There have been a ton of articles this week concerning the Zillow acquisition of Showing Time for a cool half-billion dollars. My eye caught an article in Inman that noted “Before the consumer even begins the transaction, there are two key parts to the “pre-transaction” phase of the real estate ecosystem, both search and showing. Zillow now owns both of those with the leading consumer search portal and now the acquisition of ShowingTime. “

“If they added lockbox, that would be the end of that,” Gary Keller said. “That would be it. I could find a home, I could make an appointment, I could go see it, and I could get inside it.”

As soon as I read the Keller comment about adding the lockbox element, I texted my friend Jonathan Martis, CEO of Kleard with this midnight prediction: “Get ready, Jonathan, I believe your phone is going to start ringing off the wall with calls from acquisition suitors.”