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Historically speaking, there's been no surer way to feel more
intimidated, uninformed, and frustrated than to be in the
process of buying a house. Real estate agencies often guard
information with a provincial fervor you didn't know was
even possible until you tried to find out something about that
dream home with the fireplace and were left with a chilly silence and an
unheard call to the heavens as to why it has to be this way.
e good news is, it's not going to stay that
way for much longer. In Irvine, California, a
familiar player with a brand new name, new
CEO, and direction is rewriting the playbook
on residential and commercial real estate
transactions by taking the boldest step in the
game: putting the buying and selling process in
the hands of consumers in a way they can (gasp!)
understand it.
e company is called Ten-X, a disruptive-
thinking redub of the disruptive-thinking game
changer Auction.com, which was founded in
2007 to help move foreclosed and distressed
properties online. e company quickly grew
from good idea to billion-dollar juggernaut,
with a lock on the REO market and a knack
for steady growth. In fact, by the end of 2015,
Auction.com facilitated $37 billion worth of
commercial and residential properties online.
at's about 200,000 properties in less than a
decade.
So why, one might ask, would any company
turning $8 billion a year on a highly visible and
highly recognized brand name want to change
its identity and the course of its business? Well,
in essence, the money the company makes
compared to the potential money it could make
is not in the best place it could be.
See, while $37 billion, or even $8 billion, for
that matter, is certainly a whole lot of money, it's
not much when it's compared to the $1.8 trillion
the American real estate market generates
overall. And despite being a supremely profitable
niche, the real estate market is powered by
market sales far more than by sales of distressed
properties.
So about a year and a half ago, Auction.com
brought aboard Tim Morse, a longtime tech
executive who not long ago served as interim
CEO at Yahoo! Inc., as its new chief financial
officer. Last June, it named Morse its new
CEO to reflect the new direction the company
would take. Last August, the company released
S U C C E S S P R O F I L E / S C O T T M O R G A N
THE NEXT
BIG THING
