starting with our 24 hour Hackathon — happens at The Concourse at San Francisco Design Center.

So are you ready to launch your company on the biggest startup launch stage? Tell us about it.

As in years past we’re looking for the very best startups to compete in the Startup Battlefield and walk away with the Disrupt Cup, $50,000 cash, and loads of attention. For the first two days, 30 companies will present their product to a panel of judges.

But first you have to apply. Applications are due June 19. Click here for the application and full list of rules.

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis — and the last two Disrupts had record numbers of applicants — so it’s to your advantage to submit as soon as you are ready. Due to strong demand, we are unable to review applications more than once, so please do not submit a draft application before you are ready for final consideration.

PowerPoint slides and video demos are optional but highly encouraged. We reserve the right not to review applications without video demos based on application volume. We look forward to reviewing your application.

All submissions are confidential unless otherwise permitted by applicants on the application form.

More Disrupt SF 2013 details will be announced in the coming weeks. Tickets are currently on sale at a significant discount. We have a stellar line up of speakers and panels on the docket. But we need your help. Apply for Startup Battlefield and help us make Disrupt SF 2013 the best yet.

Our sponsors help make events happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team at sponsors@techcrunch.com.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Competition is heating up in the on-demand transportation industry, but unlike other segments of the market, there’s no lock-in that keeps customers loyal to one service or another. Users looking for a way to get from one place to another seemingly only care about the cost, convenience and reliability of the service.

With that in mind, services like Uber and Lyft aren’t fighting to be the only app people use necessarily, but they definitely want to be the first app passengers turn to when requesting a ride. With convenience and reliability becoming commoditized, the next battle will be waged based on price.

Making On-Demand A Commodity

Once upon a time, Uber was pretty much the only game in town if you needed a fast, reliable alternative to hailing a cab on the street, or calling one of the local taxi dispatchers. It’s not surprising, then, that it charged a premium for that convenience and reliability. If you needed to be somewhere, it was worth it to pay a little bit more to know that a car was on its way and, well, how far away that car would be.

Over the last few years, however, competitors have popped up with on-demand ride apps of their own. On the one hand there are apps like Hailo, which allow customers users to use their phone to hail a taxi, rather than having to find one on the street, or rely on a local dispatcher. And on the other hand, there were apps like Lyft, which rely on community, non-commercially licensed drivers to get passengers from point A to point B.

In both cases, Uber’s competitors undercut its traditional black car prices by a significant margin. With convenience and reliability becoming commoditized, they’re competing on price instead.

Of course, Uber hasn’t been sitting still since its lower-cost competitors have arrived. It, too, has been working on making lower-priced options available to users. In cities like New York, that means its own e-hail taxi service. And in San Francisco and some other cities, it’s moving forward with its own peer-to-peer ride share offering as part of its UBERx service.

First App Opened

But while UBERx’s prices are lower, they’re still above the typical cost of a Lyft or SideCar ride. That’s led some in the San Francisco Bay Area to switch. Anecdotally, I know a number of people who are active users of both service in San Francisco, but tend to open the Lyft app first when they need a ride.

Price is a big reason for choosing one over the other. But the community aspect is another reason. Say what you will about the big pink mustaches on Lyft rides, or the obligatory fist bump when you enter the car of one of its drivers, but those things lend users to know what kind of experience they can expect when they get into a Lyft. (Then, again, it’s not for everyone — I know plenty of people who would prefer not to get into a conversation with their driver when requesting a ride.)

For a while, even if those users opened the Lyft app first, there was no guarantee that there would be rides available. The startup went through some growing pains in San Francisco at the beginning of the year, as demand outstripped its supply. It seems like Lyft has gotten those problems mostly under control over the last few months, as it more than doubled the number of drivers it has serving the city.

Even still, there are still times when an Uber will be available and a Lyft will not. In those cases, Uber wins the ride, but those cases are becoming rarer as Lyft removes its supply constraints and better positions its drivers.

Price Wars Are Coming

What happens if UBERx becomes cheaper than Lyft, though? That’s a scenario we will see play out soon, as Uber is poised to lower the price of UBERx fares by 25 percent, according to a memo it sent its drivers last week. While lower fares will reduce the amount drivers will make per ride, Uber is betting that the increase in volume will more than make up for it.

That’s a bet Uber likely feels comfortable making, in part because it has years of data to back it up. And it’s a bet that Uber can make in part because it has a diversified set of higher-priced services in UberBLACK and UberSUV that will be able to provide healthier margins even as it reduces fares on UBERx.

Will that make it first app opened? Or maybe only app opened? You can be the guys at Uber sure hope so.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

This week, CrunchBase released the May Excel Export Sheet, which includes charts and graphs that illustrate recent U.S. investments, acquisitions, IPOs and more. Though the charts and graphs focus on May’s data, the spreadsheet includes historical data on all U.S.-based companies that have received funding.

Nearly 10K users made more than 43K edits to CrunchBase in May, and data keeps flowing in from the CrunchBase Venture Program, which now includes more than 160 venture firms, angel groups and incubators.

Last month alone, the San Francisco Bay Area received $1.25 billion in investments spread over 22 angel, 22 Series A, 14 Series B, 17 Series C+, and 25 venture rounds. Compare that to May 2012, when the San Francisco Bay Area pulled in $1.06 billion and in 2011 $931 million. By contrast, New York companies earned $233 million in May 2013, $355 million in May 2012 and $267 million in May 2011. My good friend the SV bubble at its finest.

There is no doubt that the New York startup scene is growing, but the $120 million decrease in funding from May 2012 to May 2013 shows some instability in the area. The San Francisco Bay Area has been steadily growing and has more than four times the investments than New York, which is equivalent to 17 $60 million Lyft deals or 102 $10 million TubeMogul deals.

The SV bubble has nothing to fear — it won’t be popping anytime soon.

If you find information that is incorrect or missing, please submit updates to CrunchBase — any registered user can make changes. Download the Excel spreadsheet here. 

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Uber is planning an aggressive strike against mounting competition in the on-demand transportation market, as it will lower fares for its low-cost UberX service by as much as 25 percent in San Francisco. According to multiple drivers, UberX could see those fare reductions take hold as early as next week, as the company seeks to steal business from peer-to-peer ride services like Lyft and SideCar.

The move to lower fares comes as Uber is facing more competition from taxi e-hail apps and services that use drivers who aren’t commercially licensed. In its home market of San Francisco, Lyft, SideCar, and new entrant InstantCab all offer an alternative by connecting passengers with community drivers who have a car and the spare time, under the guise of ride sharing.

Lyft, in particular, has been growing fairly quickly, serving more than 30,000 rides per week just one year into offering its ride sharing service to the public. It’s also raised a huge, $60 million round of funding led by Andreessen Horowitz which it plans to use to fund expansion throughout the U.S. and international markets. Uber has raised about $50 million since being founded in 2009, but it has a much longer history of generating revenue and is in many more markets.

With lower-priced competition mounting, Uber has also gotten into the so-called ride-sharing business, first in California, but with plans to extend the lower-cost service into new markets. While the low-cost UberX service was first launched with commercially licensed drivers in hybrid vehicles, earlier this year Uber announced that it would also offer peer-to-peer, or ride sharing services on that platform as well.

While expanding into new markets, Uber has also been aggressively trying to recruit drivers from its competition. It’s gone so far as to hire a mobile billboard to drive around San Francisco, urging Lyft drivers to “Shave the ‘Stache” — that is, to shed the pink mustaches that adorn Lyft cars — and join its platform instead.

Uber may have previously sought to steal drivers away from its competition, but now it’s going after their customers. When the new fares go into effect, it won’t be the first time Uber has done so — the company lowered UberX rates by 10 percent when it first introduced the idea of community drivers. And over Memorial Day weekend, it reduced fares by 25 percent in the Bay Area, in a seeming reversal of its surge pricing during high-demand periods. That could have been seen as a test run for a more permanent price reduction.

While Lyft and SideCar have been entering new cities with their ride-sharing service, Uber has an early lead in most markets. In addition to the San Francisco Bay Area, Uber offers black car services in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Toronto, Paris, Berlin, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Diego, Amsterdam, Atlanta, Denver, London, Melbourne, Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Phoenix, Stockholm, Sydney, Baltimore, Detroit, Milan, Sacramento, and Singapore.

Representatives from Uber could not be reached for comment.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

It’s that time again! After an endless series of whispers and all kinds of little leaks, it’s time for the much anticipated Google I/O 2013 Keynote.

We’re live on the scene in San Francisco to bring you all of the up-to-the second news through our realtime liveblog. Join us, won’t you?

The event is scheduled to begin at 9 AM Pacific, but we’ll be bringing you photos and commentary from the scene leading up to doors opening.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Last fall, Disrupt Battlefield finalist Zumper promised to make finding an apartment in San Francisco and New York City not quite so painful. With a map-based interface and easy-to-use filters, the startup sought to differentiate itself from the status quo (*ahem* Craigslist) by providing a better way to search for, and find, available apartments.

But as with any marketplace, it needed to provide incentive for the supply side of the equation to populate its apartment rental portal with their listings. To that end, Zumper is improving the toolset that real estate brokers, agents, management companies, and landlords can use to post their available rentals. In particular, it’s releasing an iPhone app for real estate professionals that will enable them to quickly create beautiful apartment listings on the fly.

Zumper co-founder Anthemos Georgiades told me that while setting up the startup, he and his team spent weeks with brokers and apartment managers trying to understand what their pain points were. One of the issues they saw over and over was in the way that listings were created, which usually involved an agent going on location, taking photos with a point-and-shoot camera and then returning to an office to import them to a computer, all before a listing could be created.

The Zumper Pro iPhone app simplifies the whole process, providing everything a real estate professional might need to add a listing directly from his or her iPhone. That includes the ability to create a listing, enter address and relevant information (# of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, etc.), and add pictures.

They can then publish the listing or keep it private. Once posted, they can later distribute flyers on Craigslist as well through the Zumper Pro web interface. All of that can shave the whole process of listing an apartment down to under five minutes, which frees them up to do other things, like list more apartments and make more money.

Zumper was one of the finalists at Disrupt SF 2012 and has listings in San Francisco, New York City, and Chicago. But it hopes to open up nationwide in the next few months. The company had raised $1 million in seed capital from Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock, CrunchFund, NEA, Dawn Capital, The Experiment Fund, and the DeWilde family trust last May.

Oh, hey, and if you’ve read this far. We have Disrupt NY next week, with a whole new class of startups in the Startup Battlefield. Who will win this time around? Come find out!

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

There’s a sign at the back entrance to the TechCrunch San Francisco office that reads, “I’m not delusional, I’m an entrepreneur.” That sign has kept me (relatively) sane for almost three years now, as TechCrunch expanded and contracted and expanded and took me along with it.

The cartoon on the sign was drawn by artist Hugh MacLeod, who’s been illustrating the TechCrunch summer party poster for more than half a decade.

The “delusional” sign was the poster of 2010. I remember hanging 2009′s summer poster, “TechCrunch Dream Big 2009,” very prominently in my cubicle as the Web Editor at the SF Weekly. My big dream was to work for TechCrunch. We all know how that worked out.

Despite the cloying sincerity of some of these cartoons, the cheesiness that the startup ecosystem sometimes spews and that godawful theme song (TECH. CRUNCH. DISRUPT. TECH. CRUNCH. DISRUPT. TECH. CRUNCH. DISRUPT. goes its monstrous heartbeat), I love the Disrupt conference, over the three years and all six of the times I’ve attended. Next week’s Disrupt NYC will be my 7th time attending, my third as co-editor. You have three days left to buy tickets.

Last year, Gaping Void did all of the illustrations for Disrupt San Francisco, and he rose to the occasion. And made a (warning: very) promotional video about it, below.

Call me corny, but what about “The minute you learn how to give is the minute you become successful” doesn’t ring true to you? Thank you Hugh, and of course, Heather and Mike.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

At the beginning of the month, we broke the news that Google’s interesting acquisition, BufferBox, was planning on setting up shop in the Bay Area. Today, it’s clear that this wasn’t just a plan, as its co-founder proudly shared the first U.S. BufferBox location, the nicely trafficked Coffee Bar in San Francisco.

It’s no surprise that BufferBox will be setting up these shipment lockers in places that get high traffic, as it’s a more convenient experience than going to a post office or a shipping hub.

Here’s the tweet from Mike McCauley, along with the photo he shared on Instagram:

First @BufferBox pickup in SF! BOOM!! @ Coffee Bar instagram.com/p/YGy4MbE8q_/

—
Mike McCauley (@mmccauley) April 15, 2013

The location, in the Mission District of San Francisco, is a place where people could potentially route there packages to, knowing that they’re going to visit for a cup o’ joe at some point in the day anyways. The way that BufferBox works is that they give you single-use address and locker number, to have your items delivered to. Since worrying about packages being left on your doorstep, or worse, missing the package delivery altogether, is a pain, picking something up from a place that you go to every day on your way to work is appealing.

BufferBox has only been available in the Toronto area up until now, leaving people wondering what Google would do with it once it acquired them. Business went as usual in Canada in the past few months, and the team is clearly moving forward in California. Currently, the new San Francisco option is not available on their site, but I’ve reached out to the team to find out when it would be:

Another Y Combinator company, Swapbox, recently set up its own delivery lockers in San Francisco’s Nob Hill section, with plans on moving fast and furious to install more. The race is on for these two companies to spread themselves out in locations that get a lot of foot traffic. On the BufferBox site, their services are currently listed as free for a limited time.

You have to imagine that places like Starbucks are ripe for BufferBox placement, as it’s somewhere that people go continually throughout the day. Additionally, Google could easily integrate its new Shopping Express service into BufferBox’s offerings once more locations start popping up.

[Photo credit: mentalogica]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Some of us in tech are self-taught geniuses who never needed school — but that’s mostly not the case, and you know it. Great teachers in math, science, reading and other core areas have helped this generation of tech leaders get the skills they needed to succeed, and those teachers are busy training the next generation right now.

Now, help them. Here, we’ll make it easy for you: We’ve put together a meetup in San Francisco this coming Tuesday, April 16th at the Temple night club on Howard Street. Come hang out with us — and support teachers — by purchasing these $15 tickets.  All the proceeds will go to Team TechCrunch’s fund on Causes. We’re right behind Dave Morin’s Path on the leaderboard at the moment, and quite honestly we think we can take them.

Even if you can’t come out to the event, jump over to Causes and donate to help the TFA’s Bay Area efforts.

The goal is to raise $250,000 through Causes, which would fund at least 50 teachers in the Bay Area. Teach For America has been working in the Bay Area since 1991, with 430 TFA corps members working in Richmond, Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose — reaching over 30,000 students at 127 schools.

The contest will run until April 18th, and there will be two grand prizes. The individual, or team, that helps Teach For America fund the most teachers will win a table for 10 at Teach For America – Bay Area’s 3rd Annual Benefit Dinner on April 23rd, featuring keynote speaker Sheryl Sandberg.

If TechCrunch wins, we’ll give those tickets to the people or startup that contributed the most to the Team TechCrunch till. So help us beat Path, at least.

Tickets are $15 and give you entry to the event. All proceeds will be donated to Teach For America. Get your tickets here. Now.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch