mls system Archives

Scenic Coast – America’s First Hybrid MLS

Established in 1969 in slumbering Morro Bay, California, Scenic Coast Association of REALTORS (SCAOR) has established an amazing MLS Offering – Two MLS memberships for the price of one. This new solution is called the MLS Hybrid, and may be the first of it’s kind in the nation. SCAOR participates in the Central Coast MLS (CCRMLS). I have not reviewed their governance, but CCRMLS behaves like a data share among 7 Associations serving 2500 agents offering Rapattoni MLS, Realist Tax, Listhub, and REALTORS Property Resource (RPR is offered in some but not all AORs in CCRMLS). On February 10th, 2012, [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:10-07:00March 8th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning|3 Comments

Why Innovation Fails To Change Real Estate

Every year, real estate sees the launch of beautiful products, offering awesome features, advantages, and benefits. Excellent marketing programs back them and the press creates a jubilee – Innovator of the Year! Then the product launches, and the industry shrugs its shoulder. It is the conundrum of new product development and innovation for real estate. Most of these companies are doing everything right. They are doing research, spotting trends, holding focus groups, testing usability, and modeling lovely financials. If they can only get 1% adoption of this, or 3% of that, revenues will be awesome. There are 1 Million real [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:14-07:00February 21st, 2012|Broker Technology Research, How to Make Strategic Planning Really Work in your MLS, Main category, MLS Insights, Product Management, Strategic Planning, Suveys and Research, Technology Evaluation|9 Comments

MLS iPad apps have NOT gone far enough yet

Recently, WAV Group has completed several customer satisfaction surveys from around the country in the Southwest, Mid-West, Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. In every case there has been a lot of discussion and requests for more MLS access via smartphones and especially for iPads and other tablet devices. While many MLSs think of their iPad application as a property search tool, agents want their MLS iPad apps to go much further than that. Even for those that have launched Tablet solutions, there are two major areas of dissatisfaction that MLSs need to address to make mobile MLS applications truly useful for [...]

By Marilyn Wilson|2018-05-03T21:25:14-07:00February 19th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights, Suveys and Research, Technology Evaluation|3 Comments

Integrating MLS tools into Agent Browsers

Until today, MLSs have been walled Internet gardens. The MLS is accessed through the browser, but is entirely separated from the rest of the open Internet. iMapp just released an innovation that may begin a trend to change all of that. With iMapp, real estate agents with accounts may install a search plugin into their browser. This plugin puts a layer of MLS tax data on top of any website. With the search plugin, agents can look up tax on any property address found on any website – this includes the MLS, Agent and Broker Property Search Websites, Consumer property [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:15-07:00February 6th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights, Product Management, Strategic Planning, Technology Evaluation|4 Comments

New Study Measures Consumer Interest in MLS, Reinforces Efforts to Obtain .MLS Top-level Domain

The WAV Group has published results of research that demonstrates the high value consumers place on the term “MLS”. The research, commissioned by the MLS Domains Association, includes surveys of consumers using MLS public websites and of a representative sample of consumers who have purchased or sold real estate in the last twelve months. It supports three key conclusions: For consumers, an MLS represents property search, home valuations and “the good stuff”, as one respondent described it—the term “MLS” equates to high quality, educational, objective information about property; A majority of consumers prefer MLS sites as sources of real estate [...]

By Marilyn Wilson|2018-05-03T21:25:18-07:00January 10th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases, Reports, Suveys and Research|1 Comment

Trend MLS launches Find from MOVE

It has been about a year now, and Move has successfully launched the Find product into many of the nations’ leading MLSs. In score with this roll out, today Find launched in Trend MLS, serving 15 counties in southern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware is the latest MLS to launch the product. You may know that Trend MLS is what industry insiders call a “home grown” system – meaning that they are responsible for programming the MLS software. Owning the code and having programmers on staff means that tighter and more elegant implementations of third party products are possible within the [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:18-07:00January 10th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights|0 Comments

Why Dominant MLSs are Vulnerable
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Why Dominant MLSs are Vulnerable

Main category, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation

Why Dominant MLSs are Vulnerable

Today, there are numerous MLSs that have become dominant companies relative to their smaller competitors. In the world of survival of the fittest, one would assume that the large and strong eat the small and weak. But this is not necessarily true. For the purposes of this writing – I am using the term MLS to refer to MLS vendors and Regional MLSs. Most MLSs in the United States grew through merger and acquisition than through organic growth. As these companies began to reach dominant scale, they realized that they could provide agents and brokers quality MLS services more efficiently. [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:18-07:00January 9th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|1 Comment

The First Regional MLS Turns 30
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The First Regional MLS Turns 30

Main category

The First Regional MLS Turns 30

Congratulations to ARMLS (Arizona Regional MLS) who turns 30 this month! ARMLS was the first regional MLS when it was founded in 1982. They will be hosting special events, prizes and celebrations throughout the year. You can view a full calendar of events on the ARMLS 30th Anniversary page. […]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:19-07:00January 4th, 2012|Main category|1 Comment

3 Bedrooms and 2 baths just doesn’t cut it anymore

Build your business by giving consumers what they REALLY want to search for! Have you ever had the pleasure of relocating from one city to another? You have the stress of the move compounded by the fact that you are losing all of your trusted resources and most importantly your “local knowledge”. Let’s say you’re moving because you’ve been promoted to run a new division out of state. You have a young child so you’re looking for good schools within your area and a family-friendly neighborhood. How about if you are a young professional moving for a great job opportunity? [...]

By Marilyn Wilson|2018-05-03T21:25:21-07:00December 7th, 2011|Main category, MLS Insights, Reports, Suveys and Research|0 Comments

The Bigger LPS Paragon 5 Story

LPS, developers of the Paragon MLS system, announced that they have secured an agreement to replace a competitors’ MLS system with Paragon 5. This only happens about 12 times each year. The news is less about just getting a win, but tells a larger story about the future of MLS and how one MLS vendor is positioning for long term success. WAV Group performs upwards of 40 MLS customer satisfaction surveys each year to help MLSs understand what agents and brokers expect from their MLS. The number one complaint is Apple compatibility and Mobile compatibility. LPS knew this many years [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:21-07:00December 1st, 2011|Main category, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|0 Comments

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 [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:22-07:00November 22nd, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights, Product Management, Strategic Planning, Technology Evaluation|0 Comments

Why MLS sold data is bad, and a note about the comma

Oversights are interesting. They are even more interesting when they are fixed. Let me explain a little bit about “reporting Sales to the (MLS) Service” in the model MLS rules. Up until the recent meeting of the MLS Issues and Policies Committee meeting at the NAR Annual Convention, agents were required to change the listing status to Sold when a transaction closed. This is a case whereby the rule did not clearly indicate the behavior. As written, the agent was required to update the status of the listing, not enter the sale price from the contract. This is a significant [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:22-07:00November 16th, 2011|Main category, MLS Insights, Virtual Office Website Series|0 Comments