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7 11, 2017

Hits and Misses from NAR Chicago

By |2018-07-01T00:07:23-07:00November 7th, 2017|Main category|Comments Off on Hits and Misses from NAR Chicago

Chicago is a baseball town. Even with the Cubs disappointingly not returning to the World Series this year, you can’t escape seeing someone wearing a Cubs or White Sox hat or shirt every day in Chicago, even in November. McCormick Place, home to this year’s REALTORS® Conference & Expo, sits just two-and-a-half miles north of Comiskey Park, where the Sox play – their South Side team. So you get an idea of how far away this convention center is from the heart of downtown. And the proximity to a pro baseball park also gives me the perfect excuse to use [...]

14 09, 2017

$25,000 in Cash for Tech Startups via New RESO DataComp

By |2018-05-03T21:22:39-07:00September 14th, 2017|Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on $25,000 in Cash for Tech Startups via New RESO DataComp

It’s the first RESO DataComp, a data competition sponsored by Realtors Property Resource®. Prizes total $25,000, courtesy of prize sponsors that include FBS, the creators of Flexmls and Stratus Data Systems, Inc. It’s set to begin on September 17, at 12:00 a.m. Pacific Time. It will end with live demonstrations before a distinguished panel of industry judges from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in San Diego on October 17  during the RESO fall conference, October 17-19, being held at the uber-hip Pendry. That’s right, unlike a Hackathon, this data competition will last a month, and unlike many other real estate data events, this one is [...]

5 09, 2017

Using Twitter as a PR Tool

By |2018-05-03T21:22:40-07:00September 5th, 2017|Twitter for Real Estate|Comments Off on Using Twitter as a PR Tool

Twitter is probably one of the most ignored social media channels in real estate marketing and PR, which is remarkable considering its breadth and depth: 328 million monthly active users and 67 million of them in the U.S., a half-billion Tweets per day, and 80% of users access Twitter on their mobile devices. Okay, admittedly, Twitter also has 20 million fake users, and the profile of a “typical” Twitter user is (unfortunately) not a primary target for most brokerages: A young woman, with an average of 209 followers, using an iPhone. In fact, 37% of all Twitter users are between the ages [...]

5 09, 2017

MLSListings Shares Best Practices for Public Relations

By |2018-05-03T21:22:41-07:00September 5th, 2017|Marketing, MLS Insights|Comments Off on MLSListings Shares Best Practices for Public Relations

Public Relations is a key communication practice for leading MLSs. Silicon Valley, California-based MLSListings is leveraging Public Relations to promote the relevancy of the MLS in the best possible way. They have developed communications for the real estate trade media and the consumer media that are both having positive impact. Consumer Media Trade The real estate industry has brokers and agents who continue to invest in newspaper advertising. By and large, newspapers may not display real estate listings from the MLS unless there is a special consideration. To save brokers and agents money, MLSListings has developed an agreement with 12 [...]

4 09, 2017

Intuit Partners with Moxi Works to Enable Agent Tax Savings

By |2018-05-03T21:22:41-07:00September 4th, 2017|Main category|1 Comment

MoxiWorks is a brokerage application development company that was founded by Seattle’s leading brokerage company, Windermere Real Estate. The software was originally developed for Windermere’s brokerage company until the company expanded the offering to include brokerages around the nation. Today, Moxi Works is a separate company that serves a brokerage base that is representative of more than 90,000 agent users.  Some of their leading brokerage partners include Windermere, Long and Foster, Howard Hanna, Pacific Union, Seven Gables and many others. Faced with the challenge of integrating their own applications into a broker’s suite of agent tools and data sharing across [...]

8 08, 2017

Redfin Case Study Shows that Web Traffic does Not Drive Sales

By |2018-05-03T21:22:42-07:00August 8th, 2017|Main category|Comments Off on Redfin Case Study Shows that Web Traffic does Not Drive Sales

If you ask any REALTOR® about the relationship between online website traffic and sales volume, they will tell you that there is a direct relationship. The conviction among Realtors® is that companies that have the most amount of consumer website traffic sell the most amount of homes. This belief has stirred the root of Realtor® emotions, causing them to vilify the Zillow Group. A new entry of concern is Redfin®, a company that has long battled with Zip Realty® for online website domination. Redfin’s IPO has been a great success that is causing competing brokers to contemplate their future in [...]

13 06, 2017

5 Ways to Eliminate “Headless Agents” on Your Listings

By |2018-05-03T21:22:46-07:00June 13th, 2017|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information|Comments Off on 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 [...]

9 06, 2017

Big Data Can Drive Bigger Broker Margins

By |2018-05-03T21:22:46-07:00June 9th, 2017|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Strategic Planning|Comments Off on 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 [...]

6 06, 2017

The Emperor Has No Clothes: Why Listing Photos Are Imperative

By |2018-05-03T21:22:46-07:00June 6th, 2017|How to Make Strategic Planning Really Work in your MLS, MLS Insights|Comments Off on The Emperor Has No Clothes: Why Listing Photos Are Imperative

‘Naked’ listings are a disservice to both buyers and sellers and WILL hurt your brokerage! When a listing hits the MLS and is syndicated to brokerage and portal websites — especially in 2017 — there are qualified, avid buyers who are waiting for that listing. They want to learn everything they can about their potential new home so they can decide whether it’s worth the asking price and whether they should spend some of their precious house-hunting time taking a tour. Let me ask you something: How easy do you think that is to do without any listing photos? “Naked” [...]

6 06, 2017

Can Luxury Real Estate Learn From Luxury Clothing?

By |2018-08-11T03:11:33-07:00June 6th, 2017|Main category|Comments Off on Can Luxury Real Estate Learn From Luxury Clothing?

Customer experience is the cornerstone of luxury purchases. Buying luxury yachts, jewelry, clothing, cars, restaurants……you name it – its always different. Now lets look at the other side of the coin. Have you noticed that retail in your downtown area is dying? Have you noticed that malls are struggling? Macy’s, Target, Walmart, Gap, Nike and so many other retailers are struggling. The silent voices are the small, non-chain merchants, commonly known as the mom and pop retailers. When is the last time you went into an independent toy store? The consumer has gone online, and Amazon is the category killer. [...]

31 05, 2017

Upstream Adjusts and Improves

By |2018-05-03T21:22:47-07:00May 31st, 2017|Broker Technology Research, MLS Insights|Comments Off on 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 [...]

25 05, 2017

Putting Storytelling Back Into a News Release

By |2018-05-03T21:22:49-07:00May 25th, 2017|Main category, Press Releases|Comments Off on Putting Storytelling Back Into a News Release

The art of storytelling is celebrated today as one of the most effective ways to communicate. When I first started practicing public relations, the most effective news releases were the ones that told a story. They were called feature news releases. I’m not sure what happened to them, but over the years, that term has all but disappeared from the PR vernacular. In fact, Google yields a paltry 5,700 search results for the term, which makes me very sad, as it once was the most effective way to get a reporter or editor’s attention. It was a great way to [...]