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10 06, 2015

The Ones to Watch: Upstream, Broker Portal, and the Kid in the Basement

By |2018-05-03T21:23:43-07:00June 10th, 2015|Main category, MLS Insights|1 Comment

Historically, the words, “location, location, location,” have guided the real estate industry; but today, a strong argument can be made to suggest that, “portal, portal, portal” has replaced location as a symbol of mysterious change and almost certain disruption. Forecasters and trend watchers such as Stephan Swanepoel, Jeremy Conaway, and Steve Murray have, for several years, warned us we were witnessing the final unraveling of our increasingly dysfunctional status quo. Our collective tone-deafness to broker concerns, including their desire to own profitable businesses and control their listings, the endless wave of new third party portal competitors and the ever present [...]

22 05, 2015

No HATERS in Real Estate Please!

By |2018-05-03T21:23:44-07:00May 22nd, 2015|Main category, MLS Insights|7 Comments

After just coming back from the NAR Mid-Year meetings I harken back to one of our greatest spiritual leaders of all time – The Dalai Lama. He has an amazing quote that I feel bears repeating – “We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasing resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder. You have always the choice.” For those of you that are following the latest real estate news, NAR Mid-Year was a very exciting meeting. There were great strides taken with the Broker Public Portal [...]

12 05, 2015

Midyear Recap: CMLS Brings It to the Table

By |2018-05-03T21:23:45-07:00May 12th, 2015|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Midyear Recap: CMLS Brings It to the Table

CMLS is an acronym for the Council of MLS. It is an organization that allows MLSs to share best practices in their pursuit of delighting the brokers and agents that subscribe to MLS services. A few years ago, they began the successful practice of having a primer conference the Tuesday before the NAR Midyear Legislative meetings. This year’s meetings were held at the City Club of Washington D.C. with 130 in attendance. Diamond sponsors for the event included MLS vendors Black Knight Financial and CoreLogic. They were joined by Homes.com, realtor.com, Zillow.com, and Trulia.com, all of whom overtly recognize and [...]

9 04, 2015

Andy Rapattoni In Memoram

By |2018-05-03T21:23:47-07:00April 9th, 2015|Main category|Comments Off on Andy Rapattoni In Memoram

It is with great sorrow that Rapattoni Corporation announces that Andy Rapattoni died April 8, 2015, at age 75 at Los Robles Hospital in Thousand Oaks, California, after complications following lower back surgery. Andy Rapattoni, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Rapattoni Corporation, a national software firm located in Simi Valley, California, became an industry icon in the world of organized real estate in the 45 years he headed the company. In 1970, Andy and his wife, Niki, founded Rapattoni Corporation to provide cutting-edge technologies to the real estate industry. Beginning with just the two of them [...]

26 03, 2015

Back to Basics

By |2018-05-03T21:23:48-07:00March 26th, 2015|Main category, Our Services|2 Comments

The other day I was on the phone with Mark Z. He’s a leader of one of the top producing Keller Williams Realty teams in the country. The Mark Z. Home Selling Team closed over $59 million in sales transactions, just short of 500 deals, last year. He and his team are on target to eclipse 500 deals in 2015. That means they are closing more than 2 sales every business day this year. With that kind of volume, I was certain Mark Z. must be West Coast, East Coast or Texas based. That’s where most of the hottest housing [...]

9 02, 2015

National Broker Portal Launches Website

By |2018-05-03T21:23:50-07:00February 9th, 2015|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights|8 Comments

The national broker portal project continues to gain momentum as brokers and MLSs agree to participate in the formation of the company to explore the launch of a national MLS consumer facing website with broker governance. Although only a month into the funding period, the group is well on its way to raising the $250,000. After the holiday, the Council of MLSs hosted two online webinars on the topic. The Realty Alliance and The Leading Real Estate Companies of the World also hosted two webinars. This activity was followed by the delivery of information at the CEO Summit as part of [...]

18 12, 2014

Help us Prioritize the Best Ways for IDX feeds to work Harder for Brokers

By |2018-05-03T21:23:52-07:00December 18th, 2014|Main category|Comments Off on Help us Prioritize the Best Ways for IDX feeds to work Harder for Brokers

I have to tell you that every time I think about the MLS Policy Meeting at this year’s NAR Conference in New Orleans, it puts a big smile on my face.  For the first time that I’ve witnessed, four important, but fundamental changes were made to the IDX policy with absolutely UNIVERSAL acceptance.   Brokers, MLS Executives, Associations and Technology Companies also spoke from one voice about the relevance and importance of the changes that were proposed and approved. Check out my blog post from a few weeks ago to see the details about what was approved at that time.  In [...]

30 09, 2014

News Corp buys MOVE operators of Realtor.com

By |2018-05-03T21:23:58-07:00September 30th, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off on News Corp buys MOVE operators of Realtor.com

And so it goes. Move, the operators of the National Associaton of REALTORS portal called Realtor.com have agreed to sell the company to News Corp in an all-cash deal valued at $950 million. MOVE's board of directors were swift to approve the offer, representing a 36% bump in the value of the company. News Corp owns other real estate assets including The Wall Street Journal ( a popular spot for luxury property advertising) and Australian real estate portal - realestate.com.au (part of the REA Group). REA Group will apparently pay for 20% of MOVE, and News Corp will pay the [...]

4 09, 2014

MOVE acquires Point2 Syndication Contracts

By |2018-05-03T21:24:00-07:00September 4th, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off on MOVE acquires Point2 Syndication Contracts

It looks like MOVE, operators of Realtor.com have taken a stride that is not altogether different from the success that Zillow is garnering with their acquisition strategy. MOVE is doing their best to control the pipelines that deliver advertising to portals in the United States. MOVE already owns Listhub, the largest syndicator of listing content. Now they pick up their nearest competitor - Point2 - much in the same way that Zillow picked up Trulia. The biggest difference, beyond taking out a competitor, is that they will removing a layer of duplication of listing syndication. Spencer Rascoff of Zillow describes [...]

15 07, 2014

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

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

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 [...]

29 05, 2014

NAR Publishes Paper On Lead Management

By |2018-05-03T21:24:10-07:00May 29th, 2014|Main category, Strategic Planning|Comments Off on NAR Publishes Paper On Lead Management

The National Association of REALTORS® is not necessarily the first place that REALTORS® would turn to get advise on Internet Lead Management, but they have stepped up to the plate as a resource. Quite nicely I would add. In a paper published this week, Todd Carpenter, Managing Director of the Data Analytics Group at NAR, published a paper titled The Intelligent Internet Lead, Providing Context, Coaching & Confidence to Web Source Leads. Click Here for Download http://crt.blogs.realtor.org/2014/05/27/crt-white-paper-the-intelligent-internet-lead/ WAV Group has performed a lot of research on online marketing, mostly for the purpose of providing MLSs and brokers with good research [...]

21 04, 2014

Broker AVMs

By |2018-05-03T21:24:13-07:00April 21st, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Our Services|2 Comments

One of the core services of brokerages and their agents is pricing property. In the olden days, it was less scientific than it is right now. On an individual property, agents deliver CMAs or BPOs. Today, using MLS data, brokers are now automating their services. Sometimes this service is called Automated Valuation Modeling, or AVMs. There is a healthy and robust marketplace for AVMs in the financial services industry. Banks want to know the debt-to-equity ratio on homes they hold mortgages on. They also want to use AVMs as a method to validate home appraisals. The government uses AVMs to [...]