Wav Group

Social Networks for Broker and Agent Websites. - create your own.

Today real estate Brokers are struggling to understand how Web 2.0 applications like Online Social Networking can impact their business.

Online Social Networking refers to online website communities of people who share interests and activities or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.  Communications between members can be chat, instant messaging, email, video, file sharing, discussion groups, etc.

For real estate brokers, online social networking can create online communities for agents to share information with each other, and with prospective buyers and sellers of real estate in a controlled environment.

For real estate agents, online social networking is similar to offline networking whereby they may connect with other real estate agents, friends, and buyers and sellers of real estate in a meaningful and transparent way.

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For many years there has been an on-going debate about whether MLS consumer websites were supportive of REALTORS® or competitive with them.  

A comprehensive study of using Houston Association of REALTORS® consumer website was conducted to address this issue.  

This report will demonstrate conclusive evidence that a MLS consumer website is one of the most valuable tools an MLS can offer its members.  The MLS has technical expertise and advantages to support their members to compete collectively effectively for traffic against even the most well funded listing portals on the Internet today.  

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http://waves.wavgroup.com/00244D

A factor that tends to be considered when choosing an MLS service provider is how many customers they have won or lost recently - particularly when some of those customer losses are large, costly, and well-publicized.

And if that is not a formal consideration, when an MLS vendor looses a major customer, it is often on the mind of sourcing MLS organizations. In fact many companies that I have spoken with over the past 12 months have actively excluded some MLS vendors from their short list due to rumors or reports of customers lost. These types of metrics tend to work against the large players as they have more contracts and therefore, if they run at an industry average failure rate, they are most likely to have more failures.

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It's time for Plain Language in Real Estate Property Search

 

I was reminiscing this weekend about the fun of my childhood which largely centered on Western New York lakes and lake cottages.  It inspired to do some research around Buffalo and neighboring waterfront areas on the Canadian shores as well.  I know the area pretty well, but I was not sure of waterfront home values so I began to do a web search.

 

After completing the process, it reminded me again that property search still has a long way to go.  When I typed in "waterfront homes for sale in Wilson, New York", for example, I found nothing of the sort. I was sent to homes for sale in Wilson, New York at homes.com, only one of which was a waterfront home.  When I tried "waterfront homes for sale in Wilson, New York", I also received search results for waterfront homes in Lake Norman, North Carolina, Wilson Pond in New Hampshire and Alabama Real Estate. 

 

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http://waves.wavgroup.com/001990

There is little doubt that Listingbook is a must-have for MLSs today.

To begin with - it provides a member benefit for free!  Imagine if an MLS gave Top Producer to every agent for free, or a flyer software program for free, or an e-mail marketing product for free, or showingtime for free.

Listingbook is a little bit of all of these products.  It alows agents to communicate with buyers and sellers in the best possible way within a secure Virtual Office Website environment.

Property searches are easy to set up for clients by agents and they give clients the tools to manage favorites, compare them to sold and active listings, monitor price changes and more.

Sellers get reports on competitive activity - price changes of current inventory of competitive listings, transactions of competitive listings, activity on listing, and other key information that agents want to share with their client.

Listingbook provides a local representative for agent training and support.  What is the catch?  None really - the company earns income from offering enhancements to power users who are looking for deeper, more enhanced functionality.

Contact Listingbook today to get more information about this great product for your membership.

http://waves.wavgroup.com/00172F