Redfin CEO vows to ‘drink his own urine’ if mortgage rates don’t fall

He really said it: When Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman was asked in regards to the company’s “Plan B” if mortgage rates didn’t come down, he replied, “Plan B is to drink our own urine or the blood of our competitors and stay in the trenches.”

It wasn’t at some informal, off-the-record meeting. It was on a call about Redfin’s second-quarter earnings, the type of call where executives typically stick to bland, upbeat platitudes—a call that transcribed on investor relations web sites.

The real estate website’s revenue was higher than expectedbut Wall Street analysts have focused on the prospects for the larger housing market. At one point, Kelman compared the present market to the “Twilight Zone,” declaring, “I can’t remember a time when (mortgage) rates have fallen this low, this fast, and the market has responded this mutedly. And we just have to believe that (it’s going to go up).”

To put it clearly, he hopes the market will improve, but he is not counting on it.

After promising to drink various bodily fluids, Kelman added: “The last earnings call ended with me singing a line from The Who’s song ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, where I said we weren’t going to get low interest rates when other people thought they might go down… We’re ready to take share if the market goes up, we’re ready to take share if it doesn’t, but we’re not going to let up.”

Finally, just before the decision ended, Kelman expressed slight regret over his selection of words: “We’ll drink the piss before the blood. Actually, I’d rather not say that. I’m a lover, not a fighter.”