Top 10 Ways to Become a Truly Broker-Centric MLS.

Ever since the now infamous Gripe List was published, MLSs have been scrambling to find out they can better serve their MLS Customers.  I was honored to moderate a panel of brokers at the highly successful RESO conference last week as part of the first business track. I asked them what they believe an MLS must do to become broker-centric. Since there is no official definition of what a broker-centric MLS is I thought I would take a crack at it to get the conversation going. The following list is a compilation of their answers along with interviews we conducted [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:29-07:00November 11th, 2015|Main category, MLS Insights|1 Comment

Brokers Need To Sharpen Their Value Story

WAV Group is re-launching a number of brokerage brands today. Re-launching a brand does not require a brand to change, but the brand communication changes. We review how the brand is communicated everywhere, but especially where the brand has the greatest reach – in your technology applications. A brand re-launch begins with a strategy to tell the story about why your brand is a good choice. We identify why your managers (employees) work for your firm so competitors do not hire them away. We define the reasons why agents (contractors) work for your firm so they cannot be recruited away. [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:29-07:00November 11th, 2015|Main category, Marketing, Our Services|0 Comments

Boost Your Member Satisfaction by offering RE Technology

Real estate agents and brokers are overwhelmed by technologies. Telemarketers pitching the latest and greatest gimmick inundate them. We have been changing this since 2010 and now serve 750,000 MLS and Association subscribers with straight shooting information. Let's meet at NAR to discuss this top rated solution for your area. Trust the Real Estate Technology Leader RE Technology is an online source where agents and brokers can learn about how to use technology to win more listings, sell homes more quickly, and maintain stronger relationships with past clients. Currently agents and brokers have access to thousands of articles and product [...]

Preparing for Success in the Coming Year

As we approach the end of another exciting year in real estate, now is a great time to sit back and reflect on the best ways to help prepare your members and organization for success next year. We have talked many times over the years about the importance of staying in touch with what is happening in the industry today. Here’s what can happen when an organization is out of touch: They can delay decisions because they seem difficult or controversial causing the organization to fall behind or lose its competitive advantage. Instead of responding to the waves of change, [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:32-07:00October 27th, 2015|Main category, Our Services|0 Comments

Lund and Cowen Discuss REDPLAN Prior Art and Forms Library

REDPLAN directors Victor Lund of WAV Group and Merri Jo Cowen, CEO of My Florida Regional MLS had a call to discuss REDPLAN’s new Prior Art and Forms Library. Lund: When did MFRMLS join REDPLAN? Cowen: MFRMLS joined REDPLAN a few years ago. I joined the Board of Directors shortly after. Lund: Why did MFRMLS join REDPLAN? Cowen: Our Board of Directors was motivated by the need that they see for this kind of non-profit entity. Among MLSs today, there is little education that delivers best copyright practices or collaboration for MLSs to fight patent trolls.  Our hope is that [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:32-07:00October 27th, 2015|Main category|0 Comments

WAV Group Partnering With MLSs On Zillow Survey

WAV Group is recruiting MLS and broker participants for a study to get an understanding of what these groups of people think about their relationship with Zillow. This study is funded internally at WAV Group. What do home buyers think of the service What do home sellers think of the service? What do renters think of the service? What do Property Managers think of the Service What do Premier Agents think of the service? What does Premier Mortgage think of the service? What do real estate brokers of all sizes think of the service? By participating in the study, you [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:32-07:00October 27th, 2015|Main category, Our Services|3 Comments

Broker Public Portal Update – October 2015

Many participants in the Broker Public Portal project were in attendance at the Council of MLS annual meeting in Kansas City. It was an extraordinary event, and one could not walk away without a sense that brokers and MLSs are communicating and working together better today than ever before. The BPP, LLC leadership in attendance was able to have meetings with prospective and partner MLSs, providing status updates on our progress.  We also spent the day before the conference to make progress on two fronts – the data license workgroup and the technology workgroup. Data License Workgroup Update Representatives from [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:32-07:00October 27th, 2015|Main category|0 Comments

Millennials and Home Buying Revisited

The great statistical debate continues on the impact of Millennials today on home buying. About a year ago, I wrote about the conflicting data (“Millennial Marketing Madness”) that argued Millennials were not going to drive the majority home sales in 2015 despite what marketers and self-interested parties were claiming. Fast-forward today, and it looks like the hardcore data was accurate and the marketers missed the mark. Today’s headlines have taken quite a turn from those we saw last year. Now those pundits who said Millennials would be driving today’s housing market are scrambling to explain why they are not or [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:32-07:00October 27th, 2015|Main category|1 Comment

3 Ways to Leverage Your PR

A potential client called recently to engage the services of WAV Group Communications. Typical to most initial conversations with many potential clients in the real estate industry is the misunderstanding of what public relations is. I assured him it was much more than simply writing a good news release and publishing it on a paid wire. That topic alone is another column. But the conversation reminds me of how little time PR people take to educate our industry about what PR is. To help in this effort, let’s explore a crucial area that shows how powerful strategic PR can be [...]

7 Things every executive must know before taking questions from reporters

One thing that most executives are not trained for is talking to reporters. Some have a natural talent for it, but most learn the hard way. Having spent more than 25 years coaching executives on how to best work with reporters, here are the seven most important thing that all executives must know before they talk to the press. Getting ready The first thing to remember when a reporter calls is that most of them are writing on a deadline. Even though you may have sent them the material days ago, and they may have already contacted you with a [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:34-07:00October 6th, 2015|Main category, Our Services|0 Comments

MLS As A Communication Tool

Years ago, real estate agents gathered for breakfast with wrinkled sheets of paper culled from notes that took at listing presentations. Of course, they were not listing presentations at the time. It was more like a walk around the place. Someone in the area, often a relative or a neighbor, was trusted for selling property. There were not a lot of transactions then. Many families homesteaded their land, like my great grandfather. Today the decedents of that family occupy that property, subdivided as necessary to provide homes for grown children. Real estate information is something that people knew long before [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:34-07:00October 6th, 2015|Main category, MLS Insights|4 Comments

Brokers need full data transparency and unified standards, not self reporting

The room was filled with brokers, eager to hear how the real estate industry is beginning to make great strides in wrangling Big Data to the benefits of everyone: Brokers, agents and consumers. The three panelists on stage represented a broad spectrum of the industry: Rainy Hake, a well respected brokerage leader who oversees the Technology, Marketing, Training and Strategy departments for Alain Pinel Realtors; Trent Gardner, the CEO of ListTrac, known as the “Google Analytics for Listings;” and Jeremy Crawford, the dynamic MLS leader who heads up RESO (Real Estate Standards Organization) and the chief evangelist for the Data [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:34-07:00October 6th, 2015|Broker Technology Research, Main category|0 Comments