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NAR Research disclosed the new REALTOR® demographics today in an article printed in their newsletter Real Estate Insights. This is an important strategic benchmark for service providers to the real estate industry to remember – impacting marketing communications, product usability, and support expectations.  Here is a summary. […]

Just over two years ago I was really excited about a purchase of my IBM ThinkPad. It had a really “fast” processor and “state of the art” security.  How quickly my enthusiasm waned, however.  My computer became slower and slower and more and more frustrating every day. At the same time I purchased a PC my partner Victor Lund purchased a Mac Book.  His computer was intuitive, fast and just about never crashed.  It was great for building slick graphics for power point presentations and terrific at collaborating and editing documents.  It was getting consistently “smarter” with the way it [...]

Yup, that is the call of the wild. Organized online real estate is facing the biggest change since the launch of IDX, and the seeds of that change are already beginning to sprout.The Department of Justice settlement with the National Association of REALTORS instigated changes to VOW or Virtual Office Website policies for the display of listings on an agent or broker website.   Although the settlement did little to change the IDX or Internet Data Exchange policies, it may have that unintended consequence as MLSs grapple with the best way for VOW data to be displayed. […]

Online consumer shopping behavior has changed the way consumers shop for real estate. I am currently looking for a new car. Knowing that car salesmen are notorious for creating a lot of sales pressure by trying to close the deal and negotiate the highest price they can regardless of the competition, I have avoided visiting any car dealerships yet.  To start the process I visited automotive.com.  While there I looked at every luxury sedan available and learned more about each of their unique features and benefits. Since I am a pretty loyal BMW fan, I then went to the BMWUSA.com [...]

Congratulations to the Spokane Association of REALTORS who has purchased the RELAY Transaction Management platform for all of thier members. They are deploying transaction management that ties the MLS system with Zip Forms with Relay.  Agents in their market will be able to select an mls listing, populate the forms and load them into RELAY for sharing with anyone involved in the transaction - only a click or two and no double entry of data. Great progress!  

Company: LandNet Corporation Industry: Real Estate, Internet/Web Mapping/Web Services Location: Loveland, Colorado, United States of America LandNet Corp., a provider of Internet mapping solutions, has been issued its third patent for online mapping functionality. On April 8, 2008, the U.S. Patent Office awarded patent 7,356,406 containing an additional 73 claims to the “Land Software Tool” patent 7,054,741 that was filed in 2002 and issued in 2006. Provisional patents date back seven years to 2001. The land software tools are used in conjunction with the Property Archive website technology covered under patent 7,171,389 issued in January 2007. Four other patents relating [...]

A brokerage (120 agents, 1 office in Louisville Kentucky), was looking for more than just another AVR (automated voice response) solution. Hotlines where you can call in and get recorded information about properties have been around for years. They choose VoicePad, and after 8 months here are the results… The ‘benchmark was to compare results from an Automated system to simply putting a cell phone number on a rider. Which brings more leads? In terms of ease of use (needed to get enough agents using it), mobile IDX cannot be beaten. Users do NOT have to record their own voice [...]

Fidelity launched a redesigned cyberhomes.com website today, bolstering their effort in the property search portal marketplace and putting pressure on realtor.com, Zillow and Trulia. Like most property search portals, they welcome the consumer with a quick search in the middle of the home page.  The designers also choose a rotating background so the site looks fresh with each unique visit. I found the site very easy to use with deep levels of information in areas such as schools, neighborhood statistics, sold properties, automated home valuation, and property listings. Like all third party listing portals, there are gaps in some areas [...]

Here are my notes from his excellent presentation Change is Inevitable, Growth is optional. Leadership in developing agents is critical for brokers today. The 80 20 rule is alive and well in our industry today.  Our top agents produce 80% of our revenue.  Growth lies in developing the 80% of our agents that are not producing or representing the brokers brand and service up to the standards of the company.  As brokers continue to recruit heads rather than skills, this will continue. The problem facing our industry is that only 1 in 5 consumers meet our best agents on their [...]

The newswire reported today that SentriLock,  a leading provider of electronic lockbox solutions for the real estate industry, has entered into agreements with the Honolulu Board of REALTORS®, the Chicago Association of REALTORS® and six neighboring suburban associations, as well as six boards and associations in the greater Denver area. As a result of these agreements, more than 50,000 real estate professionals will begin using SentriLock electronic lockboxes over the next 90 days. SentriLock’s lockbox solution is built upon smart card technology (like a hotel key) rather than the e-Key technology used by compeitior GE Supra. Interestingly enough, agents will now [...]

As reported here,Chase International was the first known real estate company in the world to launch a Social Network tying a community of consumers, agents, and service providers together.  Given the number of brokers who have created accounts on the Chase site, I suspect that broker social networks will have a future in real estate.  Here is why. Ning, the company that provides the social network technolgoy to Chase International and more than 250,000 other social networks is growing at a rate of 1000 social networks a day. Recently, Ning closed a round of venture financing on $60 Million at a [...]