The Triad of Consumers, People, and REALTORS

There were a few very interesting articles in the Washington Post this week. Unlike industry commentary about the Zestimate, this one took place in public. The Washington Post stirred the pot a bit, as only the politically divided would do so naturally. The battle was epic. At 5:30 AM, David Howell of McNearney Associates published a piece titled “How Accurate is Zillow’s Zestimate? Not very, says one Washington-area agent. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/where-we-live/wp/2014/06/10/how-accurate-is-zillows-zestimate-not-very-says-one-washington-area-agent/ At 5:31, Stan Humphries, Zillow Chief Economist responded in his article titles “How Accurate is the Zestimate? Zillow says the tool is helpful when used the right way.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/where-we-live/wp/2014/06/10/how-accurate-is-the-zestimate-zillow-says-the-tool-is-helpful-when-used-the-right-way/ You [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:10-07:00June 12th, 2014|MLS Insights, Press Releases|2 Comments
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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 |2018-05-03T21:24:10-07:00June 3rd, 2014|Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Top 5 Articles of the Week
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FBS To Support MLS With Listing Syndication

Since listing data feeds came into existence, they have been the providence of MLS vendors like FBS and their peers. There are also controls that go down to the listing detail level that enables listings to be opted out of things like IDX (with written seller approval in most markets). In a blog post today, FBS CEO Michael Wurzer discusses this functionality that is delivered through a standard feature in FlexMLS called Listing Export. Arizona Regional MLS serving the greater Phoenix, AZ area is among the first FBS clients to use this functionality for a wide range of syndication to [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:11-07:00May 28th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on FBS To Support MLS With Listing Syndication
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Third Party Site or MLS? Why not both?

MLSs, with their consumer-facing websites, long to find ways to make their sites more engaging, attracting more visitors and ultimately more exposure to their member’s listings. The Houston Association of REALTORS®, arguably one of the most progressive and gutsy Associations in America today, has done it again.  They have become the first MLS consumer site in America to allow listings from brokers around the state of Texas via Listhub. Listing syndicator ListHub will feed listings to public-facing websites operated by multiple listing services, and the Houston Association of Realtors is the first to sign up for the new program, which [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:12-07:00May 7th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights, Our Services, Technology Evaluation|2 Comments
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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 [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:12-07:00May 7th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Our Services|3 Comments
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Resourcefulness

If anything put fear back into the real estate industry lately, it was the sluggish first quarter performance. There are few valid explanations for it. Inventory is at a reasonable level and interest rates are low. People should be buying homes like they did last year. Rather than trying to figure it out, it is time to apply a healthy dose of resourcefulness into the business. The best way to do that is audit your expenses and your people. A typical story There are times when WAV Group finds significant problems in a business that management did not see. But [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:12-07:00May 7th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights, Our Services|Comments Off on Resourcefulness
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Professional “Standards” – Are we kidding ourselves?

We have had the pleasure of facilitating several strategic plans in the past few months with many of the nation’s leading Associations.  We have seen an important theme emerge in many of these discussions – Professional Standards. While most organizations feel as though they are doing a good job of maintaining current expectations for professional standards, some weaknesses have been revealed. When asked, most organizations will readily admit that there are agents and brokers that are NOT upholding the Code of Ethics and standards of conduct to the level that most members are. Even though boards regularly admit that there [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:12-07:00May 7th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights, Our Services|Comments Off on Professional “Standards” – Are we kidding ourselves?
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Protect Broker Data with Anti-Scraping

If you are a broker or an MLS, you must treat your data as an asset. By and large, our industry does a great job of protecting the front door of data access, but the back door of data scraping is wide open. It begs the question, if you care about data protection, why are you only scrutinizing the legitimate data users without hunting for the nefarious and illegitimate data thieves? Thieves that want to steal data send robots out onto the internet to do their pickpocketing, and they do it quite well. Reviewing Distil Networks’ reports with Matt Cohen [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:14-07:00April 9th, 2014|MLS Insights|Comments Off on Protect Broker Data with Anti-Scraping
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Early Success Can Be Tricky – Take Care!

We work with all types of companies and organizations and have the opportunity to see many different approaches to successfully delivering products and services.  Successful companies have many similarities and when you look into them closely you see certain constants.  These companies almost always have strong leadership, values and a clear vision that is understood by everyone that works there.  When you look back at their evolution you see a company that stayed on track to their core mission.  You’ll see a company that understood the basics and paid attention to detail, their customers, what the market was asking for [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:14-07:00April 9th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Our Services|Comments Off on Early Success Can Be Tricky – Take Care!
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Top 5 Articles of the Week

As you may or may not know, RE Technology was founded by the WAV Group partners to support the role of MLSs and Associations in delivering a wide array of information and education about real estate technology. On May 5th, the company turns three years old! Since 2011, we have been able to deliver over 100,000 pages of valuable information that helps practitioners learn about technology and the companies that provide technology services to power their business.  Each week, RE Technology sends a report to more than 4500 executives and staff of the nations MLSs and Associations of REALTORS® offering [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:15-07:00March 21st, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on Top 5 Articles of the Week
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MLS Data Standards

MLSListings is the MLS service provider in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, which includes; Silicon Valley, San Jose, Monterey County, Santa Cruz County, South San Francisco, and parts of the East Bay. It is a large region in the heart of the most daunting techno-consumers, techno-brokers, and techno-agents in America. Satisfying the needs of this audience is intense, but MLSListings has been doing it successfully for many years. They are a company that is constantly evolving to meet the ever-expanding demands of real estate information in their marketplace. MLSListings CEO, James Harrison published an excellent paper last week called [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:15-07:00March 17th, 2014|Clients, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on MLS Data Standards
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A Potential New Role for the MLS

The home buying process and obtaining a mortgage are inextricably linked. The Mortgage industry has been pushed to the forefront by the recent mortgage crisis, marked by unprecedented rates of loan delinquencies, defaults, and foreclosures.  Recent studies on this topic cite various causes, including risky product offerings, economic conditions, a housing price bubble, adverse selection, and questionable marketing practices Today, MLS organizations are positioned to play a much broader role through their network of subscribers to leverage technology to make the process of buying and selling a home much more efficient and effective. Some of the most innovative MLS organizations [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:15-07:00March 13th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights, Reports, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on A Potential New Role for the MLS
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