Enroll for WAVes of Change Today!

WAVes of Change is a quarterly webinar series that is produced to keep executives and board members current on industry changes and opportunities for operational excellence. Program Overview The WAVes of Change Webinar Series is designed to empower Association, MLS and Broker professionals across North America to make well-informed decisions that help propel their organizations forward. The series is intended to educate your staff, Board of Directors and other invited guests without having to attend multiple events and read scores of journals and research reports. Because WAV Group works with several MLSs, Associations, Brokerages and Technology Companies we bring several [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:07-07:00August 16th, 2016|WAVes of Change|Comments Off on Enroll for WAVes of Change Today!

The Refugee Olympics

Please welcome Camilla Harvey to the team at WAV Group. She has been with the firm for about 9 months. She is now a permanent resident of the United States seeking citizenship. Prior to joining WAV Group, Camilla spent time in West Africa understanding the plight of people living in Ghana. She brings a perspective to WAV Group that enriches our office culture. Camilla and I were looking at the Olympic medal count during a break and we recognized a new nation called “The Refugee Olympic Team.” Camilla followed her intrigue and researched this odd group bringing forth this article [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:07-07:00August 16th, 2016|Main category|Comments Off on The Refugee Olympics

Shady Discount Broker

As a consumer, I seek to keep myself aware of services offered by brokerage firms across the county. It’s a bit of a passion of mine. A story run byNBC caught my eye: “New Real Estate Technology from Homecast Empowers Home Sellers to Sell Without An Agent.” As I browsed through it, my stomach began to churn a bit. First off, they seem to talk about being a technology company, but most the article talks about how they advertise listings on third party listing websites – specifically Realtor.com, Zillow, and Trulia, but also on the MLS. They offer to represent [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:07-07:00August 16th, 2016|Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Shady Discount Broker

What Does Your Website Say About You?

Websites are the public faces of real estate professionals.  No other single marketing tool comes close to equalling the importance of a  website.  They deliver the first images and words about an agent or a brokerage that prospective clients and customers see. If a site doesn’t connect with  consumers in a matter of seconds; that first impression could be a real estate professional’s last chance to win a new account.  Sites that consistently fail to be compelling can do serious damage to a perfectly competent real estate practice. Yet hundreds of thousands of agents and brokers publish sites that miss [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:07-07:00August 16th, 2016|Broker Technology Research|Comments Off on What Does Your Website Say About You?

Social Networks vs. Local Expertise: A New Challenge for Brokerages

The opinions and experiences of friends and acquaintances have always shaped the way people think about buying, owning and selling homes.  New research suggests that the social networks that influence attitudes towards real estate decision-making today are more likely to be national, not local, and the consequences could be serious.  Thus, consumers are making critical decisions about buying, selling, owning or renting in part based not on conditions in the markets where they live but on the experiences of friends who may live across the continent. The new way people think about real estate presents real challenges to real estate [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:08-07:00August 16th, 2016|Broker Technology Research|Comments Off on Social Networks vs. Local Expertise: A New Challenge for Brokerages

Zillow Group Buys Bridge to Go Upstream

Zillow Group announced the purchase of Bridge Interactive, making them the provider of listing input in a number of MLSs, and the data distribution manager in many others. In some ways, Bridge Interactive is like Upstream, but not a competitor. Bridge is about helping brokers solve data problems and may become a conduit that more easily permits Upstream to allow brokers to deliver listing content to MLSs. Throughout the process of developing the Request for Proposal for Project Upstream, the technology workgroup evaluated many technology offerings. At the end of the day, there were three pieces to the Upstream puzzle that [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:08-07:00August 16th, 2016|MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off on Zillow Group Buys Bridge to Go Upstream

Impact of CoreLogic and Graphiq Deal

Earlier this month, Santa Barbara based Graphiq and CoreLogic announced an agreement between the two companies. As it turns out, Graphiq has been providing services to other areas of CoreLogic before expanding their relationship to the Real Estate Solutions group managed by Chris Bennett. Graphiq is a company that takes big data and turns it into something they call Visualizations (think graphs and charts). There are two features which make Graphiq unique. First is that Graphiq can handle CoreLogic’s volume of property data and second, they provide visualizations that are embeddable, update dynamically, and can be accessed using an API. [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:08-07:00August 16th, 2016|Broker Technology Research, Main category|Comments Off on Impact of CoreLogic and Graphiq Deal

Baird and Warner Dropping Big Bombs

With great interest, WAV Group noticed that Baird and Warner announced in July that they are partnering with BombBomb™ in offering their video solution. Historically, WAV Group has always understood BombBomb as an agent video solution. We believe that Baird and Warner may represent the largest firm to deploy their solution across their enterprise. We caught up with Laura Ellis, President of Residential Sales at Baird and Warner to understand the strategy. For Baird and Warner, many agents in their company had found BombBomb on their own.  This is how the company started to become aware of the service. Overall, [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:08-07:00August 16th, 2016|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|Comments Off on Baird and Warner Dropping Big Bombs

5 Ways CEOs Fail When Being Interviewed

Years ago, I worked with Anne Ready, who founded Ready for Media, perhaps the best media training firm in Los Angeles. Working with Anne laid the foundation in my PR education early on when it came to media training. I have relied on her tools, tricks and tactics to help me through the years to teach CEOs how to prepare and be prepared when working with reporters. Having worked for some of the largest financial institutions in the world, I also have had the unique opportunity to interact with C-level (CEOs, COOs, Chairs, CMOs, CTOs, etc.) executives in preparing them [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:09-07:00August 16th, 2016|Main category|Comments Off on 5 Ways CEOs Fail When Being Interviewed

Understanding the 4 “L’s” of Strategic PR

We’re often asked at the WAV Group, “What makes your PR services different?” It’s a great question, as frankly most public relations firms don’t specialize solely in real estate and real estate technology PR. Moreover, many PR firms today provide an unbalanced focus on social media and largely ignore regularly engaging, directly, with traditional media. At WAV Group Communications, we think the better approach is Strategic PR, and it’s our great differentiator. To understand what makes Strategic PR plans and execution different, let’s take a look at the 4 “L’s” that explain the differences between what we do and what [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:10-07:00August 16th, 2016|Strategic Planning|Comments Off on Understanding the 4 “L’s” of Strategic PR

Imprev Study: Upstream garners remarkable support

Going into Real Estate Connect San Francisco, Upstream CEO Alex Lange should be all smiles when he reads the latest Thought Leader Survey – an Upstream-focused study – from real estate marketing automation leader Imprev. The latest Imprev study released today shows that 84% of the more than 300 top real estate execs participating say they “support” Upstream. Alex already had a strong wind of momentum at his back after releasing, to much praise, the new Upstream website. Upstream is also nominated for a 2016 Innovator Award by Connect conference organizer, Inman News. The nomination in itself is a considerable [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:10-07:00August 2nd, 2016|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Marketing, Press Releases, Suveys and Research|Comments Off on Imprev Study: Upstream garners remarkable support

RESO Continues to Expand it’s Influence and Leadership

The dedicated staff at the Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) and thousands of volunteers from companies across the globe have labored away at the arduous task of creating consistent data standards to be used by all MLSs, technology companies and brokerages.  They have set the stage for a ton more efficiency and innovation in our industry. The RESO Data Dictionary is now available through nearly 550 MLSs across the country serving nearly 1.2mm REALTORS® today and the RETS data transportation standard has been adopted by every MLS organization and successfully utilized over the past 16 years since its inception. RESO’s [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:10-07:00August 2nd, 2016|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Marketing|Comments Off on RESO Continues to Expand it’s Influence and Leadership