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 [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:58-07:00September 30th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights|0 Comments
Read More

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 [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:58-07:00September 30th, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|0 Comments
Read More

Coldwell Banker Chooses Imprev

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 [...]

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

Trulia Weekly Update Is Released

I don’t really know if this is just something that Trulia is testing or if this is something that they rolled out system-wide, but I received a lovely real estate update this morning It is not a heavy piece, but it certainly popped into my inbox 18 New Listings, 2 open houses, 9 price reductions, download the mobile app, home value lead capture and median sales price. Aside from my first impression of the execution being very positive, it made me wonder…… Where else would this type of daily email be a practical way to touch professionals or consumers? For [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:58-07:00September 24th, 2014|Main category, Technology Evaluation|0 Comments
Read More

Is your Board out of touch?

Do you sometimes feel like your Board of Directors and key staff are out of touch with what’s really happening in the real estate industry today?  Do you sometimes feel a bit isolated and would like to know if other organizations are facing the same challenges you are?  Is your organization suffering from stifled and cumbersome decision-making? 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. Boards that do not stay close to trends can enforce outdated [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:59-07:00September 23rd, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Strategic Planning|2 Comments
Read More

The Lasting Value of Knowing What Your Customers Are Looking for 

The Case for Measuring Customer Satisfaction Regularly MLSs are monopolies right?  They OWN their territory so they don’t have to worry about customer satisfaction.  Few in the industry would ever agree to this statement but in reality, many act as though they are a monopoly – not paying close attention to what their customers are asking for.  Can you honestly say you know what your MLSs strengths and weaknesses are?  Do you know what frustrates your customers or how you might hinders them from selling real estate as effectively as they could?   Do you occasionally get a board member that [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:59-07:00September 23rd, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights, Our Services|0 Comments
Read More

Real estate industry veteran to lead WAV Group Communications

Arroyo Grande, CA – September 23, 2014 – Real estate industry communications and marketing veteran Kevin Hawkins has been named President of WAV Group Communications, the newest division of the real estate industry’s leading consulting firm, WAV Group. Being officially introduced at the CMLS2014, the Council of Multiple Listing Services national conference that starts tomorrow, September 24-27 in Huntington Beach, California, Hawkins will expand and deepen the communications services The WAV Group provides to leading MLS firms, REALTOR® Associations, top real estate brokerages, and real estate technology firms. “We have known and worked with Kevin for a long time. He [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:59-07:00September 23rd, 2014|Main category, Marketing, Our Services|1 Comment
Read More

And the Lead Goes Round and Round

I had a rather interesting conversation about lead management and lead sales today. The story went something like this. A broker enhances listings and purchases zip code leads from a portal. The broker believes that there is some form of exclusivity on the leads generated through the system in so far as the lead is only distributed once. In his case, he distributes the leads as they come into one of his agents. To test the system, the broker had a staff member go to the publisher site and generate a lead. The lead came through to the broker as [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:59-07:00September 23rd, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Marketing|0 Comments
Read More

SourceMLS launches as the seal of approval and accuracy

The sourceMLS™ initiative is set to launch next week at the Council of MLS meetings in Huntington Beach, CA and I am excited! If you are displaying a listing from the MLS, you can display the sourceMLS Logo. It’s that simple. Think of it as the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. This is a no-frills way for every listing agent, every listing broker, and every MLS to finally identify the value of a listing to the consumer. There is not a day that goes by when a consumer is not bilked by dozens of inaccurate, incomplete, expired, or just flat [...]

By |2018-08-12T08:45:19-07:00September 19th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|2 Comments
Read More

Allre Causes Brokers To ReThink Strategy

The FSBO dam just sprouted another leak, and brokers better pay attention. If you have not heard about Allre, you better watch the video below right now. It is a collaboration between banks like Prime Lending, Home Insurance providers, home warranty companies, and even a lock box vendor to facilitate FSBO sales. The fee to the consumer is ZERO – nothing. There are no brokerage services at all, so they completely surpass all RESPA regulations. It is 100% FSBO. The only thing that will sit between Allre and success is venture capital. If they attract enough venture capital to attract [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:59-07:00September 18th, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights|6 Comments
Read More

Midyear Broker Website Benchmarks

WAV Group just completed providing our broker clients with a review of their Google Analytics for September. Something rather remarkable happened this month that has confirmed a strategy that we have long suspected, but have not had enough data to confirm. Virtual Tour Videos Drive More Traffic Than Listing Syndication on Broker Websites. Quite a number of WAV Group broker clients have been publishing automated virtual tours to YouTube for a few years now. They are using vendors like Property Panorama, RealBiz, Virtual Tour Café, Imprev, VHT or some other solution. We do not endorse any product over another but [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:59-07:00September 11th, 2014|Main category, Marketing, Technology Evaluation|1 Comment
Read More

MOVE acquires Point2 Syndication Contracts

It looks like MOVE, operators of Realtor.com have taken a stride that is not altogether different from the success that Zillow is garnering with their acquisition strategy. MOVE is doing their best to control the pipelines that deliver advertising to portals in the United States. MOVE already owns Listhub, the largest syndicator of listing content. Now they pick up their nearest competitor - Point2 - much in the same way that Zillow picked up Trulia. The biggest difference, beyond taking out a competitor, is that they will removing a layer of duplication of listing syndication. Spencer Rascoff of Zillow describes [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:00-07:00September 4th, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|0 Comments
Read More
WAV Group | Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved.