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7 01, 2012

Smarter Agent throws arrow at Zillow and others

By |2018-05-03T21:25:18-07:00January 7th, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Marketing, Sales Advisory, Strategic Planning|3 Comments

Brad Bloomberg of Smarter Agent is a fighter, and I like that. He takes a position and battles from his corner of the ring. Today, he released a blog post on their company website goes nose to nose with Zillow, Trulia and REALTOR.com. Given that his company is suing them all for patent infringement (another story) – they will never be friends anyway. But this new war is one about his view of listing syndication. Post Title : Listing Aggregators like Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com can Erode the Value of your Business. The money quote: ……(syndication) “devalues the business of.. [...]

5 01, 2012

Listing Publishers Are Not Responsible For Your Bad Data

By |2018-05-03T21:25:19-07:00January 5th, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category|Comments Off on Listing Publishers Are Not Responsible For Your Bad Data

A crazy phone call came my way today from a large third party listing website. It does not matter which one. The person was very concerned that the industry is on a mission to stop brokers and agents from syndicating listings to them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Marketing listings is a fundamental obligation that the listing firm delivers as a service to the seller. Certainly online advertising is a component of fulfilling that obligation. WAV Group has been very outspoken about problems with listing syndication. We have done countless studies that measure the percentages of inaccuracies on [...]

14 12, 2011

My Brief Nostalgia on Inman Conferences

By |2018-05-03T21:25:20-07:00December 14th, 2011|Main category|Comments Off on My Brief Nostalgia on Inman Conferences

As a consultant in the real estate technology industry, we go to a lot of conferences each year. The time leading up to a conference is always very busy for us. We leverage conferences to meet perspective clients, and deliver work to our existing clients. The effectiveness of having 8 to 10 “in-person” meetings per day is über-efficient.  Conferences are the great gathering places of the industry. I was trying to think back to my first Inman Conference – it must have been sometime in the 2002 – 2004 era. Barry Diller was buying companies like crazy and selling leads [...]

30 11, 2011

FSBO Sites Grow as Broker and Franchises Languish

By |2018-05-03T21:25:21-07:00November 30th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Marketing, Strategic Planning|1 Comment

One of the pleasures of working at the WAV Group is the barrage of business questions that we are tasked to answer on a regular basis. Often, the questions challenge conventional understandings about the effectiveness of strategies in real estate. A key strategy discussion among executives at large broker firms and at large franchise organizations surrounds listing syndication to FSBO websites. Syndication strategies that each firm chooses varies relative to local market competition and consumer behavior. I highlighted that last sentence because it is the most important statement in this blog post. Many brokers and franchises are looking at what appears [...]

22 11, 2011

Great Vendors Embrace Rules

By |2018-05-03T21:25:22-07:00November 22nd, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights, Product Management, Strategic Planning, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on Great Vendors Embrace Rules

There has been a lot of conversational concern about companies that enter into new verticals of data management and service offerings. Four such instances were announced this year. REALTORS® Property Resource contracts with LPS for data services and LPS subcontracts to Real Estate Digital. Zillow purchased an IDX vendor, Diverse Solutions. MOVE purchased Threewide, the providers of the popular Listhub syndication service. CoreLogic launched a new appraisal tool leveraging MLS data. In every case, the vendor has been virtuous and adhered to contracts and data use rules. In each of these cases, many feared that data could be misused or [...]

31 10, 2011

CMLS reviews pending IDX policy changes

By |2018-05-03T21:25:23-07:00October 31st, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on CMLS reviews pending IDX policy changes

I am a big fan of CMLS, the acronym for the Council of MLS. The Council does more than any other organization to support best practices among MLS service providers. Today, CMLS hosted a member webinar that provided a 360-degree overview of the pending IDX rule change, a consideration that will be discussed and submitted to the NAR Board of Directors for approval at the NAR Convention in Anaheim. The suggestions to the NAR Board of directors from the call were simple. Cathy Holefelder of Heartland MLS provided a great summary of the call and suggested this synthesized overview. –       [...]

28 10, 2011

Change hurts

By |2018-05-03T21:25:25-07:00October 28th, 2011|Main category|Comments Off on Change hurts

Perhaps there is a new chief executive, a new business strategy, an MLS conversion, a new product launch, a merger, a new data share, or a dramatically altered competitive landscape, in the real estate world, big change means big risk. In other words, company performance may rise like a rocket or fall like a rock. The only thing it’s not likely to do is stay the same. Change may be inevitable, but big change is scary, nevertheless. And how you deal with it plays a big role in the outcome. In just the past few weeks, we’ve seen big change in the works [...]

26 10, 2011

Rhode Island State Wide Multiple Listing Selects Bridge RETS IQ Contact Server

By |2018-05-03T21:25:25-07:00October 26th, 2011|Main category|Comments Off on Rhode Island State Wide Multiple Listing Selects Bridge RETS IQ Contact Server

Rhode Island State-Wide MLS announced this week that they have chosen to work with the Bridge Interactive Group to manage their RETS data process.  Mike Letendre, Chief Information Officer at State-Wide MLS, noted they chose Bridge Interactive for  “…its advanced reporting tools, ability to control access to our listing database, ease of use, and affordability”.  Bridge offers solutions for listing syndication control, RETS data usage and monitoring, account management and billing, and add/edit functionality via its RETS IQ product suite. Bridge technologies are used by MLS System Vendors, MLSs, Brokers, and more than 280,000 agents. Press Release              [...]

4 10, 2011

News from Property Panorama and Trulia

By |2018-05-03T21:25:26-07:00October 4th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Marketing|1 Comment

Property Panorama as appointed real estate industry veteran Mike Barnet as its new CEO, and Trulia releases information about the source of inaccurate data on their website today. Property Panorama was not specific in outlining the reasons for changing their leadership, but a new captain is at the helm. Barnet joined the company as the CIO about a year ago, and has been working to lead the charge to take the popular virtual tour solution to a higher level. Property Panorama was a unique offering in the industry when it launched its MLS Data Powered automated virtual tour creation program. Today solutions [...]

28 09, 2011

How many consumers visit agent and broker websites?

By |2018-05-03T21:25:27-07:00September 28th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning, Suveys and Research|Comments Off on How many consumers visit agent and broker websites?

I had an email question come in from with Kevin McQueen of Focus Forward Consulting this morning. Kevin asked “If Move, Zillow, Trulia, Yahoo, and Homes a couple of others each pick-up about 5% of the unique visitors to RE sites, who makes up the other 80%?” The presumptive answer might be Agent, Broker and MLS websites, right? Unfortunately, presumptions lead to bad decisions and strategies in business today. In this case, the presumptive answer is very far from the truth. WAV Group WIN Reports uses Experian Hitwise to measure web traffic to real estate websites – all real estate [...]

23 09, 2011

WAV Group Presenting at CMLS Conference in Tucson

By |2018-05-03T21:25:27-07:00September 23rd, 2011|Main category, Press Releases|Comments Off on WAV Group Presenting at CMLS Conference in Tucson

WAV Group is proud to be a part of this year’s CMLS conference held on October 5th-7th in Tucson, Arizona. Partners, Marilyn Wilson and Victor Lund will be presenting on the important topics facing the Real Estate industry. WAV Group is renowned for its ability to deliver unbiased and objective research and insights and has been credited with providing advisory services that have helped countless organizations re-invent themselves to create growth by delivering relevant products and exemplary customer service to their customers. Marilyn Wilson will be participating in two panels “The Crystal Ball of Governance” and “What consumers think does [...]

18 09, 2011

WAV Group Week in Review September 18 2011

By |2018-05-03T21:25:28-07:00September 18th, 2011|Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on WAV Group Week in Review September 18 2011

The predominant buzz in real estate this week was focused on successful and unsuccessful buyouts. On the successful side of buyouts, a talented team of managing executives from LPS was able to complete a buyout of non-MLS products and form a new company called RED, an acronym for Real Estate Digital. In a more straightforward buyout, CoreLogic purchased MLS provider Tarasoft, rolling that system under their Marketlinx brand. On the unsuccessful side of buyouts, the Arizona State Association of REALTORS was unsuccessful in its bid to purchase the shares of ARMLS, its first leg in a course to develop a [...]