Victor Lund, Author at WAV Group Consulting

Earthcomber sues real estate mobile app developers

Mobile real estate applications are the largest growth area in real estate technology. This is why so many people are attending online school to learn app development. Like anything expanding rapidly, there is big opportunity at stake, and pioneers who filed patents for methods of delivering mobile solutions are working hard to protect their intellectual property. We saw a similar pattern in real estate when mapping was experiencing great growth in real estate. As you may recall, that ended with the National Association of REALTORS® negotiating an industry wide settlement widely known as CIVIX. In that settlement, a combination of Associations, MLSs, and [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:16-07:00January 20th, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off

Consumers Prefer Referrals

WAV Group Research does a lot of consumer research on behalf of MLSs and Associations. We also do research for State Associations of REALTORS and the National Association of REALTORs. One of the best member benefits is the research that is provided to the real estate professional by these groups. The National Association of REALTORS has a great research team. The data that they publish on consumer attitudes about Real Estate and the process of buying and selling homes using a REALTOR are awesome sources of education, training, and strategic development for your business. One of my favorite ways to [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:17-07:00January 18th, 2012|Broker-Agent Information|Comments Off

How Listhub’s Real Estate Network Works

It is not uncommon for detailed questions to arise whenever there is major change afoot in the real estate industry regarding data. Listhub’s announcement of the launch of the Real Estate Network precipitated many questions regarding a broker’s ability to manage and control websites that display their data. The Listhub Real Estate Network includes the opportunity for any broker to publish listings on Century 21, Coldwell Banker, RE/MAX, and the Realty Executives websites. WAV Group has researched this topic of the Real Estate Network with executives from Listhub and we have great news to report. They did it right the [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:17-07:00January 17th, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning, Technology Evaluation|5 Comments

What real estate can learn from Zappos cyber attack

Zappos, a division of Amazon focused on online shoe sales announced that their customer database of 24 million customer records was hacked over the weekend. Fortunately, the credit card database was not accessed. This is a huge problem for Zappos. They will now need to go through a process of getting all 24 million customers to update their password, and notify each user that their username and password have been stolen. The implications of this hacker stealing this information is far reaching. Many consumers use a familiar username and password for accessing commonly used websites. If you have ever set [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:17-07:00January 16th, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|2 Comments

Pacific Union International Announces New VP of Digital Marketing

Pacific Union International is proud to announce the arrival of CC Holland as Vice President, Digital Marketing. CC is recognized as one of the premier brand and content strategy marketing executives in the San Francisco Bay Area. “We outlined our digital media strategy last Fall and we will now begin to execute. Our confidence in our business strategies, marketing platform, CC Holland and this new digital media initiative should help to provide for exceptional performance in 2012.” CC Holland joins PUI with an extraordinary content strategy background and an intense familiarity with how to use content strategy to complement and [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:17-07:00January 12th, 2012|Main category, Press Releases|1 Comment

Real Estate Digital to build new MLSLI Consumer Website

Although Real Estate Digital is a new brand in the real estate industry, the management and owners of the company are industry vetrans whose consumer website prowess dates back to the first consumer property search solutions. Real Estate Digital was formed when former LPS company executives formed the new company with assets acquired from LPS early in the fourth quarter of 2011. Since Real Estate Digital began standing on its own, they have shown a remarkable, albeit somewhat predictable ability to transition customers over to the new company and continue the growth of the products under their new brand (THINK [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:17-07:00January 11th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases, Strategic Planning|1 Comment

MOVE launches the Real Estate Network for Franchises

Franchise Networks have taken the first step to declare their independence from the MLS rules and regulations, and third party listing websites. Today MOVE, operators of REALTOR.com and the Listhub listing syndication network, announced that they have created a data sharing solution called the Real Estate Network. Participant in the network include the two largest REALOGY networks of Century 21 and Coldwell Banker along with Realty Executives and RE/MAX. Under the terms of the agreement, the four participating Franchise Organizations will reciprocate in a listing data share of property listings for public display each other’s franchise websites. New Century 21 [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:17-07:00January 11th, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases, Strategic Planning|10 Comments

Trend MLS launches Find from MOVE

It has been about a year now, and Move has successfully launched the Find product into many of the nations’ leading MLSs. In score with this roll out, today Find launched in Trend MLS, serving 15 counties in southern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware is the latest MLS to launch the product. You may know that Trend MLS is what industry insiders call a “home grown” system – meaning that they are responsible for programming the MLS software. Owning the code and having programmers on staff means that tighter and more elegant implementations of third party products are possible within the [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:18-07:00January 10th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off

Why Dominant MLSs are Vulnerable
Gallery
Why Dominant MLSs are Vulnerable

Main category, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation

Why Dominant MLSs are Vulnerable

Today, there are numerous MLSs that have become dominant companies relative to their smaller competitors. In the world of survival of the fittest, one would assume that the large and strong eat the small and weak. But this is not necessarily true. For the purposes of this writing – I am using the term MLS to refer to MLS vendors and Regional MLSs. Most MLSs in the United States grew through merger and acquisition than through organic growth. As these companies began to reach dominant scale, they realized that they could provide agents and brokers quality MLS services more efficiently. [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:18-07:00January 9th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|1 Comment

Instanet launches information website about REIS suit

The lawsuit Instanet vs. REIS and Florida REALTORS has taken an interesting twist this weekend. Instanet launched a public information website about the lawsuit called TransparencyisGood.com. Before I talk about the website, I would add that REIS is not commenting publicly on this matter. In an informal statement they advise the following: “Federal litigation is a serious matter and should never be entered into lightly. REIS declines to engage in a public debate about legal matters that are best left for the Court to decide. Anyone interested in reviewing the complete public record, rather than just selected documents, may contact our attorney, [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:18-07:00January 8th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning|2 Comments

Smarter Agent throws arrow at Zillow and others

Brad Bloomberg of Smarter Agent is a fighter, and I like that. He takes a position and battles from his corner of the ring. Today, he released a blog post on their company website goes nose to nose with Zillow, Trulia and REALTOR.com. Given that his company is suing them all for patent infringement (another story) – they will never be friends anyway. But this new war is one about his view of listing syndication. Post Title : Listing Aggregators like Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com can Erode the Value of your Business. The money quote: ……(syndication) “devalues the business of.. [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:18-07:00January 7th, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Marketing, Sales Advisory, Strategic Planning|3 Comments

RE Technology Plans Joomla 2.5 Launch

Real estate technology portal, RE Technology (www.RETechnology.com) is working to utilize the benefits provided by the Joomla community to develop their second generation website on the new Joomla 2.5 platform. RE Technology, a business education and product research portal for the real estate industry is among the most visited Joomla websites in the world. Other major companies developing on the Joomla include Tesco, the third largest retailer in the world, Avis, Nikon, Citibank (intranet), and Harvard University. ‘The new Joomla 2.5 is being released this January” says Chris Murtagh, lead developer on the RETechnology.com website. “We are excited to deploy [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:19-07:00January 6th, 2012|Main category, Press Releases, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off

About Victor Lund