Zillow is a Broker – So What?

“Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, NRT, Redfin – all brokers. Do brokers drop out of IDX because they are selling homes in their market? Brokers share their listings with these large firms everyday. If Zillow joins the list, what’s the diff?” This is the conversation starter that an investment banker had with me today. I appreciate having conversations with people in the capital markets. Bankers see the world differently. They believe that markets shape themselves and that great companies lead markets. Perhaps Zillow Group has its heart in its current service offerings today. The company protests against becoming a brokerage, but [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:45-07:00June 21st, 2017|Main category|0 Comments
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FBS and Solid Earth Lock Arms to Provide Exciting New Service!

I just love it when technology truly helps make it easier for MLSs and brokers to deploy great technologies for consumers!  Today, FBS and Solid Earth are announcing a really exciting partnership that will make it MUCH easier for MLSs to help their brokers generate tons of leads and listing of exposure without spending ANY additional dollars! We talk a lot about data standards and their advantages, but sometimes it’s hard to understand the tangible value of APIs.  Today FBS’ Spark API and Solid Earth’s Spring platform have changed all that.   Because of their seamless integration, MLSs can now deploy [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:45-07:00June 21st, 2017|Press Releases|0 Comments
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Don’t Miss Out!

We are officially midway through 2017, now is a great time to sit back and reflect on the year so far and to begin preparing your organization for the inevitable evolutions we will experience throughout coming months and into 2018. Do you sometimes feel like your Board of Directors and key staff could benefit from a WAV Group overview of what is happening in the real estate industry today? Could your organization benefit from an information resource like WAV Group to characterize the rapid change in our industry?     Would you like an informed review of how similar MLS [...]

By |2018-11-08T04:03:09-08:00June 21st, 2017|Wav of Change|0 Comments
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Instanet Solutions Releases New TransactionDesk® App

Austin, TX – June 19th, 2017 – Instanet Solutions has officially released the new TransactionDesk App for iOS devices. The new TransactionDesk App is free to all current TransactionDesk users. The new TD App enables users to manage all of their listing, sales and lease transactions from their phones or tablets. With the TD App you can keep in touch and communicate with clients, share documents, create and fill in forms, prepare and send documents for eSigning and send documents for remote approval to ensure transactions are completed and finished on time, every time. All of the same functionality currently available [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:45-07:00June 20th, 2017|Press Releases|0 Comments
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Broker Public Portal Announces Seven New Board Members

Arroyo Grande, CA, June 15, 2017 – For Immediate Release: The Broker Public Portal (BPP) is a thriving real estate industry initiative that is delivering benefits to about half of all real estate professionals in America today. The company expresses its gratitude for those who have served as leaders and welcome seven new members to its Board of Managers. “It is an honor to serve with so many great leaders of our industry to develop this company, and I am grateful for the time and commitment given by each of my colleagues that are stepping down from the board. I am [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:45-07:00June 15th, 2017|Press Releases|0 Comments
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Did Zillow® Open the Door to Their Own Demise?

One of the greatest philosophers of all time was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). For brevity, let’s call him Hegel and be thankful to the University of Berlin where he lectured. I will suspend with the deep philosophy I learned in college and summarize Hegel as the author of a triad of historical development referred to thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In our observation, the MLS is the thesis, Zillow® is the antithesis, and what happens next will be the synthesis. Moreover, I will argue that Zillow may have opened the door to their demise with the Instant Offers™ test. Thesis [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:45-07:00June 14th, 2017|Main category|0 Comments
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MLS Industry Veteran Tom Beede to Retire in July

We will miss you Tom!  There’s nobody that keeps the industry honest and accountable like you do!         Congrats to Bill and Bob and the rest of the team too! SACRAMENTO, California – Tom Beede, President, CEO and CFO of MetroList Services, Inc., has announced his retirement after more than 32 years of service with MetroList and over 40 years in the MLS industry. His retirement is set for July 14, 2017. “MetroList has been very fortunate to have such a visionary leader at the helm,” said Wayne Rose, chairman, MetroList Board of Directors. Prior to joining MetroList, [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:45-07:00June 14th, 2017|Press Releases|0 Comments
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Google Local Guides Are Great For Real Estate

  If you remember the rage about FourSquare years ago, its coming back again. But this time, Google is leading the way to create local experts and Google Maps is the platform. So set up your account on Google Local Guides and get going! If you participate a lot, (hit 50 reviews), you will be highlighted as a top reviewer on Google Maps for Apple’s iOS and Android. Why?   Well, that is only something that you can answer. Like so many other social media strategies, it needs to be something that you enjoy doing. Also, consider this – Google Maps is [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:45-07:00June 13th, 2017|Main category, Marketing|0 Comments
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5 Ways to Eliminate “Headless Agents” on Your Listings

When was the last time you got a friend request on Facebook from someone who hadn’t bothered to upload a profile photo and was still using the grayed-out floating head instead? I’m hoping it was a while ago, but maybe you can remember how you felt when a faceless person reached out to touch you.  When I get one of those I simply delete the request and move on. If someone doesn’t care about enough about their friends and colleagues to even upload a picture I’m not really interested in connecting with them. Do you see how consumers may feel [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:46-07:00June 13th, 2017|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information|0 Comments
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Big Data Can Drive Bigger Broker Margins

WAV Group spends a lot of time consulting with brokers on how to re-margin their business. We published a paper in 2013 called Harvesting Business From Broker Data.  That paper characterized the methods that we developed with a number of brokers to harvest business from across the enterprise of title, mortgage, residential, relocation, insurance, commercial, and property management businesses. It has worked very well for many brokers to recapture repeat transactions and new business though cross sell. In many ways, the rethinking that went into the thesis around harvesting business across the enterprise was the first intellectual break from the [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:46-07:00June 9th, 2017|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Strategic Planning|0 Comments
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Paragon Partners With Zillow For MLS Features

According to a news release today, Black Knight Financial Services, developers of the Paragon MLS system and has partnered with Zillow for data management tools. Zillow purchased Bridge Interactive last year, a company that is well known for RETS servers (Contact) and listing input modules (Compose) for MLSs. As part of the alignment between the two companies, the release states that Zillow will be providing the technology to aggregate data from all of the hundreds of markets into Zillow’s data repository which Black Knight calls Property Information Central (PIC). This new system will act as the solution that will provide [...]

By |2018-08-12T08:02:37-07:00June 7th, 2017|MLS Insights, Press Releases|0 Comments
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The Emperor Has No Clothes: Why Listing Photos Are Imperative

‘Naked’ listings are a disservice to both buyers and sellers and WILL hurt your brokerage! When a listing hits the MLS and is syndicated to brokerage and portal websites — especially in 2017 — there are qualified, avid buyers who are waiting for that listing. They want to learn everything they can about their potential new home so they can decide whether it’s worth the asking price and whether they should spend some of their precious house-hunting time taking a tour. Let me ask you something: How easy do you think that is to do without any listing photos? “Naked” [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:46-07:00June 6th, 2017|How to Make Strategic Planning Really Work in your MLS, MLS Insights|0 Comments
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