RESO Releases Data Dictionary v1.3

 Last week, the Real Estate Standards Organization released the latest Data Dictionary version 1.3 for industry consumption and adoption. Like all RESO releases, this is important as it should trigger you and your vendors to make data base modifications to come into compliance with this latest database naming convention. There are a lot of changes. Real Estate agents and brokers pay handsome fees to vendors who take disparate data sets from MLSs and map them to their application. It is one of the biggest challenges to offering services. Our industry has fallen well behind in adopting these standards and it [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:03-07:00July 22nd, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on RESO Releases Data Dictionary v1.3

WAVinar eMails

WAVinar Invitation Our industry is moving really quickly these days.  There are so many challenges facing MLSs today threatening the viability of the entire industry!  Lawsuits, new players, technology revolutions, economic shifts….It is difficult and expensive to keep MLS leadership teams up to speed on the myriad of events, trends policies and legal issues and research affecting the business. MLS organizations and their leadership need to keep up on all of the trends so they can make proactive decisions to keep their organizations relevant.  That’s why the WAV Group created its new WAVinar series. The WAVinar is designed to provide [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:04-07:00July 15th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Our Services, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on WAVinar eMails

Can you Trust Your Digital Signatures?  Top 8 Ways to Know for Sure

Legal contracts are a critical part of real estate. Real estate professionals need to be sure they're providing tools to customers that protect their clients' interests as well as their own.   WAV Group with the cooperation of Docusign and Instanet have put together a set of best practices you can use to evaluate the Electronic Signature solution you may be using. Click HERE to download the information HERE. It's not always easy to sort out what those tools are, however. A simple search for "electronic signatures" on the App Store or Google Play will yield dozens of results. How can [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:04-07:00July 15th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Strategic Planning|Comments Off on Can you Trust Your Digital Signatures?  Top 8 Ways to Know for Sure

Broker Owned Portal

I have had a lot of interesting conversations with Associations of REALTORS, Broker groups, MLSs and REALTORS about portals. The same conversation has gone on for years. Used properly, they can be productive tools for online marketing. Used poorly, they can be a problem. A chief concern among brokers is that they do not participate in the revenue from the success that portals have. Simply stated, brokers understand that content has value and they recognize that others are realizing that value on the backs of their data assets. Feel free to agree or disagree. Real estate brokers around the world [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:04-07:00June 24th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off on Broker Owned Portal

Top 5 Articles of the Week

WAV Group partners, Mike Audet, Marilyn Wilson, and Victor Lund are founders of RE Technology and RETechnology.com. Today that site reaches 750,000 real estate agents and brokers though partnerships with more than 90 MLSs who deliver subscriptions to RE Technology as a member benefit. Each week, RE Technology publishes a notification to MLSs that lists the top 5 most heavily viewed articles of the week. This list goes out to our MLS partners who may, in turn, republish the articles in their own newsletter, blog, or develop content ideas for their training or communications programs. Below is the RE Technology [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:11-07:00May 27th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Marketing, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on Top 5 Articles of the Week

How to Market Yourself on Facebook WITHOUT Annoying Your Friends and Family

AGENTS! Join Marilyn Wilson for this exciting RETechinar™  where we will learn from special guest Realtor® Shaun Nilsson, the social media wizard behind CityBlast.com, as he diagrams his time-saving formula for attracting tons of new clients through social media while completely avoiding annoying your friends and contacts. In this 100% FREE online workshop, we'll show you exactly how to close more real estate commissions right now - using only your Facebook - while effortlessly projecting the confident business savvy of a seasoned professional. PLUS you'll learn how to outsource your online marketing to others and avoid wasting even one more [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:11-07:00May 20th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Marketing|Comments Off on How to Market Yourself on Facebook WITHOUT Annoying Your Friends and Family

Top 5 Articles of the Week

How to Market Yourself on Facebook WITHOUT Annoying Your Family Learn from special guest Realtor® Shaun Nilsson as he diagrams his time-saving formula for attracting tons of clients through social media whole completely avoiding annoying your friends and contacts. We'll show you exactly how to close more real estate commissions right now - using only your Facebook - while effortlessly projecting the confident business savvy of a seasoned professional. PLUS you'll learn how to outsource your online marketing to others and avoid wasting even one more minute of your valuable time each day on it!  4 Great Mobile Apps to [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:11-07:00May 19th, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category|Comments Off on Top 5 Articles of the Week

The Right and Wrong of Broker Data

There is a lot of confusion about real estate listing data today. I believe that the confusion is the cause of agitation that pits technology companies, consumers, real estate agents, pundits, MLSs, Franchises, and Associations of REALTORS against one another. For many, there is a belief that the listing data is free and access should be provided to all. The reality is that the listing data is legally bound to the real estate listing broker who is the custodian and responsible party for that data. Being a custodian, or the responsible party has nearly boundless latitude and altitude. Today’s real [...]

Video Marketing – Becoming Mainstream

With all the marketing tools at your disposable, what should you use to stand out from the competition? Staying ahead of the curve allows you to maximize your marketing ROI and attract new clients. We are all looking for the secret sauce – the way to differentiate our business from the pack and gain a strong leadership position that none of our competitors will ever be able to match. While we can dream, we can never realize this goal unless we continually look for ways to re-invent our business. To be a star in real estate, we always need to [...]

Value of Buyers Agent Diminishing, Study Reveals

WAV Group has had the pleasure of working with the Houston Association of REALTOR®’s Consumer Research Panel for over a year now. The panel has helped the organization uncover many meaningful insights that have helped share technology strategies, advocacy efforts, and educational efforts. Today, the Houston Association of REALTORS® released the findings of their “DIY: Do It Yourself” consumer research panel study. The purpose of the study was to gauge how important Houston area consumers feel agents are to the transaction.  The survey, which was fielded to the 7,000 consumers that are now a part of the industry’s largest consumer [...]

WAV Group Releases Broker Technology Adoption and Satisfaction Study

WAV Group partner Victor Lund is pleased to release the results of our recent survey to measure what technologies brokers have adopted and how satisfied they are with each. The survey also measured how likely a firm is to replace a technology supplier in 2014. In order to understand how technology plays a role by size of firm, answers were collected in ten groups ranging from firms with 1-9 agents to firms with more than 1500 agents. This report is provided to the industry with our compliments. WAV Group performs this type of research across the real estate industry to [...]

Calculating ROI on Syndication to Publishers

WAV Group provides enterprise brokers with a monitoring service to measure their listing syndication strategy. It is a thorny and emotional topic where risks and rewards are balanced delicately. Undoubtedly, this week brokers who do syndicate to publisher websites are reviewing their reports from last month. Here are a few things you should look at. Listing Views Obviously, you want to know the number of times that your listing was viewed on each publisher website. The easiest way to view listings by the publisher is to look at reports from your listing distributer – like Listhub, Point2, reDataVault, etc. If [...]