Associations Rethink Forms Licensing Policy

If you were in the real estate business before the days of email, you may recall the experience of driving to the local Board of REALTORS® to pick up a forms packet for a transaction. Alternatively, your brokerage may have had a forms file with every type of printed form that you might need. Simply stated, forms were printed until pioneering State Associations of REALTORS® learned to share them electronically. Today, electronic forms management is a member benefit for all Realtors® as a member benefit of The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR). When Realtor Associations learned about this policy and [...]

By |2017-11-29T20:02:42-08:00November 29th, 2017|Main category|1 Comment

An Invitation to Broker-Owners and Other Top Brokerage Execs

How confident are you in the US economy? That’s just one of the questions that for the last six years Imprev has asked top executives as part of its annual Thought Leader Real Estate Confidence Survey. Its 2017 Survey is now underway, and if you are a brokerage industry Thought Leader, Imprev wants you to participate. The Survey is designed expressly for broker-owners, and C-level executives – Chief Executive Officers, Chief Operating Officers, Chief Marketing Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Revenue Officers, basically every title that begins with a “C” – who manage real estate franchises or brokerages. You can [...]

By |2017-11-29T14:36:55-08:00November 29th, 2017|Main category|0 Comments

Consolidation: What PR Tactics Can Help?

2018 could very well be the “Year of Consolidation” in the MLS industry. With the recent NAR move towards an “MLS of Choice” policy, we are likely to see a huge momentum build towards consolidation, especially in the second half of next year. That’s because smaller MLSs are going to find profitability under their current pricing model impossible. The simplest (and most often the best) solution will be to merge. By failing to plan for the role communications and PR plays within a consolidation, you are planning to fail. That’s because an effective communications and PR plan is vital to [...]

By |2017-11-29T14:27:53-08:00November 29th, 2017|Main category, MLS Insights|0 Comments

What is a Brand?

A brand is the difference between a pair of running shoes and a pair of Nikes. A brand is what people feel about you your product, the service you provide, or your organization. It's part rational but mostly emotional. People will forgive a strong brand if it makes a mistake. likewise people won't forgive a weak brand if it makes a mistake, remember Gateway computers? We thought so. WAV Group is not a branding agency – we leave that to leading firms like 1000 Watt. But WAV Group starts every project with an understanding of your brand. Marilyn Wilson, former [...]

By |2017-11-22T12:00:20-08:00November 22nd, 2017|Main category|0 Comments

IRES & REcolorado Sign Binding Merger Agreement

Approval from Shareholder Boards is Next Step to Form One MLS for Denver and Northern Colorado IRES and REcolorado have taken another step toward creating a single MLS that will serve 26,000 real estate professionals in northern Colorado and the greater Denver Metro Area. Lauren Hansen, CEO of IRES, and Kirby Slunaker, president and CEO of REcolorado, today announced the commitment between the two MLSs has now gone from a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU), as announced in September, to a binding merger agreement. The merger agreement has been signed by Hansen and Slunaker and has received approval from both [...]

By |2017-11-13T09:45:01-08:00November 13th, 2017|Main category|0 Comments

REMINE Now Includes 100% of the Nation’s Detailed Property Information

Exciting news from one of the hottest new technologies in the MLS space - REMINE.  They have recently partnered with First American to include detailed property information for 100% of the properties in America. This will allow REMINE customers to conduct even deeper searches to uncover prospecting opportunities through their local MLS. For those that haven’t heard about this new company, their platform analyzes property records, transnational history, consumer data and delivers actionable insights on an intuitive user interface.  With just a few clicks an agent can identify a specific type of audience they would like to target – investors, [...]

By |2017-11-12T16:48:30-08:00November 12th, 2017|MLS Insights, Press Releases, Technology|0 Comments

Steve Murray Appointed to Lone Wolf Board of Directors

WAV Group would like to congratulate the Lone Wolf board of directors for expanding their ranks to include Real Trends President, Steve Murray. It’s a great move and brokers should celebrate! About Lone Wolf: If you are not familiar, Lone Wolf is among the largest technology providers in the real estate industry with a focus on broker back office solutions where they are the market leader. Their accounting solutions have a profound market share – likely exceeding 50% of all brokerage firms in America. Last month, Lone Wolf acquired Instanet – making Lone Wolf either the #1 or #2 provider [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:35-07:00November 7th, 2017|Main category, Technology Evaluation|0 Comments

Hits and Misses from NAR Chicago

Chicago is a baseball town. Even with the Cubs disappointingly not returning to the World Series this year, you can’t escape seeing someone wearing a Cubs or White Sox hat or shirt every day in Chicago, even in November. McCormick Place, home to this year’s REALTORS® Conference & Expo, sits just two-and-a-half miles north of Comiskey Park, where the Sox play – their South Side team. So you get an idea of how far away this convention center is from the heart of downtown. And the proximity to a pro baseball park also gives me the perfect excuse to use [...]

By |2018-07-01T00:07:23-07:00November 7th, 2017|Main category|0 Comments

Can You Get Protection Against Cyber Fraud?

Why Cyber Insurance? With the costs associated with running a business continuing to escalate, additional expenses are hard to justify. Cyber insurance is one of those costs most businesses will gamble on and decide to throw the dice to remove it from the expense sheet. A PWC white paper says that cyber insurance premiums will reach $7.5 billion dollars by 2020. It further says that “cyber-crime costs the global economy more the $400 billion dollars a year”. This is big money and it will only continue to intensify over time. When evaluating the risk associated with systems being compromised by brute [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:35-07:00November 6th, 2017|Main category|0 Comments

Communications and Public Relations are not Advertising

About four years ago, WAV Group expanded its consulting services to include Public Relations and Communications. Like everything at WAV Group, this service is an extension of our core Strategic Planning services. In our planning experiences, we learned that companies are not doing enough research to measure customer and employee satisfaction. So we started WAV Group Research. We learned that many companies have a hard time recruiting and hiring the right people, so we started WAV Group recruiting. WAV Group communications help companies develop and implement great communications and PR strategies. Kevin Hawkins is our leader in this segment of [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:35-07:00November 2nd, 2017|Main category, Press Releases|0 Comments

Love HELPING REALTORS® succeed? Have we got a job for you!

We’re excited to announce that WAV Group is working with Carolina Multiple Listing Service (CarolinaMLS) to find a Help Desk Support Manager. Carolina MLS CarolinaMLS is an 11,000 member organization which is a subsidiary of the Charlotte Regional REALTOR® Association.  This progressive organization is one of the largest associations in the U.S. and CarolinaMLS is experiencing significant growth.  In addition to providing wholesale service to North Carolina Mountains MLS and adding 3,519 users, it is in the process of onboarding over 600 more users by providing wholesale service to the MLS of Catawba Valley, bringing subscriber numbers to 15,000+.  Additional [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:35-07:00November 2nd, 2017|Main category|0 Comments