MLS and Association leadership brings forth an unusual ‘changing of friends’ on an annual basis. It is in the spring of each year that we begin to see these friendships take hold as CEOs arrive at NAR Midyear with their new Board Chairman in tow. It is all part of an important synthesis that takes place in our industry – one that often goes unappreciated. For five or more weeks Read more...
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LoopNet and dotloop are to appear in Los Angles court on Monday, July 22ed to settle their differences around the use of the word Loop. LoopNet has a registered trademark and claims that they are the sole user and owner of trademarks containing the term Loop. In the answer to the complaint, dotloop admits that the company was founded as MLS Contracts in 2008 and that its name was changed Read more...
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Over the past few years, we have seen a shift in professional technology solutions for real estate that has been mostly characterized by “the move to mobile.” Generally speaking, applications that do not work on mobile devices, either using a mobile browser or using a mobile app, are being cast aside. But there are secondary realities about the shift that many software companies seem to have neglected, namely, contact record Read more...
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I can’t tell you the number of times I have had a conversation with someone in the real estate industry where they tell me that the consumer is NOT their client. We prefer to think of the agent as the primary audience and simply ignore the fact that agents do not provide the checks. As the saying goes…follow the money…If you want to succeed in real estate, you have to Read more...
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Looking for an easy way to help prepare your Technology Committees before they head to NAR Mid-Year next week? Check out RE Technology’s third annual Technology Guide! Just released today, this free resource helps them identify technology solutions that can be considered for your organization. Every product in the guide features a list of conferences and trade shows that each company will be attending. View a live demo or speak Read more...
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Many MLSs are now considering offering additional products and service to their members. MLS leaders like MRIS, Metrolist and IRES have made forays into the eCommerce space and are leading the industry to figure out the best methods and promotional paths to success with eCommerce. While the concept of generating more revenue per member is an attractive concept, it is not nearly as easy as one might think. The most Read more...
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I love mobile technology and I have really been enjoying watching the advent of some very cool products finally become real in our industry. We have been talking about it for years and today, finally, there are some excellent mobile tools on the market. Make no mistake, though, mobile is still in the baby step phase in my opinion and we are going to see some big advances in the Read more...
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The Houston Association of REALTORS (HAR) hit a significant milestone this month. They supported their brokers and agents in eclipsing the mark of 1 million transactions representing $190 Billion in real estate sales. I really appreciate the way HAR keeps track of everything, with clear focus on where they started and the progress that they have made on behalf of their members over time. WAV Group partner, Victor Lund discussed Read more...
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Many MLSs are now considering offering additional products and services to their members. Come to the RE Technology webinar on Wednesday, May 8th at 11:00 am and learn how to increase your chances of non-dues revenue success with eCommerce. Learn from Lauren Hansen, CEO of IRES MLS, one of the first MLSs to offer eCommerce who will share her early experiences with eCommerce. Also, get a peek at RE Technology’s Read more...
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Spring has sprung in the Greater Chattanooga area. Solid Earth launched a stunning consumer facing MLS website today. It leverages responsive design, providing an optimized user experience across all browsers, all operating systems, and works great on all smart mobile devices. The search is front and center, and agent and broker branding are nicely attributed to listings. They also developed a very clean method for displaying the neighborhood market statistics. Read more...
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WAV Group is conducting research to discover if there is any broker in the United States who has pulled out of IDX and only offers a Virtual Office Website to consumers. Presumably, it would be a large enough broker who would display their listings publicly without the need to register to the site. If consumers wanted to see other broker listings, they would need to register. No other broker would be able Read more...
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WAV Group was provided with an announcement today that may be of interest to current iMapp customers, current CRS customers, or anyone looking for tax services. CRS and iMapp have entered into a strategic agreement that has CRS focused on tax systems and iMapp focused on advertising revenue. The companies will remain separate corporations, but align themselves to serve their customers in a way that leverages assets and capabilities of Read more...
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The most active group of home buyers in sellers in America have one thing in common – school age children. Traditionally, real estate has ducked the consumer by avoiding the laborious and somewhat liability producing task of informing consumers about schools. Our industry has largely taken the stance that if a consumer wants to know about schools, they will provide the phone number to the school district. Good luck with that. This Read more...
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First-time home buyers are necessary for a healthy housing market, but their needs and behaviors have changed. This group is doing more research in advance of working with an agent, and it’s no surprise that their research is happening online. In fact, real estate related searches on Google.com have grown more than 200 percent over the past four years, with frequently searched terms like FHA loan, home grants and homebuyer assistance. Read more...
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For years now our industry has talked about how mobile devices will soon be the primary device used by agents in their day-to-day business. We have been waiting for our MLS vendors to introduce cutting edge mobile products that would allow this vision of our future to become real. Advances in mobile are coming, however, not all MLS vendors have kept pace There has been progress and some solutions are Read more...
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On the business-to-business side of real estate, there are entities that cooperate with one another that also compete with one another. A common term for this in modern business management is a neologism called coopetition. Brokers competing against each other participate together in the MLS to share information and offer of compensation; and may be related to the same franchise. Agents who compete with each other participate in Associations of Read more...
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Berkshire Hathaway is a company with $200 Billion dollars in net worth with 300,000 employees. It is one of the three largest companies in America, and according to Buffett, it is a company that is built to last forever. That is the way Berkshire Hathaway thinks. Build businesses that last forever. There is a great quote in this video, one I believe I have heard him say in the past, Read more...
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MOVE published a release today announcing that Errol Samuelson has been promoted to Chief Strategy Officer, expanding his role at the company. The full press release is below. You may not know that Errol was once part of the most powerful team in real estate. I call them the four horseman - Errol plus Marty Frame, Prem Luthra, Ben Grabowski. All four have gone on to great success. Marty Frame Read more...
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Over Easter weekend, an outage happened to the largest real estate technology company in America. They recovered quickly and elegantly. On another side of life, a broker client of ours with 400 agents was given one-week notice that the company who provided Microsoft Exchange Mail services is going out of business. The realty is that software systems and hardware systems break. And when it happens, it is very disruptive. It Read more...
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