The Future is Now: Thought Leadership from Two of Inman’s Top 101

We’re proud to announce that our founding partners, Marilyn Wilson and Victor Lund, were recently named to Inman’s annual list of the top leaders in the real estate industry. The award recognizes their forward thinking visions about how the industry can and must adapt to change. Marilyn, according to Inman, is “an articulate spokesperson about the threats and the challenges faced by the industry,” while Victor is “an advocate for big strategic initiatives that the legacy industry must undertake to survive.”

“It’s interesting to be acknowledged as one of the industry leaders because we operate a very small business,” Victor told me earlier today. “The recognition is more of a testament to the privilege we have to work with so many MLSs, brokers, and technology companies as their servant.”

The recognition is also a testament to the huge potential impact of several key industry wide initiatives that WAV Group is working on:

• Supporting the communications of the Real Estate Standards Organization as they roll out Data Dictionary certification and the RESO API
• Supporting REDPLAN’s efforts to protect the assets of the real estate industry and to defend those assets against patent trolls and other nefarious activities
• Supporting the Broker Public Portal in its strides to build a national MLS consumer facing website
• Helping Project Upstream become operational now that they’ve secured the support of NAR and selected RPR as their vendor

“We do these things at the liberty of the leadership that operates these initiatives,” said Victor. “I think a lot of times consulting firms are mischaracterized as the people doing these things when we’re merely the staff that supports them.”

Regardless, WAV Group has been a driving force in pushing the industry to adapt to changing consumer expectations spurred by technology. To give you a better idea of WAV Group’s influential thought leadership, we’ve rounded up a sampling of their best articles from 2015:

For brokers

• Upstream Revealed
• Top 3 Ways to Make the New IDX Rules Work for Your Brokerage
• Major Changes In Real Estate
• No HATERS in Real Estate Please!

For MLSs

• Top 10 Ways to Become a Truly Broker-Centric MLS
• An Industry At Risk
• Enabling an Ecosystem of Innovation for Real Estate
• RETS Servers and Direct Feeds
• Understanding the MRIS-TREND Project
• Bad Customer Service Can WIPE OUT a LOT of Goodwill Away in Minutes!
• The Do’s and Don’ts of MLS System Selection
• It’s Time to Replace Core Standards with the Gold Standard

By Kelly J. Phelan, Content Editor, RETechnology.com