Wav Group

Inman released the speaker list for the New York Connect conference taking place January 8th.

MLS 2014: 5 things to do right now to get ready
Top visionaries share the 5 things you must be aware of to best position your MLS for the next 5 years.

Moderated by Victor Lund, Partner, WAV Group

• Beverley Faull, General Manager & Senior Vice President, Fidelity National Information Services
• Mark Lesswing, Sr. Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, NAR
• Saul Klein, President & CEO, Internet Crusade / CEO, Point2 Technologies
• Brian Larson, Attorney at Law, Larson/Sobotka Business Advisors, LLC

For more information on the conference, visit the inman site

Here is the list of speakers

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Thanks to the federal government for bailing out huge corporations - hopefully they will bail out my stock portfolio too!

So whats the difference between being underwater on a mortgage and underwater on a stock ? Is it that “experts” will tell you to hold the stock in hopes of it going up in value and then explain that those with homes worth less than their mortgages shouldnt feel bad about breaking their mortgages and defaulting ?

I think “Buy and Hold” for stocks is one of the all time great marketing scams. Ignore it. Always.

“Buy and Hold” for your house is a mantra you should always live by. The difference ?

You can live in your house. You get utility from your house. You may get a deduction for interest paid on your tax bill. You can develop a positive emotional attachment to a house.

A share of stock….well you can…you can look up the price anytime you want if you think thats fun. There is no utility of a share of stock beyond its financial value. The value of a house is that its your home.

The fact that you may be underwater in your mortgage is of no relevance if you can make the payments.

If you can make the payments on your mortgage, it shouldnt matter if your house is worth 10pct of your mortgage. If you can make the payments, make them.

I remember being freaked out watching as my rate on my Adjustable Rate Mortgage went up and up as I watched the value of my house go down. For 2 years my rate went up, my house value went down. Fortunately, I liked living here.  So I keep paying the note every month. In spite of the financial pain.\

Then a funny thing happened. Interest rates started to go down. I didnt even know it until I got my notice saying that my mortgage payment would go down. The value of my house wasnt going up, but at least for now, my payments are low. It has taken years, but I actually built equity in the house.

Here is a snap shot of a Trulia performance report sent to a Cenutry 21 Hometown agent on the Central Coast of California.  Rick has 11 listings on Trulia and was delivered 14 click throughs.  This number is remarkably close to the effectiveness of listing syndication from our Northern Nevada MLS Listhub case study.  Agents should expect to get a little more than one web visit per listing today on Trulia.  Perhaps there are exceptions to this forecast, but nevertheless this evidence is an indicator.

Lets help Rick together.

Please post about Rick’s website and link to him from your blog or twitter page.

http://www.luxuryhomesinarroyogrande.com/

Also be sure to visit his website.

Like the fires that are ripping through California today, CARETS, the Southern California data sharing initiative is improving access to MLS information for brokers and agents.

Welcome to The World of CARETS®

CARETS - NOT a promise of things to come tomorrow: CARETS is live TODAY.

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Piles and Piles of consumers are visiting Zillow every day to look at home values and browse listings.  Sounds like a great place to advertise if you are an agent or broker, perhaps?  Does anyone really know?

A long time ago I learned that simple logic often leads to bad choices.  In the simplest terms, if consumers are looking for real estate information on Zillow, and I advertise on Zillow, those customers will come to my website, convert into a lead, and use one of our agents to buy or sell their home.  Seems like a logical conclusion and we have confidence that the results will be good (since one of our broker friends is about to buy the zillow farm).

WAV Group is working with a midsized Century 21 brokerage with 10 offices for the case study.  This broker has completely withdrawn from all print advertising and is making the move to 100% online advertising…. living the dream!

We are in the methodology development phase right now, but if your listings are on zillow.com today, you may want to follow these tips from Sara Bonert.

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