Inside Real Estate Acquires Circlepix

Circlepix has sold everything. They operated an extensive network of photographers that they sold to VHT Studios in January. Now they have sold the rest of their company to Inside Real Estate. If you have not followed Inside Real Estate lately – pay attention. Inside Real Estate is the incredible company that recently landed Keyes – one of the largest firms in South East Florida among others. They are taking a piecemeal approach to purchasing world class software providers to complete their suite of an end-to-end solution for brokers, teams, and agents. At the heart of Inside Real Estate is [...]

Study Says Longer Tweets are Better

Twitter for real estate is a curious strategy. There was quite a bit of discussion about Twitter in some of the Facebook groups that I am in. #thatsfunny. In all seriousness, when WAV Group evaluates the effectiveness of social media marketing and advertising (those are two different things), the numbers prove out that Facebook is far more effective in every matrix of reporting. The data suggests that Facebook is core, Twitter is niche. If you do market on Twitter as part of your surround sound system, you likely already know that Twitter extended the number of characters from the old [...]

CoreLogic Launches Partnership with SavvyCard

In the press release below, CoreLogic announces a partnership with SavvyCard that will allow CoreLogic MLSs to consider this new optional service. As you may recall, CoreLogic has been focused on enhancing the buyer portal within Matrix to make is a more full-service solution for agents providing MLS information to their clients. On the mobile side, this is also accomplished with GoMLS. This new service is an alternative that combines a variety of important agent applications into a unique and simplified service that has some outstanding connectivity to social media marketing. According to Chirs Bennett, General Manager of Real Estate [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:36-07:00October 24th, 2017|Broker Technology Research, Main category|0 Comments

Redfin Offers Method To Modernize IDX

“Let’s modernize IDX by linking to the listing broker!” IDX or Internet Data Exchange is a thesis that was developed by the collaboration between Brokers and MLSs that outlines a set of display rules for listings on broker websites. The idea behind IDX is that of cooperation among brokers. Fundamentally, the IDX policy states that a broker allows all other brokers participating in an MLS to display their listings on any broker (and usually Agent) website. Over the years, the IDX policy has evolved. And today, Redfin CEO, Glenn Kelman suggests a radical new change. Kelman would like the IDX [...]

Data is Power and You Have the Power Brokers!

The smart money is on brokers who figure out how to differentiate themselves online by leveraging MLS data in new and exciting ways.   Brokers really DO have the power to take back their leadership position online if they fully take advantage of the rich and engaging MLS data that is available today. What’s the best way to learn how to make your website more interesting than other online sources?  Learn how to leverage standardized real estate information that has been built by the Real Estate Standards Organization. Thanks to the great work of four brokers that serve on the RESO [...]

Are You Guilty Of “Business As Usual Budgeting?”

Financial and budget planning concept with calculator notebook and financial chart report on work desk How many of have been informed that need to spend the rest of your budget or its going to be reduced next year?   How many times have you blindly hit copy and paste and then added a bit for inflation and an unexpected project and then called it a day on your budgeting process?   If you’re walking somewhat blindly through your budgeting process then you’re practicing what we call “business-as-usual budgeting”. What’s that? Well, if your typical budgeting practice is to look at last year’s [...]

Broker Public Portal Update Webinar

As part of our commitment to keeping CMLS members informed about industry initiatives, we want you to know there will be an upcoming webinar for the Broker Public Portal. By sharing and encouraging awareness, CMLS supports unified leadership, open communication, and market knowledge within the industry. All The Questions You’ve Wanted To Ask About The Broker Public Portal, Answered. Most people have heard about the Broker Public Portal and have questions about it. This webinar will allow you to ask your own questions and answer some common questions: What is the BPP? What is the relationship between the BPP and Homesnap? How much does it cost to join the BPP? What are [...]

The Short and Simple Road for an MLS to offer ONLY RESO-Compliant IDX Feeds

Key Takeaways The move for MLSs to transition to ONLY RESO-compliant IDX feeds is not that difficult. Moving to offering only a RESO-compliant IDX feed is not that difficult.  RMLS™, one of the first MLSs in the country to distribute only RESO-Compliant IDX feeds, made the move in just FOUR weeks. They launched a campaign to their IDX providers showing them the fields that needed to be transitioned to be RESO-compliant and requiring them to transition completely ONLY to a RESO-Compliant IDX feed. Promotion is Key According to RMLS™, to make the move MLSs will need an effective promotional campaign [...]

5 Ways to Eliminate “Headless Agents” on Your Listings

When was the last time you got a friend request on Facebook from someone who hadn’t bothered to upload a profile photo and was still using the grayed-out floating head instead? I’m hoping it was a while ago, but maybe you can remember how you felt when a faceless person reached out to touch you.  When I get one of those I simply delete the request and move on. If someone doesn’t care about enough about their friends and colleagues to even upload a picture I’m not really interested in connecting with them. Do you see how consumers may feel [...]

Big Data Can Drive Bigger Broker Margins

WAV Group spends a lot of time consulting with brokers on how to re-margin their business. We published a paper in 2013 called Harvesting Business From Broker Data.  That paper characterized the methods that we developed with a number of brokers to harvest business from across the enterprise of title, mortgage, residential, relocation, insurance, commercial, and property management businesses. It has worked very well for many brokers to recapture repeat transactions and new business though cross sell. In many ways, the rethinking that went into the thesis around harvesting business across the enterprise was the first intellectual break from the [...]

5 Technical Benefits to Upstream

  I think that a lot of people are confused about Upstream. Some people think that it is a consumer-facing site like the Broker Public Portal/Homesnap. Others think that it is some kind of brokerowned MLS. It is none of those things. It is a database for brokers to create, store, and distribute data. For the most part, every large firm and franchise organization is doing this today, but as an industry the process is broken. Every broker who is managing their data is doing it in different ways, and their data is not interoperable with applications without custom integration, data [...]

Upstream Adjusts and Improves

WAV Group has played a humble role in the evolution of Upstream from a concept to where it is today. The effort has been shaped by the deep involvement of leading technologists from across the brokerage and franchise community. This week, we have been pummeled by questions arising out of their recent announcement during the 2017 Midyear REALTORS LEGISLATIVE MEETINGS & TRADE EXPO in Washington D.C. Upstream is a bright concept for improving data management in real estate today. If you understand the laws of America, you understand that Licensed Real Estate Brokers supervise agent and consumer real property transactions [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:47-07:00May 31st, 2017|Broker Technology Research, MLS Insights|0 Comments