NYC is going green, why cant you?

New York City has passed landmark legislation to reduce the cost of operating existing buildings according to an article this week in the Queens Center. While most municipal legislation focuses mainly on building standards for new builds, this legislation requires energy reduction and energy use monitoring for large existing buildings in New York City. This legislation will affect a small percentage of the buildings in NYC, yet it will affect 45% of the city’s total energy consumption.  The legislation requires annual energy audits and remediation plans.  It specifically targets lighting since 20% of total energy consumption in the city is [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:26:18-07:00December 30th, 2009|Main category|0 Comments

Metrolist Adopts Flat Fee Pricing Structure

In a historic move for Metrolist MLS, the company has moved from a usage pricing model to a flat fee model. This move will likely save Metrolist’s active top producer members hundreds of dollars a year – a welcome change in a contracted economy. […]

By |2018-05-03T21:26:18-07:00December 23rd, 2009|Main category|0 Comments

Are you as annoying as a political party?

During critical election times I became quite engrossed in learning all of the “facts” about political candidates so I signed up for several email newsletters so that I could learn about issues from several perspectives. In the heat of the battle I was not affronted by being asked constantly for funds.  The pitches for funding usually included some valuable information about the issues at hand so I was willing to put up with the incessant sales pitches. Fast forward to a year later.  Now the major elections are over.  I have already given at the office, donating to the candidates [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:26:18-07:00December 23rd, 2009|Main category|0 Comments

Trulia talks with Google rumored

  According to sources close to the situation Google has been in on-again, off-again acquisition talks with Trulia, the real-estate search engine.  This blog post appeared on CNET today from Kara Shisher – whose wife is an executive with Google – EVP Biz Dev.  kara also writes for the WSJ and co-produces a conference with Walt Mossberg. Kara indicates that sources estimate that Trulia’s valuation ranges between $150 and $200 million – although the sale would place a premium on top of that. […]

By |2018-05-03T21:26:18-07:00December 20th, 2009|Main category|0 Comments

Google Africa aims to scrape and catalog global real estate listing data

Los Angles Times, 2009 - International Search Engine Company, Google - opens new company in Africa to begin scraping data outside the reach of United States and International Copyright Laws. This is fiction Today I read the Los Angles Times - paper edition (typing with black fingers).  There was an article covering Google Books - the Search Engine’s initiative to digitize every book on the planet in every language.  As it turns out, the French courts generally agree with the US Courts - that digitizing books violates copyright. I am not an international copyright lawyer, but I suspect that Google [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:26:19-07:00December 19th, 2009|Main category|0 Comments

The truth about the Boston Tea Party

On this day in 1773 (as you surely recall from Sister Herman Joseph’s fourth grade class), a group of Colonists, disguised as Indians, boarded 3 British ships at dockside in Boston Harbor. And, as you probably also recall, they threw tons of British tea into the Harbor. And, you probably learned, this was all done to protest the outrageously expensive British tea. Well, you can’t be right about everything. The tea was not expensive; it was cheap - -too cheap. That was the problem. The good people of Boston had been making quite a living smuggling Dutch tea into the [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:26:19-07:00December 16th, 2009|Main category|0 Comments

Hunt Real Estate Expanding to Capital Region

We’re always happy to report great news about companies from our hometown of Buffalo, New Yorik.  As reported in RIS MEDIA this morning, HUNT Real Estate ERA announced that it has formed a new joint venture with Empire Home Realty, Inc. based out of Saratoga Springs. Empire Home Realty currently operates two offices with over 30 agents associated with the firm. The newly established partnership will operate under the name of HUNT Real Estate ERA. Eric Eckardt, who was the Founder and President of Empire Home Realty, is now a General Manager of the region and Partner with HUNT Real [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:26:19-07:00December 16th, 2009|Main category|0 Comments

Lines bluring between the physical world and the virtual

In my morning perusal of news, I saw a story about Google who reiterated their goal of organizing the worlds information.  The article went on to show examples of how real time information is being assimilated by Google from a variety of different sources, translated into every language, and published for the world to view. There has been a lot of chatter recently about Google in Real Estate.  They have made some improvements to property search, but their data quality is still very bad.  Interestingly, the new policy suggestion by the National Association of REALTORS on data scraping will now [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:26:19-07:00December 8th, 2009|Main category|0 Comments

New Real Estate Book website review

The new Real Estate Book website provides and excellent value to their print advertisers - extending the effectiveness of print advertising to the internet.  They support consumers who start their buying or selling process by picking up a magazine.  They support their advertisers by providing a website that effectively competes for online consumers against the top sites for search engine optimization. The realestatebook.com had me from the word Arroyo.  The best online forms automatically ‘guess’ what you are typing as you enter each letter of text.  I love this feature - it makes me believe that the machine is thinking [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:26:19-07:00December 1st, 2009|Broker Technology Research, Main category|0 Comments

2009 CMLS Benchmarking Survey Results

In September 2009 the Council of Multiple Listing Services (CMLS) and WAV Group reached out to the entire MLS community for the second year to gather insights about a variety of elements of MLS operations.  The goal of the survey was to provide each MLS with a benchmark to compare its operation to. When considering the addition of new services or programs, MLSs throughout North America can refer to the report to help evaluate service offerings relative to MLSs around the country. The survey was completed by 115 MLSs around North America representing approximately 750,000 REALTORS.  The respondents represent a [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:26:19-07:00November 30th, 2009|Main category, MLS Insights, Suveys and Research|0 Comments

Most Home Sells KURIO Division

  Most Home Corp. (OTC Bulletin Board: MHME), today announced it has entered into a non-binding letter of intent (“LOI”) with Yaletown Capital Corp. (“Yaletown”), which sets out the general terms and conditions of the proposed acquisition by Yaletown of 100% of the assets, intellectual property, trade secrets, key employees, contracts in place, contracts pending or under discussion with unrelated potential customers, business receivables and physical assets owned or used on a regular basis in relation to the Wireless Platform, subject to an independent appraisal to confirm the value of the assets, (collectively, “Kurio®” the acquisition of which are referred [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:26:19-07:00November 20th, 2009|Main category|0 Comments