Exciting news was announced today! Clareity has been purchased by CoreLogic. CoreLogic purchased the security company and the consulting company. Gregg and the entire Clareity team Corelogic logobecame part of the CoreLogic family effective today. WAV Group congratulates both companies.

What it means for the industry…..

I reached out to a few people to get their opinions and here is what I found.

Inman News Summary – For the most part, this acquisition will be business as usual for all clients of Clareity. For obvious reasons, a lot of the comparative services that Clareity has provided will be carefully considered – ie – vendor selection or maybe MLS competitive survey. They are not shuttering the consulting services.

Matt Cohen’s opinion is that CoreLogic intends to maintain the same policies with Clareity supporting competing MLS systems. Clareity will join Realist, ePropertyWatch, Listing Data Checker, Trestle, and the many other products that can service any MLS regardless of the core system. We will just carry on as usual.

David Friedman, CEO of Boston Logic commented that he “did not know they were shopping.” Boston Logic is actively acquiring real estate technology companies and recently announced the acquisition of Property Base on June 1st of this year. The transaction was somewhat significant, but not reported.

WAV Group’s surprise was that the companies have decided not to release the price of the transaction or the revenue of Clareity at the time of the transaction.  CoreLogic’s auditors probably set a threshold on material acquisitions that may not have been pierced. However, WAV Group suspects that the terms of the transaction could be shared publicly or filed with the SEC within a reasonable amount of time. CoreLogic is meticulous and hygienic when it comes to the obligations of a public company. Keep your eyes peeled.

Ken Jenny pointed out that “Clareity Security’s prime feature is insuring tat every agent pays for MLS access. I suspect that Clareity Security is installed on most CoreLogic accounts. If nothing else, CoreLogic will be assured that they get paid for every seat in the MLS. I whish MLSs would invest as much in protecting data. The biggest security breach is going out via data feeds. MLSs should worry about that as a priority rather than a few real estate agents not paying the dues. The MLS is a very unsecure place to keep data.”

Stefan Swanepoel had no comment but encourages small MLSs to participate in his upcoming information sharing about “How to consolidate.” I suspect that he is saving the good stuff for the next Swanepoel Trends Report.

Prem Luthra of Elm Street Technology weighed in via text from an airplane. Elm Street has also been on an acquisition trail lately, and recently signed a deal with This Old House to license all of their video content for agent, broker, and MLS consumer sites. Luthra suggested that this is a union of two companies that have long standing working relationships. “It helps CoreLogic vertically integrate with their customers though single sign on, consulting, or knowledge to improve the consumer experience.” Congratulations to both CL and Clareity.

Steve Barnes of Homesnap (operators of the Broker Public Portal via Joint Venture) said by text: “Providing tomorrow’s technology to agents requires significant investment, scale and technical know-how, plus an ability to navigate the politics and rules of our complex industry. From this perspective, CoreLogic’s acquisition of Clareity makes a ton of sense. The Broker Public Portal and Homesnap announced in June that brokers representing 550,000 agents are benefiting from the fair display guidelines. The initiative is on track to hit nearly the entire industry within 18 months – possibly a year. A key goal of that initiative is to plug Homesnap into MLS Client portals to absorb the monthly 200 Million consumer emails that are transmitted from MLS systems today.”

“It’s an adroit move for both companies,” says Alex Lange, President and CEO of UpstreamRE. “Clareity has broad penetration with a reputation as a trusted counselor. The acquisition extends CoreLogic’s customer reach and delivery platform.  Clarity gains the leverage and resources to push their product offering. I’m looking forward to the innovation Gregg, and the Clareity team have on the horizon.”

Michael Wurzer, CEO of Flexmls creator FBS, said, “I’m very happy for the Clareity team and interested to see where CoreLogic takes their dashboard products. Brokers, Associations, and MLSs are all vying to be a key value provider to their agent customers and balancing those needs will continue to be critical for MLS software providers. On a separate note, the industry will miss having Matt doing MLS system reviews and it will be interesting to see if anyone new steps into that space.”

James Harrison, CEO of MLS Listings who has had decades of business interactions with both companies wrote by email “This is a strong move by both companies. Not only does Clareity compliment Corelogic products, but Gregg and his team are absolutely the strongest acquisition Corelogic has ever made. This move significantly changes the game for Corelogic with Gregg as part of their team!”

Chris Bennett, General Manager of CoreLogic Real Estate Services contributed the following in his newsletter: “Why did we add Clareity to our suite of products? I’m a big fan of middleware, especially in our industry. There’s so many vendors and applications out there that a product like the Clareity Dashboard™ is essential to create order out of chaos. Single sign-on and secure authentication is vital to simplify this ever-spiraling tangle of technology. And it’s only getting more complicated with new vendors entering the fray every day. With over 250 application integrations and over 850,000 real estate professionals connected, Clareity is a solid platform to make these connections. Our goal is to provide tools ensuring real estate agents spend their time selling houses and serving clients—not pulling their hair out trying to make all their technology apps talk to each other! I see what we are doing here is offering a cohesive platform that unites the industry. That’s why CoreLogic + Clareity = Simplicity. “