It’s not a joke: when asked about the company’s “Plan B” if mortgage rates don’t decrease, Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman responded: “Plan B is to drink our own urine or the blood of our competitors and keep fighting.”
This wasn’t an informal chat but rather the conference call to discuss Redfin’s second-quarter results, a type of event where executives typically stick to optimistic talking points, and the transcripts are usually available on investor relations websites.
The real estate website’s earnings exceeded expectations, but Wall Street analysts focused on the overall outlook for the housing market. At one point, Kelman compared the current market to “The Twilight Zone,” stating: “I can’t recall a time when [mortgage] rates dropped so much, so quickly, and the market responded so calmly. We just have to trust that [it will improve].”
To be clear, he expects the market to improve, but he’s not counting on it.
Following his aforementioned promise to ingest various bodily fluids, Kelman added: “The last earnings call ended with me singing a line from a song by The Doctor, Won’t Get Fooled Again, where I said we weren’t counting on low rates when others thought they might drop […] We’re ready to gain market share if the market grows, and we’re ready to gain market share if it doesn’t, but we’re not going to relax.”
Finally, just before the call ended, Kelman expressed a bit of regret for his choice of words: “We’ll drink our urine before the blood. Actually, I wish I hadn’t said that. I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
By: Nestor Castillo, ForAllTechNews Director
Photo credits: Creator Randy Stewart / Copyright: Creative Commons Atribution Sharealike