Getty Images for Brokers

If you are like most brokers, you have received at least one threatening letter from Getty Images for using one of their images. Good news is that Getty is now allowing people to use their images for FREE! I guess all of that lawyering worked out. Or, perhaps they realized that chasing everyone for using their images was more costly than it was worth. I do not know of anyone who did anything other than ignoring the notices. In any case, Getty has changed their business model. They now allow anyone to embed their photos, but you need to do [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:15-07:00March 19th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|1 Comment
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Important Information from the NSBA

It is a great honor to be able to serve on the Board of Trustees of the National Small Business Association. Below is a piece by NSBA President and CEO Todd McCracken discussing important issues facing all small business across industries, including real estate. I look forward to sharing more valuable information like this from the NSBA with our industry! To become a member of the NSBA visit nsba.biz   Inside the Beltway - March The Monthly Update on Small-Business Policy By NSBA President and CEO Todd McCracken Small Business Policymakers On Wednesday, March 5, the Senate Small Business Committee voted [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:15-07:00March 13th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Our Services|Comments Off on Important Information from the NSBA
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How Data Killed The REALTOR

If you look at the demise of Encyclopedia Britannica, you see a clear roadmap of how history will repeat itself to cause the demise of the REALTOR®. Up until 1994, the Britannica sales associates sold about 120,000 hard copies. Salespeople consumed the most amounts of profits from the transaction. The salespeople at Encyclopedia Britannica protected their data. The three or four thousand pages of the books were protected by copyright. Then came the Internet, and more importantly, Wikipedia. The Britannica sales person was disrupted by a price point of free.  The cost of data was disrupted by user-generated content. Adapt [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:16-07:00March 13th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|7 Comments
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How A Top Agent Goes To The Next Level

A while back I did an interview with Justin Havre, who is a top real estate agent in Calgary Alberta working at CIR REALTY.  CIR is the largest independent firm in Canada with about 650 agents.  With his team, Justin Havre & Associates, he has been number one or two in his market for a number of years, (#1 team for 2011-2013) and to put things in perspective, at the time of the first interview he and his team were doing nearly 200 transactions a year. I sat down with Justin in our original interview to understand some of the [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:16-07:00March 12th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Our Services|Comments Off on How A Top Agent Goes To The Next Level
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What MRED Teaches Us About Mobile

Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) is the MLS of the Chicagoland area. It encompasses Chicago and the surrounding region. It is among the largest MLSs in the nation. As you know, here at WAV Group, we love data and charts. Any ability to track trends in our industry that are supported by data lends credence to the strategic planning efforts across our industry.   Let's take a closer examination of this graph. Copyright 2014 Chicago Agent magazine, reprinted with permission Adoption Curve The first thing you'll notice is that mobile adoption is not a hockey stick. It was in 2011 [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:16-07:00February 14th, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on What MRED Teaches Us About Mobile
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Association Standards – It’s definitely TIME!

Jeremy Conaway, Dale Stinton, and Bob Moline used the Swanepoel Trends report to push the real estate elephant into the spotlight in America. There are simply too many REALTOR® Associations not providing adequate service and support to their members. Today, 1100 of the 1400 REALTOR® Associations in America have fewer than 300 members. Many of these smaller organizations have a difficult time delivering the depth of services and training REALTORS® need to effectively serve the needs of their clients and stay relevant with all of the technology options available to today’s demanding consumers.  At the end of the day, real [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:16-07:00February 11th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Our Services|8 Comments
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Leveling the Playing Field Leads to Disaster

I read a story today about a social studies professor who engaged his students in an experiment to demonstrate the long-term effects of socialism or leveling the playing field. This is a topic that is so dear to the hearts of today's real estate brokers that I could not resist sharing the story. The day of the first test, the teacher advised the students that he would average the score of each student and issue the average grade to everyone. The students took the test. The average was a B, and everyone was given a B. As you can imagine, [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:17-07:00January 31st, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|Comments Off on Leveling the Playing Field Leads to Disaster
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Brokers Should Update Their Contracts Now!

Brokers and agents can protect their online reputation with a small change in their contracts with consumers and terms of use on their websites. If you have not taken a look at the HomeActions newsletter recently, you should. They write consumer articles that brokers or agents can send as newsletters or blog posts to their customers. It is one of my favorites. In today's issue, they talk about the potential liability that a consumer may face if they publish a negative review about a service provider. In essence, companies are requiring customers to agree not to publish any negative remarks [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:18-07:00January 23rd, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|1 Comment
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Why Brokers Get Upset With Their MLS

Some of our time at WAV Group involves supporting brokers and their technology vendors at problem solving. Yesterday we encountered an issue with the data feed to a vendor. The vendor claimed that everything was working. The broker knew this was not the case. So we got on a call and did a screen share to match the listings in their system to the listings in the MLS. The marketing staff member for the broker is not a savvy expert of using the MLS. But the broker does pay associate fees every month so she has access and she goes [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:18-07:00January 22nd, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Our Services|1 Comment
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Agents Only Get 12 Leads a Year

Returning from the Real Estate Connect Conference (aka Inman NYC), you would think that any agent or broker who is not 100% dedicated to cultivating the online customer is doomed. Yet surprisingly, nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, if you read between the lines of a recent press release from Realogy, the global leader in size for a real estate group, your take away might be that online marketing and lead generation is a complete distraction and waste of time and money. Headline: Realogy's LeadRouter System Delivers Record 3 Million Online Leads to Its Affiliates in 2013, [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:18-07:00January 21st, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Our Services|5 Comments
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Cartavi Adds Gusto to Version 3.3

Since being acquired by DocuSign, Cartavi has been working away at developing the golden triangle of the real estate document management echo system: Forms, Signature, and Storage. Better yet, they focus on making it happen on mobile first. Before this new release, signing a document was kind of clunky. You had to open your document in DocuSign, add signatures, sign it, then pull the completed document back into Cartavi. Now, you can sign any document right inside of Cartavi using DocuSign Ink. New Integrations They took a complicated workflow and narrowed it down. When you look at a document today [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:18-07:00January 20th, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Press Releases, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on Cartavi Adds Gusto to Version 3.3
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NAR REach Program Accepting New Applicants

Here is a note from Constance Freedman, Managing Director of NAR's venture capital arm, Second Century Ventures. If you have a business that would benefit from NAR support, be sure to submit your application. It is an online process at www.narreach.com On 01/06/14 12:42 PM, Constance Freedman wrote: -------------------- Friends, Applications for NAR’s 2014 REach™ class are now open - please help us spread the word! REach™ is a strategic accelerator launched last year in conjunction with the National Association of Realtors® to help great technology companies gain access to the $1 trillion real estate industry. The opportunity for companies to [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:20-07:00January 6th, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off on NAR REach Program Accepting New Applicants
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