Marilyn Wilson and Others Take on REAL Estate Trends to Watch for in 2019

I am so honored to be included in Texas REALTORS® Magazine article Real Estate Trends to Watch for in 2019. The industry experts quoted here have delivered some great food for thought about the best ways to be successful in 2019 and beyond. Check it out!   By Ward Lowe  February 01, 2019 Real estate is an industry of continual change. Four real estate experts talk about what to expect in the future and how to leverage your marketing, strategy, and technology to achieve more success. NOBU HATA Director of Member Engagement, National Association of REALTORS® REALTORS® and brokerages need to [...]

By |2019-02-07T11:19:39-08:00February 7th, 2019|Broker-Agent Information, MLS Insights|0 Comments

HomeSpotter Acquires Open House Innovator Spacio

Love to see smart strategic moves in the real estate technology community like the one we saw today from Homespotter!     Aaron Kardell, one of the best and brightest and CEO of Homespotter just acquired Spacio. For those of you that don’t know them Spacio is a tool that helps make the lead generation that happens at Open Houses much more effective.   With this new combination agents will be able to generate leads from their mobile platform and make the time at Open Houses much more productive. Love to see solutions that make it easier for brokers and MLSs to [...]

By |2019-01-17T11:20:03-08:00January 17th, 2019|Main category, Press Releases|0 Comments

The “NOT INVENTED HERE” Philosophy Can Get You in Trouble with Technology!

I love it when CTO’s and technology leaders take pride in their work. They believe they can do anything and many times they are absolutely right!  A tech leader with a unique understanding of a company’s customer base coupled with the unique strengths of the organization is in a great position to create innovation that cannot be built by anybody else. There are sometimes though when technology teams take this philosophy too far. They believe they can build EVERYTHING their company needs.  They don’t trust or respect third party companies that possess a deep understanding of a particular type of [...]

By |2019-01-15T08:13:08-08:00January 9th, 2019|Main category, Technology Evaluation|1 Comment

Northeast Florida MLS and Hernando County Ink Data Share Deal

I love to see it when smart MLSs get together to make it easier for brokers and agents to sell more properties!  The Northeast Florida MLS and Hernando County Association of REALTORS® are the latest to find a way to collaborate to make 20,000 listings available seamlessly now that 5 organizations are contributing data to one data share. These guys are also doing something else smart!  They created a simple video to describe the relationship in simple terms so REALTORS® can take full advantage of the program.  Check it out by clicking on the image below! https://vimeo.com/293605769 This type of [...]

By |2018-10-08T09:31:17-07:00October 8th, 2018|MLS Insights|0 Comments

Breaking News! NAR hires two heavyweights!

NAR hires two heavyweights to take organization to next level! I recently had the pleasure of working with Victoria Gillespie.  When I saw NAR’s announcement about her become their new Chief Marketing and Communications Officer I was thrilled!   She is the consummate professional and she knows a TON about the effective ways to leverage today’s marketing techniques to help an organization engage with its direct customers and their clients!     I’m confident she is going to bring a ton of fresh thinking about the ways to make the REALTOR® brand stronger, while finding ways to deliver content to consumers that will [...]

By |2018-10-03T08:09:31-07:00October 3rd, 2018|Press Releases|0 Comments

Newscorp Acquires OPCITY $210 Million

While I was sitting in the NAR Innovation conference, news came across the wire that News Corp, operators of Realtor.com and the realestate.au, acquired Austin based OPCITY for $210 Million. On the very same day, it became official that Pacific Union would be acquired by NYC based brokerage COMPASS. Like OPCITY, the trade was reportedly struck for north of $200 Million. Congratulations to Ben Rubenstein and Mark McLaughlin. WOW – Over $400 Million in deals done in a single day.

By |2018-09-02T08:19:50-07:00August 30th, 2018|Press Releases|1 Comment

Rex Marr Announces Retirement

The industry is losing one of our funniest and most effective sales people. Rex Marr is retiring from Rapattoni after 50 years in the business! We’ll miss you a bunch buddy! Have a great time with your next adventure! We’ll make sure Susan keeps us up to speed on all of your antics! We’ll miss you!

By |2018-08-08T17:46:19-07:00August 8th, 2018|Main category|0 Comments

BoxMLS Names Kevin Hughes as New CEO

So excited to hear that Kevin Hughes is back at it again in the MLS joining BoxMLS as its new Chief Executive Officer!  We’ve been watching this company for awhile now and they are doing really interesting things!  For those that have not yet heard about BoxMLS it is a new tool to help brokers and agents operate much more effectively across multiple MLS markets at once.

By |2018-08-04T18:26:45-07:00August 3rd, 2018|Main category, Press Releases|0 Comments

Moxiworks Refutes Compass’ Claims Regarding Technology and Market Share

Wow, just saw this and just HAD to comment. It’s rare that we see brokers go at each other so publicly about their competitive claims, but I have to say this letter is pretty interesting. The real estate industry is rife with hyperbole and marketing claims. Our industry’s preference of opinion over fact is one of the main reasons I started a research practice within WAV Group. The birth of business intelligence is allowing brokerages new ways to substantiate or refute claims like the article from Moxiworks shown below. Moxiworks is using MLS data married with BI tools to refute [...]

How Loyal Are YOUR Customers?

It is critical for MLSs and Brokers to measure the relationships they have with their customers.  While most MLSs do not have DIRECT competition, they have tons of indirect competition.  MLSs compete against companies that generate leads for agents since that it one of their key roles. They compete against training companies providing CE credit and teaching about technologies. MLSs also compete. MLSs also compete with companies that provide ways to aggregate and distribute real estate listing information for the purposes of monetizes the information flow.  While MLSs have survived well in the real estate ecosystem, some are more well-regarded than [...]

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 [...]

CRMLS Agrees to Offer Remine to its 82,000 Subscribers

by MARILYN WILSON on MAY 16, 2017 Remine is at it again!  In recent months, the company has forged partnerships with several of the nation’s largest MLSs. CRMLS will be launching the product to its 82,000 members according to the press release issued today.  Remine is taking the industry by storm.  Every MLS I work with across the country seems to be looking at this exciting new product. Remine is an intelligent service marrying social media profiles with home ownership factors to help agents identify prospects and then use social media to advertise to them.  The company has deep expertise in [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:49-07:00May 16th, 2017|MLS Insights, Press Releases|0 Comments