I just returned from speaking at the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World conference in Las Vegas. Leading RE is an amazing group of independent brokerages from across the nation and the world. The Leading RE network represents the largest non-franchise organizations from every marketcenter – I think they have about 600 broker members.
Admittedly, my talk to the brokers likely represented the most boring session at the conference – Data Licensing, Listing Syndication, and an explaination of new IDX policies from the NAR MLS Policy committee. Notwithstanding, a few hundred broker owners joined the meeting indicating that they appreciate the importantance of paying attention to their data use policies.
I conveyed a simple message about why I advise them to support Data Licensing to RPR and CoreLogic. My support of these initiatives has nothing to do with the tools RPR exchanges for the Data License, or the $.30 to $.50 per listing per month that CoreLogic pays for the data license. My message was simple. Would you price a listing using tax data? The Buyers of the Data – Federal Government policy setters, Government Sponsored Entities (fannie et al), Insurance Companies, and the primary and secondary Mortgage industry critical partners to consumers and property brokers. They are currently basing their fiscal policy on Tax Data from CoreLogic and LPS. Imagine pricing a home for sale using Realist. That would be insane. But the Buyers of the Data are doing just that. They need access to the same active listing data to price to market that Brokers and Agents use. With RPR and CoreLogic tools, they will be able to make better, faster decisions on fiscal policy, mark to market, short sales and REO inventory. It will shorten days on market and free up consumers and their brokers to return to a local transaction term. Here is what my contact at UBS had to say about this –
Victor:
FYI: I picked up this reference to CoreLogic in one of my Morning Research updates.
Market Update
Risk aversion rising, and the US data doesnt help. This morning, initial unemployment claims back up towards the 400k mark coming in at 397k (UBSe: 370k, cons: 376k) for the week, and the previous week revised up from 371k from 368k. Well, it didnt snow, so no call to blame the weather this week. Think, think, think … the Labor Dept blamed it on ’spring break. Seriously? No, seriously? People got fired because their kids were home from school? Or maybe they decide to go file a claim because it would be a nice family activity during vacation? Fact of the matter is hundreds of thousands of Americans are newly out of work this week. The trade deficit rose to $46.3B in Jan (UBSe: $42.0B, cons: $41.5B) from $40.3B in Dec. (Dec was revised from $40.6B.) Thats a whopper, with oil being the major contributor to the jump. Bloomberg consumer confidence index (formerly known as the ABC/Washington Post index) fell sharply in the first week of Mar to -44.5 from -39.7. Weaker assessments of the economy and of personal finances drove the decline. The beginning of March level reverses the prior three week’s improvement. Home price data from Core Logic (not the NAR who are still scratching their heads over their ‘models) showed a 2.5% decline, not seasonally adjusted, in home sales prices in January. The core logic home price data are what the Fed uses to estimate asset values for households
Daniel A. Roblin III,
Divisional Vice President
UBS Wealth Management USA
www.ubs.com/fa/danielroblin
