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16 03, 2015

Five Ways to Make a Thoughtful Decision about Direct Feeds

By |2018-05-03T21:23:49-07:00March 16th, 2015|Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning|4 Comments

I had the honor of working with the Greater Albuquerque Association of REALTORS® today. They hosted a Town Hall asking for input on whether or not their brokers would like them to negotiate a Direct Feed from the Zillow Group on their behalf.  Michael Bustamante did a great job of framing the issues that need to be discussed and ultimately decided upon. While the issue is anything, but clear cut, there were interesting questions posed that may be helpful for you to use in your market as you try to think your way through your market’s decision about direct feeds. [...]

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25 02, 2015

Audit Third Party Portals Today

By |2018-05-03T21:23:50-07:00February 25th, 2015|Main category|Comments Off on Audit Third Party Portals Today

Brokerages publish listings to third party portals as a method of advertising homes for sale. As we mentioned in our paper, the Syndication Rats Nest (Download Report), every portal displays listings differently. Moreover, portals apply different rules on the same listing if it comes from a different data source. Confused? You are not alone. Portals are constantly battling on multiple fronts. They are innovating constantly to return better value to consumers and advertisers. On any given day they segment their consumer traffic to test innovation strategies. Sometimes your listings are folded into the mix in ways that you did not [...]

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20 02, 2015

RETS Servers and Direct Feeds

By |2018-05-03T21:23:50-07:00February 20th, 2015|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category|Comments Off on RETS Servers and Direct Feeds

The National Association of REALTORS MLS Issues and Policy Committee made a bold move to require RESO data dictionary complainant by Jan 1, 2016, and RESO RESTful web API by June 30, 2016. Further complicating the matters is the groundswell of considerations with third party portals making requests for MLS direct feeds. Data sharing between MLS systems, RETS Update, and system conversions taking place across the industry today deepen the data transport considerations. Wrapping it all together with a lit match could easily lead to mass hysteria. WAV Group took a look at what the largest MLSs in the nation [...]

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21 01, 2015

MLS Syndication Rats Nest

By |2018-05-03T21:23:50-07:00January 21st, 2015|Main category|2 Comments

Urban Dictionary is a hoot. It is also a helpful way for the father of a pre-teen to understand the contemporary meaning behind the terms used by kids. In this case, I refer to Urban Dictionary for their crowd-sourced definition of Rats Nest “Commonly used in the technol- ogy sector to refer to a software design or implementation that is hopelessly convoluted and difficult to understand....” Listing Syndication is a Rats Nest and it is about to get worse as firms like Zillow defect from Listhub-Point2. With Zillow pulling out, MLSs will need to offer different services or parallel services [...]

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14 01, 2015

WAV Group Named to the Swanepoel Power 200

By |2018-05-03T21:23:51-07:00January 14th, 2015|Main category|Comments Off on WAV Group Named to the Swanepoel Power 200

The most comprehensive list of the most powerful and influential people in the real estate industry has once again been released. Known as the SP200 (Swanepoel Power 200), this annual list is published by Stefan Swanepoel every January. There have been numerous other lists from time to time, but the SP200 stands as a milestone in the comprehensiveness, detail and objectivity it strives to portray. You can review the entire 2014/2015 list in detail at www.sp200.com. Comparable to Forbes, Fortune, JD Powers and other outside the industry lists, the SP200 utilizes a large selection of criteria. It takes hundreds of hours [...]

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18 11, 2014

RealScout Secures $6M to Empower Brokers and Agents with Collaborative Search

By |2018-05-03T21:23:55-07:00November 18th, 2014|MLS Insights, Press Releases, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on RealScout Secures $6M to Empower Brokers and Agents with Collaborative Search

When the Department of Justice and the National Association of REALTORS® agreed to a settlement that made virtual office website platforms available to every broker in the Nation, WAV Group expected widespread adoption and innovation of client servicing tools leveraging full/VOW data. It did not happen. Perhaps it was because of the economy was slumping or perhaps it was because of category killers like Listingbook, rDesk, and AgentAchieve. Regardless, we have kept our eyes open for innovation. A Silicon Valley based company called RealScout jumped up on the radar in a significant way this week with the announcement of over [...]

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13 10, 2014

The Real Benefit to Z and T Merger

By |2018-05-03T21:23:57-07:00October 13th, 2014|Main category, Marketing|2 Comments

Big advertisers need big media sites. Zillow is big and Trulia is big, but they are not huge.  The hugest would be Facebook. Think of the Madison Avenue crowd. Both companies have sales staff pitching pretty much the same value proposition. That sales team now turns into one. Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff pretty much said exactly this in an interview with Jim Cramer, the host of Mad Money (http://business-news.thestreet.com/crookstontimes/story/jim-cramers-mad-money-recap-now-is-not-the-time-for-panic/12861526) “Rascoff noted that when it comes to the Internet, user experience rules. Once you have an audience the advertisers will follow, he said, which is why the Trulia acquisition makes sense. [...]

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6 10, 2014

Welcome David Mele, Homes.com President

By |2018-05-03T21:23:58-07:00October 6th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights|2 Comments

WAV Group has a strong working relationship between many portal operators and the brokers and MLSs we support. Homes.com is among the largest portals in real estate and among the top providers of a franchise, MLS agent, and broker tools in real estate. Last week, Homes.com announced that David Mele was appointed the President of Homes.com. Previously, Terry Slattery was responsible for Homes.com business and the ForRent businesses. Homes.com effectively split the job in half and brought in David Mele to head up the Homes.com unit. Mr. Mele has worked for Landmark’s Dominion family of companies for a long time [...]

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1 10, 2014

CMLS Wrap UP

By |2018-05-03T21:23:58-07:00October 1st, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on CMLS Wrap UP

The Council of MLS held their annual conference in California last week. It was most well-attended show in its history. They did a great job of blending outside perspectives from leading technology firms with MLS-to-MLS sharing. Kudos to the CMLS board of directors and the California Regional MLS led by Art Carter and their staff who were the hosts. It may be the most well-run conference in real estate. Even the vendors were happy, especially those on the innovation track. My understanding is that the legal meetings went really well. SourceMLS is off to a great start. And, the message [...]

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30 09, 2014

Today’s News Summary

By |2018-05-03T21:23:58-07:00September 30th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Today’s News Summary

News represents change in real estate. It also represents staying the course. There were lots of both today. Not knowing what to expect, the industry unloaded today. Bullets were flying everywhere. The MOVE acquisition by News Corp was the headline - If you look at our post on it, we have added the letter that NAR sent to the membership, the letter that MOVE sent to the industry, and the press release. Taking the temperature on this, it is probably a good thing. The only big concern is that REA group from Australia has investments in the top 3 portals [...]

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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 [...]

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29 09, 2014

Coldwell Banker Chooses Imprev

By |2018-05-03T21:23:58-07:00September 29th, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Press Releases|1 Comment

Today's real estate firms, franchise or otherwise, need to provide a robust marketing solution for agents that especially support them with digital marketing tools: Video, virtual tours, eMail marketing, and social media marketing. In an announcement today, Coldwell Banker announced a partnership with Imprev to power their digital marketing suite for all of their franchise companies. There are a number of firms that offer marketing solutions, but the two firms that have dominated the selection among franchise organizations in the past years include Marketleader and Imprev. Strangely enough, until a few years ago, Imprev was Marketleader's partner for their marketing [...]

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