What is the role of the MLS to run consumer facing, lead generating real estate websites? This has been a question that the industry has struggled with since the beginning of the internet search era. For many years, many brokers were not in support of MLS consumer websites because they felt they were competitive with their own online efforts. The classic mantra was “don’t level the playing field.”
MLSs and Associations have websites that display brokerage and agent rosters, but very few of them provide the kind of information that a potential consumer wants to see when selecting a professional. Brokers (and their technology vendors) would love to get a data feed of their agents. The utility of this data feed goes beyond display on the broker/agent website.
Managing Partners Marilyn Wilson and Victor Lund are joined by WAV Group Communications President, Kevin Hawkins and PR and Communication Strategist, Myra Jolivet in this year’s exclusive group of industry leaders who have made newsworthy contributions to the real estate industry.
Training is a key contact point for MLSs to encourage participation from their subscriber base. We find that one of the largest hurdles to technology adoption is understanding how that technology works and connects to their day-to-day activities as an agent.
As an essential job throughout the pandemic in most states, real estate agents continued to help people find the American dream of homeownership. The MLS organizations that supported them did what was necessary to support the local market as they always have, just in new ways.
RETS, the outdated data transport method that was launched in the last century is finally going to be replaced by the RESO Web API, today’s method for efficiently building and deploying data dependent real estate technologies.
Every December, the election results are revealed that announce the new Board of Directors for the Real Estate Standards organization or RESO. And every year, a stellar slate of industry leaders take the helm at RESO to help guide its vision for a streamlined real estate technology industry. The real estate industry is well represented by this group, which includes: Rebecca Jensen, MRED; Michael Wurzer, FBS; John Breault, State-Wide MLS; and Richard Renton, Triad MLS; Todd Carpenter, NAR; Jason Normandin, NAR; Matt Cohen, CoreLogic; Bob Evans, Move, Inc.; and Mark Lesswing, T3 Sixty; Turan Tekin, Zillow Group; Andy Woolley, Homes.com; [...]
There is a bill gaining traction that will change the governance of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau away from one executive to a bi-partisan board of five leaders. The goal of the governance change is to make the CFBP more inclusive and more considerate of changes to consumer credit, based on input from the real estate and mortgage industry, as well as consumers.
Agents are busy people. While it’s commonplace to juggle multiple urgent tasks at once, those not-so-urgent duties, such as completing required Continuing Education classes or license renewals, may be forgotten until they, too, are in need of immediate attention. This is where a proactive association can once again prove its value proposition to its members. The Greater Rochester Association of REALTORS® (GRAR) set out to find ways to make it easier for their members to keep track of these important milestones.
The California Association of REALTORS® deserves recognition for solving one of the most significant pain points in real estate – digital forms management. When the real estate industry began the slow conversion from paper transactions to digital transactions, California led the way with the creation of a for-profit company that became zipLogix. Along the way, the National Association of REALTORS® joined CAR as an investor.
