MetroList® gives agents powerful new mortgage affordability tool

  Agents using RatePlug technology report faster sales cycle, provide better data to buyers Naperville, IL (Chicagoland) – August 24, 2016 – For the first time, MetroList® agents and homebuyers will be able to view on MetroList – their local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) – total monthly housing payments for every property listed for sale, including current mortgage rates, taxes, assessments, and home owners insurance information. MetroList Services Inc., the largest MLS in Northern California has released RatePlug’s new mortgage technology to its more than 17,000 real estate brokers and agents in Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado, Yolo, San Joaquin, Stanislaus [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:07-07:00August 24th, 2016|Broker-Agent Information, MLS Insights|Comments Off on MetroList® gives agents powerful new mortgage affordability tool

Georgia MLS Launches Black Knight’s Paragon MLS System

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Aug. 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Black Knight Financial Services (NYSE: BKFS) announced that Georgia MLS(GAMLS) has launched the Paragon MLS system after a smooth and successful conversion process. GAMLS extended its long-term partnership with Black Knight by signing a multi-year agreement to use Paragon, Black Knight’s comprehensive, leading-edge MLS system that offers intuitive and straightforward navigation, cross-browser compatibility, multi-tasking capabilities and access from mobile devices. GAMLS is one of the largest multiple listing service (MLS) organization in the Southeast, with over 3,100 offices and more than 31,000 agents and appraisers.  “We are committed to providing smooth implementations and exceptional [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:07-07:00August 23rd, 2016|MLS Insights|Comments Off on Georgia MLS Launches Black Knight’s Paragon MLS System

CoreLogic Earns Real Estate’s Top Award as “Most Innovative” Company

When you dominate an industry by market share as CoreLogic does in real estate, there are certain adjectives that become elusive. One of them is “innovative.” That’s because Conventional Wisdom in real estate says that when it comes to tech firms, it’s only the ones with the shiniest and newest objects – run by the new kids on the block – that are deemed innovative. Certainly, it’s not a word typically used to describe a company founded in the early 1990s. Yet about 10 days ago, something remarkable happened in the City of San Francisco, one of the bastions of [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:07-07:00August 17th, 2016|Broker Technology Research, Press Releases|Comments Off on CoreLogic Earns Real Estate’s Top Award as “Most Innovative” Company

Does Your Email Blast Stack Up?

MLSs and Brokerages struggle constantly with how to build communications that break-through to their agents.   Sometimes, it’s hard to know how your marketing efforts stack up against others, so I thought I would share this study to give all of us some perspective. As all online marketers know, open rate and click through rate are two key metrics that need to be closely monitored to ensure that you getting the bang for your marketing buck! According to a recent study called the 2016 Email Marketing Benchmarks Study    th published by IBM, the average click through of emails sent in the [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:07-07:00August 16th, 2016|Broker-Agent Information, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Does Your Email Blast Stack Up?

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