Surveys/Research
Custom Internet Surveys
WAV Group builds and executes custom surveys to meet your business needs. Surveys are a fast, effective and affordable tool to better understand your target audience, whether they are your members, agents or consumers. WAV Group will handle the entire survey process from needs assessment and building the instrument to releasing the survey and analyzing the results. Find out how WAV Group can provide you better data to make your planning more effective.
Focus groups For years, successful companies have used focus groups to “test the waters” and fine tune their business approach prior to rolling out new products and services. Focus Groups provide immediate feedback and validation allowing your organization to reduce risk and optimize return with any new undertaking. So whether your technology company is getting ready to build specs for your next release, or your organization wants to assess your current products and services or with your members and customers, focus groups can minimize your risk and help insure a successful outcome. Call us today to find out more details on how Focus Groups can assist your planning efforts!
PRO Research We believe in many cases “pain causes change”! If you have ever been part of a service, product or technology release that did not gain the type of acceptance you anticipated looking back we would bet that it was more of a “vitamin” than a “pain killer”. Everybody knows they should take vitamins but face it, most of us don’t, or at least not every day. But when something is causing pain, we take action! That is the foundation of PRO Research. WAV Group builds and executes custom process research to understand what is working and what isn’t to assist organizations in planning. Information gained from process research can improve software products, association services, member and consumer satisfaction. It can also be used as a valuable part of the overall strategic planning process. Contact us to find out how this research is designed, conducted and can help your organization.
The WAV Group WIN Report (Website Intelligence Network) is designed to provide MLSs, Associations and brokers with critical Internet market intelligence to help their organizations create strategies to capture a dominant portion of the online real estate traffic in their market, over time.
Objectives:
- Allow MLSs, Association and brokers to evaluate and track their online web performance
- Keep MLSs, Associations and brokers informed of top of online real estate trends
- Provide MLSs, Association and brokers best practices for improving their online presence
- Track competitive listing syndication sites relative to broker sites in the market to monitor progress
- Evaluate the success of MLS or Association consumer websites and leading brokers to provide insights and suggestions to strengthen the online position and functionality of each site.
Why Innovation Fails To Change Real Estate
02-21-2012
Every year, real estate sees the launch of beautiful products, offering awesome features, advantages, and benefits. Excellent marketing programs back them and the press creates a jubilee – Innovator of the Year! Then the product launches, and the industry shrugs its shoulder. It is the conundrum of new product development and innovation for real estate. Most of these companies are doing everything right. They are doing research, spotting trends, holding focus groups, testing usability, and modeling lovely financials. If they can only get 1% adoption Read more...
MLS iPad apps have NOT gone far enough yet
02-19-2012
Recently, WAV Group has completed several customer satisfaction surveys from around the country in the Southwest, Mid-West, Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. In every case there has been a lot of discussion and requests for more MLS access via smartphones and especially for iPads and other tablet devices. While many MLSs think of their iPad application as a property search tool, agents want their MLS iPad apps to go much further than that. Even for those that have launched Tablet solutions, there are two major areas Read more...
New Study Measures Consumer Interest in MLS, Reinforces Efforts to Obtain .MLS Top-level Domain
01-10-2012
The WAV Group has published results of research that demonstrates the high value consumers place on the term “MLS”. The research, commissioned by the MLS Domains Association, includes surveys of consumers using MLS public websites and of a representative sample of consumers who have purchased or sold real estate in the last twelve months. It supports three key conclusions: For consumers, an MLS represents property search, home valuations and “the good stuff”, as one respondent described it—the term “MLS” equates to high quality, educational, objective Read more...
3 Bedrooms and 2 baths just doesn’t cut it anymore
12-07-2011
Build your business by giving consumers what they REALLY want to search for! Have you ever had the pleasure of relocating from one city to another? You have the stress of the move compounded by the fact that you are losing all of your trusted resources and most importantly your “local knowledge”. Let’s say you’re moving because you’ve been promoted to run a new division out of state. You have a young child so you’re looking for good schools within your area and a family-friendly Read more...
WAV Group 2011 MLS Technology Survey Results
11-28-2011
From September 23, 2011 to October 21, 2011 WAV Group fielded the WAV Group 2011 MLS Technology Survey to participating MLSs. 66 MLSs, representing 33 different states and provinces participated in the survey at both staff and user level. 10,779 individual participants filled out the survey completely making it the largest survey of its kind. National survey information serves as a great foundation to show you how your system stacks up with other MLS systems and what users are saying about each of these systems. Read more...
MLS Staff and MLS Users See MLS Technology Differently
11-23-2011WAV Group recently completed our 2011 MLS Technology Survey where we received feedback from nearly 11,000 respondents, from 66 MLSs around the US and Canada. Most importantly, the feedback was from both MLS staff which is always important, and the actual users. In fact, we only included results for MLS systems that had both staff and user ratings. The results were very interesting! We will be publishing an Executive Summary of the results next week for download but one of the more interesting things Read more...
Purpose Built Data for Listing Syndication
08-11-2011
Over the past three years, I have spent time with listing publishers, real estate brokers, MLS executives, and real estate agents collecting information on the strengths and weaknesses of listing syndication. At the core of these conversations was the topic of data quality, terms of use, the value of the listing, the effectiveness of online marketing, and overlapping syndication disorder. Without dissecting each issue, suffice it to suggest that listing syndication is not meeting the needs of todays stakeholders. The systems in place today need to evolve Read more...
If you're not promoting rentals, you're missing the boat!
06-29-2011
The world has changed. Many consumers that used to want to live the “American Dream” of homeownership have given up on that dream – at least for now – and have turned to renting, instead of buying. They may have lost their home, or simply don’t believe that buying a home is a good investment anymore. Still others simply cannot afford to buy a home because they have lost their job or they have been forced to take a lower paying job just to keep Read more...
When It's Good To Lose Control
05-31-2011
Business leaders can plan and set strategies but the real key to whether these plans are executed successfully is what their organization does after the plan is released. Do they embrace the plan? Do they start strong and then slip back to their old ways? Do initiatives kick off with great promise and then lose momentum? Do you find yourself having to continually push the plan rather than seeing full engagement by your staff? Do you find that some of your staff get on board Read more...
Making a Change Requires Some Tension
We have always been big believers that most change occurs as a result of some “pain”. While we all would like to create change in our lives for positive reasons, and we certainly do at times, a good deal of “major” changes in business and personal lives come about as a result of pain or some “tension” in our lives. It’s the old aspirin vs. vitamins story. We know we should take vitamins; they are good for us right? But, if you have a really bad Read more...
WAV Group Property Indexing White Paper
12-12-2010
WAV Group is proud to release this property indexing white paper to explain NAR’s policy on indexing listings. The paper provides an overview of indexing, the process used by search engines to catalog information on the internet. Click the image to download the paper for free. In order for MLSs to enforce IDX rules and regulations, they must understand indexing. Furthermore, anyone operating an IDX website needs to understand indexing and the advantages that it offers to search engine optimization and online competition. Non-IDX property Read more...
RPR - To Join or Not to Join is Not the Only Question!
02-01-2010
Since the announcement made by NAR on the formation of RPR and their public rollout at the NAR conference in San Diego, RPR and their proposed business model has been a major topic of conversation in MLSs across the U.S. Some MLSs seem to think this is an idea long overdue while others have expressed “no interest” while most seem to be somewhere in between with a “wait and see” attitude. c planning session we facilitated for a major MLS the topic of RPR participation Read more...
2009 CMLS Benchmarking Survey Results
11-30-2009In September 2009 the Council of Multiple Listing Services (CMLS) and WAV Group reached out to the entire MLS community for the second year to gather insights about a variety of elements of MLS operations. The goal of the survey was to provide each MLS with a benchmark to compare its operation to. When considering the addition of new services or programs, MLSs throughout North America can refer to the report to help evaluate service offerings relative to MLSs around the country. The survey was Read more...
MLSs and Transaction Management - Take Small Steps First
10-21-2009Should your MLS provide Transaction Management services? In our recent study on Transaction Management Adoption, it is clear that many of the component parts of full Transaction Management are being used successfully today by a growing number of real estate professionals. The key point is that they are adopting this technology step-by-step. Some vendors today offer the different component parts of Transaction Management separately, including: Internet Fax Document Management Online Forms/Contracts Transaction Scheduling/Managment Digital Signature Transaction Management technology makes sense for many reasons. It provides Read more...
Paperless Process Comes of Age in Real Estate
10-12-2009
WAV Group has been tracking the adoption of online transaction processing software for several years. In the 2005 WAV Group Transaction Management Adoption Study, we identified a number of factors that were inhibiting adoption of transaction management solutions and recommended steps to improve adoption. We are seeing encouraging adoption increases throughout the country. The WAV Group 2009 Transaction Management Adoption Study surveyed over 1700 brokers and agents from 22 different MLSs. In addition, we worked with major Transaction Management vendors to look at their product adoption trends over the Read more...
WAV Group Online Surveys
12-15-2007Online Surveys Surveys are an effective way for your organization to measure progress against your strategic objectives, to determine member satisfaction with technology or services and to take the pulse on any number of issues. WAV Group Internet surveys are fast, affordable and efficient. Our state of the art survey tools allow for the ultimate in flexibility in survey design and our design team has extensive experience in building survey instruments that meet your objectives. WAV Group has built surveys for NAR, MLSs and corporations to meet their specific business Read more...
WAV Group Online Surveys
Online Surveys Surveys are an effective way for your organization to measure progress against your strategic objectives, to determine member satisfaction with technology or services and to take the pulse on any number of issues. WAV Group Internet surveys are fast, affordable and efficient. Our state of the art survey tools allow for the ultimate in flexibility in survey design and our design team has extensive experience in building survey instruments that meet your objectives. WAV Group has built surveys for NAR, MLSs and corporations to meet Read more...
