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 [...]

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

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 [...]

Agents Love MLS Newsletters

When RE Technology was founded by WAV Group partners in 2010, the goal was to provide an information resource inside the MLS system that would sharpen agent understanding of technology in real estate. We will forever appreciate MRED, MRIS, MLSListings, and MFRMLS for introducing the first 100,000 users to the service. Today, 91 MLSs and over 700,000 users have access to RE Technology as a member benefit. Because technology companies sponsor the service, there is never charge to the MLS or the broker or agent. The concept behind RE Technology is to support MLSs at delivering insightful information about technology [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:00-07:00September 3rd, 2014|Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights|1 Comment

Another Broker-Governed MLS Gets RESO Certification

Perhaps its just because, or happenstance, or not. But MLSListings, based in the heart of the Silicon Valley in California, is the second MLS in the nation to join MRIS in RESO Server Certification. Like MRIS, MLSListings is a broker governed MLS. In truth, the title of the article was drafted to get you to read this article. The fact is that MRIS and MLSListings, along with many of the COVE Group MLSs repeatedly lead the industry in adopting best practices. Its in their DNA. And yes, Anne Bailey does a great job facilitating the COVE group and both of [...]

MyOnlineYardSign Attacks MLS IDX Policy

Generally speaking, real estate business media companies write a pretty respectful commentary regarding the well-developed MLS IDX policy. Sure, the policy is a living document and the MLS Policy Committee is an open forum for clarifying the policy and amending it from time to time. But generally, it is a well adopted program that publically exemplifies cooperation among brokerage firms. Today, Travis Saxton of Real Trends promoted a product called MyOnlineYardSign. The product allows real estate agents and brokers to put contact information and the company logo on their photos for free. Watermarking of this type has been around for [...]

The Seamless Transaction!   It’s FINALLY starting to happen before our eyes!

ZipLogix® has long been a provider of electronic forms software. They led the migration of processing transactions from paper to online with the launch of their zipForm® software and have opened up a huge opportunity for innovation, risk reduction and efficiency. zipLogix® is on a roll. They are forging tons of partnerships with companies that provide other valuable parts of managing the real estate transaction. The Ultimate Goal? Looks like a path to truly create a seamless, paperless transaction. Way to go zipLogix® – we at WAV Group have been asking for this type of integration for years! We wrote [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:00-07:00August 27th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|0 Comments

MLSs Need To Focus on the Customer Record

The Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) is clearly picking up steam at driving standards across the real estate industry. A pivotal inflection point in the success of standards is the adoption of those standards by MLS service providers and their vendors. One of the vendors who is particularly aggressive at adopting those standards is FBS, developers of FlexMLS and Spark. You can translate “particularly aggressive at adopting standards” to leadership in real estate technology. I will be using FlexMLS to demonstrate my point thought out this article, but to be clear – many MLS Vendors and MLS service providers are [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:00-07:00August 25th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights, Reports|0 Comments

Are you living the life of a Customer Servant?

We all know that our businesses are dependent on our customers, yet we don’t always live the dream of providing amazing customer service. It’s easy when you get tired to say “I’ll get up early and do it tomorrow”.   When the phone rings and we don’t answer it we might justify it by saying I need to focus on this CMA I am building. Or worse yet, the phone might ring and we ignore it because we’re talking to one of our friends or having a cup of coffee. While we’re all human and we have our moments of weakness, [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:00-07:00August 25th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, MLS Insights|0 Comments

An Industry Can Change In A Moment

There are many in our flocks that don’t have a calculus for a manifestation of change. It just seems to rub them the wrong way. The belief is that, among those who fight change, there are the people who have wired the world for their own success. I don’t think so. I believe that fear of change is something internal, and innate in the nature of some portion of our humanity. It is probably not a bad thing either. It makes change difficult, and perhaps more worthwhile. After considering all of the testimony, documentary evidence and arguments of counsel presented [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:01-07:00August 25th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights|0 Comments

Advertiser’s Nirvana is CRM

If you want to see the marketing department at Lowe’s or Home Depot salivate – tell them you have a data source that will notify them of the Name, phone number, address, and information about the property they just purchased. In fact, you will even be able to tell them the closing date and the move in date. That is the kind of information that is in CRM solutions and until now, that data has not been mined for advertising. Nobody understands this better than Trulia, the company that may have the most highly adopted CRM solution in America. In [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:01-07:00August 25th, 2014|Main category|2 Comments

We’re Losing the Race for Relevance – How to Stem the Tide

Idea #1 - How to Take Credit for the Industry’s Service Quality Every real estate association I have the pleasure of working with is struggling with how to re-invent themselves. Everybody knows it’s a problem at some level, but yet there has been no fundamental change in the focus, governance or scope of associations in several years. Are we just going to sit by and watch the association business go away?  Should it go away?  Has the value of an association run its course? My fundamental belief is that Associations CAN and DO play an important role in the industry, [...]