Blow Away Your Broker Profit Goals

Top 5 Reasons to Leverage MLS Listing Data in Your Brokerage Today MLS data can make a lot of the systems in a brokerage work more smoothly and can create new ways to serve the needs of your clients while helping your brokerage be more competitive. I have been working a lot recently with brokers who are finding new ways to provide better service to their agents, sellers and home buyers by integrating their systems with MLS data in new and meaningful ways. Here are five benefits of integrating your systems with MLS data and how they can help your [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:17-07:00April 20th, 2016|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Blow Away Your Broker Profit Goals

3 Ways for MLSs to Frustrate and Alienate Brokers

SOLDS, VOWS and the RESO Data Dictionary are NOT Optional for MLSs Some MLSs are creating unnecessary and even illegal challenges for their brokers as well as for the technology suppliers that support their brokers, by not complying with NAR rules…some of which that have been in place for YEARS! I hear regularly from brokers and technology vendors that they run into roadblocks all the time when they try to access SOLDs for their IDX feed, a Virtual Office Website (VOW) data feed and most recently, the RESO Data Dictionary dataset. I’m going to start with a little history lesson [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:18-07:00April 20th, 2016|Broker Technology Research, MLS Insights|Comments Off on 3 Ways for MLSs to Frustrate and Alienate Brokers

The New Process for RFPs in Real Estate

This change was caused by a quiet revolution. During the Y2K surge that transitioned software from mainframe to browser, there was recognition that the old process of software development was too bureaucratic, slow, and overly regimented. An alternative to traditional project management that emerged in the early 2000s is called Agile software development. They use terms like Scrum, Extreme Programing, Dynamic System Development Method, Feature-Drive Development and many others. The overarching focus of all of these methodologies is to deliver frequent, high quality working software, delivered in “sprints,” which are measured in weeks, not months. The result is continuous improvement. [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:19-07:00March 30th, 2016|Broker Technology Research, MLS Insights|Comments Off on The New Process for RFPs in Real Estate

Is Real Estate Still in a Slump?

After the crash in the housing market, real estate was hit by the worst recession in our nation’s history. Frankly, brokers took a beating and operated at a loss for a number of years. Since the low point, things have been steadily been improving. There was a lot of speculation that the foreclosure volume in the hardest hit markets were clogging up the supply side. As we turned the corner, these distressed properties were slowly released into the marketplace and they are mostly absorbed. There was a two to three year heyday for brokers and agents who specialized in REO [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:20-07:00March 28th, 2016|Broker-Agent Information, How to Make Strategic Planning Really Work in your MLS, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning|Comments Off on Is Real Estate Still in a Slump?

IRES® MLS Passes Zillow® In Consumer Engagement

The Internet is the largest free market economy in the world. According to Siri™, 2.954 Billion people use the Internet every month. In the real estate industry, more consumers go to Zillow® than any other single real estate website. But that is changing. Some MLSs like IRES are actually drawing more consumer engagement in their local market and it is making a significant difference to MLS participants. MLSs measure listing engagement with their websites and syndication websites using services like ListHub™ and ListTrac™. These companies either get traffic statistics directly from publishers (like Zillow) or put tracking software on websites that [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:21-07:00March 7th, 2016|Broker Technology Research, MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off on IRES® MLS Passes Zillow® In Consumer Engagement

Graceful Vendor Termination

System conversions are very difficult in real estate. If there is one eternal truth, agents will absolutely resist change no matter what. Even with MLS system conversions where the death of the application, vital to their business, is eminent; they hang on during the parallel period until the very end. Then there is a flood of complaints about failure to notify them or train them. It’s a way of life that extends beyond the MLS system to the brokerage system. More and more, brokers are providing end-to-end business systems to their agents. Over years, the company trains and supports the [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:22-07:00February 29th, 2016|Main category|Comments Off on Graceful Vendor Termination

HomeSpotter Revolutionizes MLS Mobile Access

If you have a newer iPhone, you have embraced fingerprint access. You put your finger on the home button which reads your print and opens your phone—or your bank account, or any other app that leverages fingerprint access versus password access. Depending on your MLS, typing in your username and password multiple times a day can be painful, especially on a mobile device. With HomeSpotter, it is just a touch away. HomeSpotter is a mobile MLS application. It provides the benefits of accessing the MLS through a mobile app rather than mobile web. An app provides formatting benefits that mobile [...]

California Regionals Breaking Ranks

February is the month of love, but in the case of California Regional MLSs, it may be the month of divorce. There are regional MLSs in California that are in the midst of breaking up. On the surface, this looks like an asymmetrical strategy relative to the regionalization monster that is devouring MLSs across the nation. Perhaps below the surface, collapsing an existing regional may be the first step to creating a New World Order. When most regional MLSs were created, Associations of REALTORS® funded the companies. They are for-profit companies on paper, but typically build reserves then run the [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:23-07:00February 10th, 2016|Main category|Comments Off on California Regionals Breaking Ranks

iPad Listing Presentations and Relationships

WAV Group has been working with many companies on listing presentations. They are the Barnum & Bailey Circus of selling real estate. You know the drill, in this ring we have the home tour, in this ring we have comps, and in this ring we have why you should pick me. iPads deliver listing presentations with much higher impact than paper. It’s a great listing tool. There are a few tools that make the iPad sing that I really like. I think that Paperless Agent has put together a great series of education and applications that make the iPad a [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:23-07:00February 8th, 2016|Main category|Comments Off on iPad Listing Presentations and Relationships

Does Your Brand Have a Strategic Plan?

If you are reading this, you are somewhere in the real estate ecosystem – either part of an MLS, a REALTORS® Association, a large brokerage, or a technology firm that serves one of those personas. We work with some of these personas on strategy, we work with some on story, we all of them on state.   Strategy, Story, and State are business terms that are bantered around a lot. Saying the words has no meaning unless you are able to contextualize them within your own business. That process of contextualization is work that needs to be done by businesses [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:24-07:00January 31st, 2016|Main category|Comments Off on Does Your Brand Have a Strategic Plan?

Making Vendor Partnerships Work

The tragedy of software in real estate is lack of adoption by agents. Brokerage firms and MLSs who invest dearly in technology solutions start out with the hope that agents will use it and success will come. Since hope is not a strategy, more work is required to find success. First of all, there is a difference between a site license and a user license. As you enter into partnerships with vendors, consider user licenses. That will bind both the vendor and the company to a mutual goal of driving agent adoption of the application.  Companies should not pay license [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:25-07:00January 21st, 2016|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Our Services|Comments Off on Making Vendor Partnerships Work

The 7 Keys to A Successful MLS Conversion

If my history recollection serves me, Vancouver is where Canada’s first real estate board was formed in 1888. The current Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) has been in continuous operation since 1919. They are also members of a leading regional MLS that encompasses the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board as a partner and the Chilliwack and District Real Estate Board and the British Columbia Northern Real Estate Board as customers. Together they transitioned 16,000 Realtors to Black Knight’s Paragon system. Many industry insiders are touting it as the smoothest conversion in history. WAV Group connected with Eileen Day, [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:25-07:00January 12th, 2016|Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on The 7 Keys to A Successful MLS Conversion