Remember the private equity boom that lasted a few months in 2006.  Realogy, with brands like Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Sotheby’s, Better Homes and Gardens and ERA were looked quite charming to Apollo Management - now their financing has hit the fan.  They are in the process of getting the bond holders who financed the deal to forgive a significant amount of the debt in turn for preferred payouts if the company fails.  This can also be referred to as a Cram Down - as in, if you want to get paid, we will be cramming this new valuation down [...]

CEO Bob Bemis of Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service, aka ARMLS is in the process of presenting a public listing website proposal to the ARMLS board of directors.  Someone alerted the Arizona Republic, the local newspaper who picked up the story. The familiar arguments supporting and desentiing the strategy of public websites are mentioned in the article…..And so it goes.  MLSs who are courageous enough to lead their membership through difficult strategic discussions deserve a lot of credit.  Many CEOs in Bob’s position could easily take the political route and duck the issue.  Koodos to Bob. Listings are everywhere.  Today there are [...]

in the 2008 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers released in October, the National Association of REALTORS (NAR) provided research that leads us down a path to understanding why MLS Websites become so popular, so quickly with consumers. Russ Bergeron of SoCal MLS saw traffic on their new website grow beyond 100,000 unique visitors per month within a few months of launch with no advertising or promotion! Although the sample was narrow, WAV Group reported in their MLS Website Consumer Effectiveness Research that consumers trust the MLS Website because it offers the most accurate and timely listing information with no sales pressure. There has [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Whenever any member of the WAV Group is invited to speak at a conference, it is an honor.  However, this is perhaps the honor of the year for our team.  John Brian Losh of Who's Who in Luxury Real Estate has invited Marilyn Wilson and Victor Lund to his group's exclusive European conference in Paris, January 21st - 23rd. Having worked with brokers to launch thier brands overseas, and worked with foreign brokers to launch their businesses in the Americas, WAV Group understands the challenges.  Moreover, we have had some experience marketing HyperLuxury properties. As we consider the topics related [...]

Here we go again. The last time a discussion about real estate websites was mentioned on TechCrunch, it led to more than 100 commented posts.  Not surprising, the good folks at TechCrunch are now seeing that there is a major audience listening to anything about real estate technology. Today’s post says that MLS Tired of Zillow, Trulia: Goes Direct To Consumers Homesdatabase has been around for more than 10 years, but as the post accurately points out, this new website will soon replace the power of third party websites in the midlantic states, bring the consumer closer to accurate and timely [...]