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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 [...]

12 09, 2011

National Representative for Listing Copyright Infringement

By |2018-05-03T21:25:29-07:00September 12th, 2011|Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on National Representative for Listing Copyright Infringement

I read a funny story over the weekend that embarrassed a rather “less than upstanding” member of the legal community representing newspapers in copyright infringement cases. I will recap that story in a minute, but it did make me think about a few rather important comments made by Brian Larson of Larson/Sobodka at recent conferences. I cannot paraphrase Larson effectively, but summarize that he believes that MLSs should take the issue of Copyright infringement very seriously. (Larson and other legal colleagues are sure to be discussing this at the Legal Symposium as part of the upcoming CMLS Conference). MLSs need [...]

10 09, 2011

WAV Group Week in Review September 10 2011

By |2018-05-03T21:25:29-07:00September 10th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off on WAV Group Week in Review September 10 2011

In real estate technology this week, there were two announcements that caught our attention regarding Automated Valuations (AVM). Trulia launched Trulia Estimates, their version of property valuations for consumers that competes with public website rival, Zillow  and Zestimates. Along the same lines, CoreLogic announced this week that they have licensed more than 1 million active property listings from MLSs through their Partner InfoNet program (PIN) powering their institutional AVM products. CoreLogic is in a race with NAR’s initiative called Realtors Property Resource or RPR. Lender Processing Service (LPS) licenses active listing data from RPR to power their commercial AVM product. [...]

17 08, 2011

RE: AOL-MOVE go turn it on

By |2018-05-03T21:25:31-07:00August 17th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category|Comments Off on RE: AOL-MOVE go turn it on

By the way... If you are a broker and you would like your listings to appear on AOL, you need to login to your ListHub dashboard and turn it on. Syndication to listing sites is under your control. So if you checked for your listings on AOL today, and they did not appear - it is because you have not selected that channel. Thanks for the many calls and emails regarding this.