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 about 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.”

This wasn’t at some informal, off-the-record meeting. It was on a call about Redfin’s second-quarter earnings, the kind of conversation in which executives typically stick to bland, upbeat platitudes—the kind of conversation that gets transcribed on investor relations websites.

The real estate website’s earnings beat expectations, but Wall Street analysts focused on the prospects for the larger housing market. At one point, Kelman compared the current market to the “Twilight Zone,” declaring, “I can’t remember 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’s 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 some share if the market goes up, we’re ready to take some share if it doesn’t, but we’re not going to let up.”

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