America’s Largest MLS Offering System of Choice

One announcement that was made around the Council of MLS meetings was the intention of the California Regional Association of REALTORS to offer the Paragon MLS system alongside the CoreLogic Matrix system. This was a big topic of conversation in our recent webinar, the most recent installment in our ongoing WAVes of Change series. Just think about it – they will be running in parallel forever. History CRMLS is a complex MLS. They support 78,000 subscribers and they plan to grow. California has a lot of Paragon installations in California, including some large MLSs like San Diego County and a [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:31-07:00November 4th, 2015|Main category, MLS Insights, Our Services|0 Comments

Online Marketing is for Sellers, Recruiting, and Retention

It's November, the beginning of budgeting and planning for a successful 2016. WAV Group studies the online effectiveness of many of today’s leading brokers and provides audits and advisory services on optimizing these programs. The true measure of online effectiveness is closing a transaction. Unfortunately, we have observed that closing a transaction is coincidental to online marketing and not a direct correlation. The relationship between an agent and a consumer is akin to dating. Both parties must be attracted to one another. There needs to be a connection and the development of things like trust and confidence. It’s a dating [...]

Preparing for Success in the Coming Year

As we approach the end of another exciting year in real estate, now is a great time to sit back and reflect on the best ways to help prepare your members and organization for success next year. We have talked many times over the years about the importance of staying in touch with what is happening in the industry today. Here’s what can happen when an organization is out of touch: They can delay decisions because they seem difficult or controversial causing the organization to fall behind or lose its competitive advantage. Instead of responding to the waves of change, [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:32-07:00October 27th, 2015|Main category, Our Services|0 Comments

WAV Group Partnering With MLSs On Zillow Survey

WAV Group is recruiting MLS and broker participants for a study to get an understanding of what these groups of people think about their relationship with Zillow. This study is funded internally at WAV Group. What do home buyers think of the service What do home sellers think of the service? What do renters think of the service? What do Property Managers think of the Service What do Premier Agents think of the service? What does Premier Mortgage think of the service? What do real estate brokers of all sizes think of the service? By participating in the study, you [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:32-07:00October 27th, 2015|Main category, Our Services|3 Comments

3 Ways to Leverage Your PR

A potential client called recently to engage the services of WAV Group Communications. Typical to most initial conversations with many potential clients in the real estate industry is the misunderstanding of what public relations is. I assured him it was much more than simply writing a good news release and publishing it on a paid wire. That topic alone is another column. But the conversation reminds me of how little time PR people take to educate our industry about what PR is. To help in this effort, let’s explore a crucial area that shows how powerful strategic PR can be [...]

Upstream Revealed

As many of you know, WAV Group has been working with a group of brokers and franchises for more than a year on a project called Upstream. Today, Upstream is a corporation with one of the strongest board of directors in our industry. It has been an honor to work with the board along with the CIOs and CTOs of their corporations to define the Upstream application and talk to enterprise level technology firms who have the capacity to deliver such an enormous solution. Until now, very little information has been shared openly across the industry. Until the company’s governance [...]

7 Things every executive must know before taking questions from reporters

One thing that most executives are not trained for is talking to reporters. Some have a natural talent for it, but most learn the hard way. Having spent more than 25 years coaching executives on how to best work with reporters, here are the seven most important thing that all executives must know before they talk to the press. Getting ready The first thing to remember when a reporter calls is that most of them are writing on a deadline. Even though you may have sent them the material days ago, and they may have already contacted you with a [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:34-07:00October 6th, 2015|Main category, Our Services|0 Comments

WAVes of Change Update

Our third installment of our quarterly webinar series called WAVes of Change is set for October 21st. The purpose of the WAVes of Change Series is designed to help Associations and MLSs across North America make well-informed decisions that will help propel their organizations forward. It is designed to keep your team up to speed without having to travel to multiple events around the country spending significant time and money. The primary topic for this session will be a wrap up of the Council of MLS meetings along with updates on new benchmarking strategies and industry projects like Upstream and [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:34-07:00October 6th, 2015|Main category, Our Services|0 Comments

Partners Trust Joins The Enterprise Network

Recently, Partners Trust launched a new fully mobile responsive site designed to dynamically change for over 250 different screen sizes. Along with the “mobile first” web site, they launched new mobile apps for android and iOS. The design was done by 1000watt Consulting in collaboration with Partners Trust and the proprietary technology is provided by Booj.  Booj (Be Original or Jealous) is the platform that powers The Enterprise Network. Booj is an interesting technology provider because they deliver a very good and well-supported solution that is exclusive to a single brokerage in a market place. I got to meet the [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:35-07:00September 28th, 2015|Main category, Our Services, Press Releases|0 Comments

DotLoop and Zillow

As far as I know, DotLoop customers were happy enough with the product and service until the announcement that the company was being purchased by Zillow. That news, along with the $108M price tag of the acquisition was the fundamental buzz at Inman Connect conference last week. About the price of $108 Million. Typically companies’ sell for a multiple of profit – 6x to 10x profit is not bad. The last acquisition of this type was the Real Estate Digital deal, which sold for a much lower multiple than DotLoop. In the case of DotLoop, it looks like Zillow paid [...]

Broker Public Portal License Agreement

WAV Group is providing consulting services to the Broker Public Portal project. This project seeks the collaboration of MLSs and Brokerages in developing a national MLS consumer-facing website that adheres to the Fair Display rules for property search. Since starting the project in January, the company has developed and filed its LLC governance, elected the board of managers, and is running three parallel projects. The first two projects include Brand development (work contracted out to 1000watt Consulting), and Request for Proposal (being done by a workgroup of the Board). The third project is the development of the data license agreement [...]

Is Zillow A Great Broker?

Zillow is not a broker. Well, technically they are registered as a brokerage in many states and hold brokerage licenses, but they do not market themselves as a brokerage. The point is that they provide a lot of broker-like support for agents that are noteworthy and remarkable. There are plenty of brokers who can take a page out of their book and improve their business. Specifically, brokers can learn from the way that Zillow provides technology tools and communicates and trains agents. Wth the acquisition of of a transaction management solution they complete a broker-like set that includes agent websites [...]