LPS Real Estate Group launches new website by 1000Watt Consulting

LPS launched their new real estate group website over the weekend.Http://www.lpsreg.com. The site is rich with information for their four primary product consumers: Brokers & Franchisors; Real Estate Agents; MLS; Data and Media. Drilling into any product group allows you to visualize the solutions. This is an interesting tactic - they are focused on solutions rather than products. Once a user selects the solution that meets their needs, the products that fill that need appear. I like the site.  Hugely improved over the last site. 1000Watt Consulting worked with LPS to put all of the pieces together, even added some [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:25:46-07:00March 27th, 2011|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on LPS Real Estate Group launches new website by 1000Watt Consulting

Book Review – the Thank Your Economy by Gary Vaynerchuck

I am exactly 111 pages into Gary Vaynerchuck’s new book, The Thank You Economy. The book talks about the role that Social Media plays in corporations. Usually a good business book gets my juices going on page 1. This one took me awhile to find a new thought. Nevertheless - I would say that the book is a must read. As the earlier post suggests (I was Linkedin user 153,000ish), I am bullish on social media. My passion dates back to my first electronic rolodex, then to my first palm pda, and so on and so forth. I like to [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:25:46-07:00March 26th, 2011|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Book Review – the Thank Your Economy by Gary Vaynerchuck

MLS Mobile Game Changer – Smarter Agent

Mobile Search has been a keynote service by MLSs now for many years. The first platform that saw significant adoption was Most Home (now called Kurio). With the emergence of the smartphone, the Mobile Search industry has sprouted mobile search companies like weeds. RE Technology has a list of80 companies providing mobile applications. The typical business model for MLSs purchasing mobile applications is a fee per member per month. Some service providers offer a basic version and a pro version for those who want to generate non-dues revenue. Today, Smarter Agent looks to change all of that. They are launchiing [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:25:46-07:00March 24th, 2011|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on MLS Mobile Game Changer – Smarter Agent

Trulia Direct Connect

Trulia provided WAV Group with information about their Trulia Direct Reference product today. They have 3 MLSs who intend to put the solution into beta. The goal of the program is to improve data accuracy at Trulia by accessing a data file from the MLS to match against the Trulia data set. WAV Group has echoed the outspoken disappointment that brokers have about data quality on third party websites. This program provides a thesis to help clear up the problem, but questions remain - namely - will the MLS data trump other business rules? Will participation in the program remove [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:25:46-07:00March 15th, 2011|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|Comments Off on Trulia Direct Connect

Products that get adopted keep it simple! Vendors that make them, look and listen.

Over the past few weeks I have been doing a lot of work with both vendors, brokers and agents evaluating different technologies.  In some cases this involved helping vendors improve their products and on the other side involved helping brokers and agents choose new products.  Something that hit me over and over again in both cases was the fact that our industry has over engineered products over and over again.  Why?  Because we don’t really listen to what users want.  We think we know better.  We understand all of the complex features that need to be included in websites, and [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:25:46-07:00March 11th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Products that get adopted keep it simple! Vendors that make them, look and listen.

The Real Goal of RPR and CoreLogic

I just returned from speaking at the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World conference in Las Vegas. Leading RE is an amazing group of independent brokerages from across the nation and the world. The Leading RE network represents the largest non-franchise organizations from every marketcenter - I think they have about 600 broker members. Admittedly, my talk to the brokers likely represented the most boring session at the conference - Data Licensing, Listing Syndication, and an explaination of new IDX policies from the NAR MLS Policy committee. Notwithstanding, a few hundred broker owners joined the meeting indicating that they [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:25:47-07:00March 11th, 2011|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on The Real Goal of RPR and CoreLogic

MLSs and Brokers miss out on revenue opportunity

WAV Group facilitates dozens of MLS strategic plans each year. Once resounding question heard from Associaiton Shareholders and Broker Participants is “How do we generate more non-dues revenue outside of our ranks.” Last night, a new revenue source came to mind. As we all understand, distributing listings to IDX vendors and managing IDX contracts is heavy lifting. Most MLSs charge vendors anywhere from $500 in small MLS markets to $10,000 per year in large markets for RETS access to MLS data. Agents and brokers bear this fee as an added cost of the services they buy from vendors. What did [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:25:50-07:00March 7th, 2011|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|Comments Off on MLSs and Brokers miss out on revenue opportunity

The next horizon for real estate websites

Whats next for real estate? Back in the olden days, just after the MLS book lost its appeal and was replaced by the MLS - a rather interesting new product launched for agent and broker websites called IDX - internet data exchange. The idea behind it was that broker participants of an MLS could display the listings of other participating brokers on each other’s websites. This led to an explosion of broker websites. Everyone has one. After awhile, democratically minded MLS boards gave consideration to the agents and extended IDX privileges to them in most markets, as long as the [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:25:50-07:00March 4th, 2011|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on The next horizon for real estate websites

Twitter for Real Estate continues to emerge

In the world of twitter, I feel like an ancient.  I started playing around with in June of 2007 and framed it up for the real estate industry in March of 2008 with a post calledTwitterstate: Twitter for real estate. That post has received 76,404 visits - making it one of the WAV Groups more popular posts. When did twitter launch? Twitter launched in July of 2006. WAV Group is not a social media consulting firm, but we understand it, we use it, and to a great extent, we encourage our customers to use social media to communicate to customers. [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:25:51-07:00February 22nd, 2011|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|Comments Off on Twitter for Real Estate continues to emerge

Midwest Real Estate Data LLC (MRED) launches Cloud CMA

The following press release from Midwest Real Estate Data, LLC announces they are now offering Cloud CMA to their 40,000+ members.  Cloud CMA allows user to blend data from multiple sites such asGoogle, Zillow, education.com, Walk Score, and Yelp to create customized presentations.  Cloud CMA is web based so it can be launched from any computer or mobile device with web access. Midwest Real Estate Data LLC (MRED) launches Cloud CMA LISLE (February 16, 2011) - Midwest Real Estate Data LLC (MRED) has announced that W&R Studios’ Cloud CMA product is now live and fully integrated with its connectMLSTMsystem.  All [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:25:51-07:00February 17th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Midwest Real Estate Data LLC (MRED) launches Cloud CMA

GSEs NAR Profit and Welfare

What happens next in the financial markets of the mortgage industry is up in the air. Our current system is a failure when markets go down. It cripples our industry, the financial markets, and millions of consumers. The National Association of REALTORS released their reform recommendations. As one of the chief lobbying groups in Washington DC, you can bet that government is listening. They highlight the issues. Government Sponsored Entities are problematic. Anytime you have an artificial business that shares profits when times are good, and gets bailed out by taxpayers when times are bad - risk of collapse is high. [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:25:51-07:00February 17th, 2011|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on GSEs NAR Profit and Welfare

Yardi takes over listing syndication of California Regional MLS

CRMLS, formerly MRMLS and participant in the Los Angles Data Sharing initiative “CARETS” has announced a partnership with Yardi Systems division, Point2. Under the partnership, Point2 will syndicate CRMLS lsitings on behalf of all 23 member associations and their 26,000 agent members. Point2 has indicated that they syndicate to 60 web portals. WAV Group favors listing syndication when done properly, and both Yardi(Point2) and Move (Listhub) are looking to clean up many of the issues that have not been addressed since the practice was first deployed by Threewide (Listhub). Syndication solves a real issue by removing the challenges to getting [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:25:51-07:00February 16th, 2011|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Yardi takes over listing syndication of California Regional MLS