NAR’s Goldberg Kills Amp and Powers Up Upstream

We’re starting to see the impact of a new leadership team at the National Association of REALTORS® led by Bob Goldberg, a strategic, yet practical leader that is SERIOUS about making the industry function more effectively.  He also seems to be critically evaluating every investment in technology and making some bold moves to re-focus efforts. NAR announced yesterday that is shutting down development on its Advanced Multilist Platform, or AMP. AMP was under development for a few years at a burn rate of $6 Million per year. The concept behind AMP was solid – consolidate MLS data into a single [...]

Inside Real Estate Acquires Circlepix

Circlepix has sold everything. They operated an extensive network of photographers that they sold to VHT Studios in January. Now they have sold the rest of their company to Inside Real Estate. If you have not followed Inside Real Estate lately – pay attention. Inside Real Estate is the incredible company that recently landed Keyes – one of the largest firms in South East Florida among others. They are taking a piecemeal approach to purchasing world class software providers to complete their suite of an end-to-end solution for brokers, teams, and agents. At the heart of Inside Real Estate is [...]

Lone Wolf Acquires Instanet Solutions

The Transaction Management software space is one of the most competitive categories of real estate technology.  Today, Lone Wolf, one of the leading providers of broker accounting and management solutions, announced its acquisition of fellow Canadian company, Instanet Solutions.  This is the second transaction management software acquisition in the past two weeks.  Fidelity National Financial, Inc. recently acquired a majority interest in Skyslope, another highly regarded transaction management solution. Instanet provides Transaction Desk to over 500,000 REALTORS® through its partnership with MLSs and Associations across North America. Transaction Desk is a transaction management solution comprised of several cloud-based products for [...]

By |2018-08-20T07:22:50-07:00October 16th, 2017|Main category|0 Comments

Top 5 Ways to Transform Your Office Managers Into Sales Success Coaches

None of the brokers we’ve worked with believe that their office managers are doing what they are supposed to be doing — sales training. Instead, they act more like den mothers. When they could be working on sales coaching or recruiting, office managers are consoling agents who lost big deals, troubleshooting broken printers, or retrieving lost MLS passwords. It’s too easy for office managers to spend the day putting out a series of small fires. Its easy to use all of those daily tasks as excuses for not focusing on the most important roles that managers are responsible for. The [...]

Zillow Improves Broker Programs

Zillow Group, which includes the websites of Zillow and Trulia have landed on a broker strategy for marketing that works. Zillow Group, which includes the websites of Zillow and Trulia have landed on a broker strategy for marketing that works. Featured listings are dead, and have been replaced with a product to advertise in ways that drive the largest margin opportunity for a brokerage firm – leads to eTeams and Relocation. I call this “shared display,” where the brokerage and agent are clearly displayed and may be contacted – easily understood as “your listing, same leads.” This functionality works equally well [...]

WAV Group DMCA Safe-Harbor Alert

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides some protection to website owners from tiresome litigation when an image or other copyrighted content is found to be on their website.  Before December 31st 2017, you should electronically register your designated agent. Even if you filed before using the old paper method, you must refile electronically by Dec. 31, 2017 or your DMCA safe-harbor will no longer be in effect. By now, I think that every website owner has gotten some form of letter from Getty Images or other copyright trolls – and this will continue. In fact, now that the Copyright office [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:00-07:00December 6th, 2016|Broker Technology Research, Main category|0 Comments

5 MUST HAVES for your 2017 MLS Budget

We’re getting to budget time again and  starting to think about what products and services that MLS’s should offer their members in 2017 and beyond. MLSs, of course, need to continue to offer their core MLS system, but there are a few other areas to consider as you move into your next budget planning cycle that will help your members.  WAV Group believes you should offer products and services that are designed to address a core need of your subscribers.  No MLS should offer a technology just because it’s exciting or new. They ALL need to address a fundamental challenge [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:04-07:00September 28th, 2016|Broker Technology Research, MLS Insights|0 Comments

Are You Selling To Your Competitors

Companies across the real estate spectrum who are selling to their competitors are having fantastic results. The process of expanding your communication strategy to include competitors is found to drive more new business than ever imagined. In the old days, companies locked down their communications plans to hide from sharing information with their competitors. Today, the overwhelming trend is to occupy more share of voice to position your company as a market leader. WAV Group consulting works with Associations of REALTORS®, Multiple Listing Service Providers (MLS), and technology firms to implement these programs through WAV Group Communications. Below are some [...]

Blow Away Your Broker Profit Goals

Top 5 Reasons to Leverage MLS Listing Data in Your Brokerage Today MLS data can make a lot of the systems in a brokerage work more smoothly and can create new ways to serve the needs of your clients while helping your brokerage be more competitive. I have been working a lot recently with brokers who are finding new ways to provide better service to their agents, sellers and home buyers by integrating their systems with MLS data in new and meaningful ways. Here are five benefits of integrating your systems with MLS data and how they can help your [...]

A Goal Without a Plan is Just a Wish

A French writer wrote this line – “a goal without a plan is just a wish.” It often pops into my head when I read a trade story about a hot new real estate tech company that upon closer inspection, isn’t a company at all, but an idea in search of a business plan. I also find myself thinking about the same thing when I walk through a conference where startup firms are lined up. I pay a game in my head call “product or product feature.” It seems that so many tech startups in real estate are really just [...]

Crye-Leike, Realtors® Recognized For Outstanding Website Marketing: Recipient Of Coveted SEO Strategy Award

Nashville, Tenn. (March 9, 2016) – Crye-Leike, REALTORS®, the nation’s fourth largest privately-held residential real estate firm, was named the winner of the 2015 Most Effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy Award for outstanding website marketing of its Crye-Leike.com website. This coveted SEO award was presented by Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® (LeadingRE), a global community of more than 500 high-quality independent real estate firms. Crye-Leike.com was recognized for its website marketing strategy in making it easy for consumers to find its website, with competitive positioning on popular search engines, unique content focusing on key markets, effective incorporation [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:20-07:00March 25th, 2016|Broker Technology Research, Press Releases|0 Comments

Will the Last PC User Please Turn Out the Lights?

Mobile has gone global and everyone from Wired Magazine, Gartner, Forrester Research, and Barron’s is writing about it. The headline is almost always the same – “THE DEATH OF THE PC HAS NOT BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED.” The real headline is that PC sales have been negative since 2011 and the 2015 numbers showed the largest drop in sales volume in history. Before you get overwhelmed with the fear of PCs going away, it will take a long time for that to happen. Shipments of new PCs globally is still running at a pace of around 65 million to 70 million [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:20-07:00March 25th, 2016|Broker Technology Research, MLS Insights|0 Comments