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So far Victor Lund has created 1295 blog entries.

“Full Service” Starts With Serving Your Agents

Agents need help. I guess that I did not truly understand how much until a series of events collided this week. The first lob was the announcement that Century 21 is launching a new program that allows agents to subscribe to a "Marketing Assistant" program for $300 per year. The marketing assistant will be fully trained on all of the services offered on the brand's Century21Online portal. In launching the portal, Century 21 CMO made a prophetic statement: "The last thing that agents need today is another tool." She is right. Outside of core technology solutions, agents can be heavily [...]

Transaction Management Update

WAV Group performed Transaction Management research in 2005 and in 2009. The goal of the research was to survey trends in Transaction Management adoption. On Wednesday of this week, RE Technology will be hosting a candid conversation with DocuSign’s lead Transaction Management Vice President, Glenn Shimkus. There will be a 30 minute discussion of today’s Transaction Management challenges and a 15 minute overview of their new enterprise solution (They have had an agent solution for some time now). Here is the webinar information – please join us! Brokers: Accelerate Your Business with DocuSign for Real Estate RE Technology invites you [...]

Top 5 Articles of the Week

As you may or may not know, RE Technology was founded by the WAV Group partners to support the role of MLSs and Associations in delivering a wide array of information and education about real estate technology. On May 5th, the company turns three years old! Since 2011, we have been able to deliver over 100,000 pages of valuable information that helps practitioners learn about technology and the companies that provide technology services to power their business.  Each week, RE Technology sends a report to more than 4500 executives and staff of the nations MLSs and Associations of REALTORS® offering [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:15-07:00March 21st, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on Top 5 Articles of the Week

Getty Images for Brokers

If you are like most brokers, you have received at least one threatening letter from Getty Images for using one of their images. Good news is that Getty is now allowing people to use their images for FREE! I guess all of that lawyering worked out. Or, perhaps they realized that chasing everyone for using their images was more costly than it was worth. I do not know of anyone who did anything other than ignoring the notices. In any case, Getty has changed their business model. They now allow anyone to embed their photos, but you need to do [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:15-07:00March 19th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|1 Comment

MLS Data Standards

MLSListings is the MLS service provider in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, which includes; Silicon Valley, San Jose, Monterey County, Santa Cruz County, South San Francisco, and parts of the East Bay. It is a large region in the heart of the most daunting techno-consumers, techno-brokers, and techno-agents in America. Satisfying the needs of this audience is intense, but MLSListings has been doing it successfully for many years. They are a company that is constantly evolving to meet the ever-expanding demands of real estate information in their marketplace. MLSListings CEO, James Harrison published an excellent paper last week called [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:15-07:00March 17th, 2014|Clients, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on MLS Data Standards

Mid-Year Party and Tech Guide

The Annual RE Technology Midyear Party is scheduled for Wednesday, May 14th at a secret location 1 mile from the Omni/Wardman hotels. The limit of people this year is 200, so if you would like to buy tickets or be a sponsor – contact victor@wavgroup.com. The entertainment will be the SuperStar Factory band featuring our favorite Miss Wendy Moten. This sells out fast. Proceeds go to the venue and the band. Many of you have been associated with the WAV Group for many years now. You remember that from 2003 to 2011 we published the annual MidYear Technology review. It [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:15-07:00March 13th, 2014|Main category, Our Company|Comments Off on Mid-Year Party and Tech Guide

How Data Killed The REALTOR

If you look at the demise of Encyclopedia Britannica, you see a clear roadmap of how history will repeat itself to cause the demise of the REALTOR®. Up until 1994, the Britannica sales associates sold about 120,000 hard copies. Salespeople consumed the most amounts of profits from the transaction. The salespeople at Encyclopedia Britannica protected their data. The three or four thousand pages of the books were protected by copyright. Then came the Internet, and more importantly, Wikipedia. The Britannica sales person was disrupted by a price point of free.  The cost of data was disrupted by user-generated content. Adapt [...]

The Speed Of Need

We know that companies are created when they meet the needs of their customers. But, what we fail to understand is the nature and complexity of Need. Need is a singular thing that is driven by a vast array of attributes. The most common attributes are Price, Functionality, Customer Service, and Relationship. But there is a new attribute of need which I call the Speed of Need. Price is a fundamental attribute of need. Customers must be able to afford a product or service if it is ever going to fulfill the need. Functionality is another fundamental of need. Even [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:16-07:00March 10th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning|Comments Off on The Speed Of Need

New Listing Alerts Favor Portals

Sometimes you really need to dig into the nitty-gritty details of something to understand how home shoppers behave and why they make choices when using online property information websites. For this particular case study, I am looking for a multi-unit residential complex in North Hollywood, CA. The Dynamics I am working with a REALTOR® - actually a team of REALTORS®. They “found me” through a sign call when I was driving neighborhoods. My needs – An investment property that is walkable to dance studios since parking is horrid. Parking. Cash-flow neutral with 25% down. Safe neighborhood. North Hollywood is part of [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:16-07:00March 10th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|1 Comment

ePropertyExtra from CoreLogic

CoreLogic sent out an email recently about eProperty Extra that was forwarded to WAV Group by numerous MLS with tons of questions. Rather than answer each of them individually, here is an overview that may be helpful in understanding the program so that you may facilitate a consideration by your board of directors. What is it? eProperty Extra is a rewards and loyalty program. 30,000 brands make their products available at a discount. Moreover, users get points when they buy through the program that can be exchanged for other benefits and merchandise. Agents will save money on many of the [...]

By |2016-06-30T05:16:31-07:00February 24th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on ePropertyExtra from CoreLogic

What MRED Teaches Us About Mobile

Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) is the MLS of the Chicagoland area. It encompasses Chicago and the surrounding region. It is among the largest MLSs in the nation. As you know, here at WAV Group, we love data and charts. Any ability to track trends in our industry that are supported by data lends credence to the strategic planning efforts across our industry.   Let's take a closer examination of this graph. Copyright 2014 Chicago Agent magazine, reprinted with permission Adoption Curve The first thing you'll notice is that mobile adoption is not a hockey stick. It was in 2011 [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:16-07:00February 14th, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on What MRED Teaches Us About Mobile

Hybrid Regionalization – Right For Your MLS?

We all know there are too many MLSs in the US and over the years the real market areas have expanded forcing agents to belong to multiple MLSs in many areas.  This means more costs, data inefficiencies and often the need to learn and operate multiple MLS systems.  It isn’t good for brokers, agents or consumers so why hasn’t their been more consolidation of MLSs more quickly? The answer, of course, is protectionism.   Even though consolidation would be in everyone’s best interest there is still a local desire to maintain control and identity at the MLS level.  Brokers also worry [...]