Three Drivers of Economic Growth

Sometimes, business owners fail to understand or focus on the basic elements of growing a business. As a consulting firm, we have a distance from the business that allows us to see things that business operators often miss. The funny thing is that we miss them in our own business. I remember talking to my Uncle Albert about this as a kid. He owned a house painting business that was very successful. It afforded him the opportunity to live on Plain Street in Historic Lewiston, NY. It is a charming street of grand, three-story homes with pillared center entrances. Because [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:22-07:00February 22nd, 2016|Broker-Agent Information, Clients, Marketing, Strategic Planning|Comments Off on Three Drivers of Economic Growth

Why Agents Should Never Use Personal eMail

I saw a news article recently about why real estate agents should use their personal email addresses. The article talked about the 10,000 selfish reasons why it benefits the Realtor®. It was a grand display of the underbelly of self-centered real estate professionals. I am here to tell you that using a personal email for real estate business is STUPID and perhaps illegal. The communications between a real estate agent and a consumer are subject to the real estate laws in your state. They are communications that happen under the supervision of the agent’s real estate broker. They are covered [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:23-07:00February 19th, 2016|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|1 Comment

Be a Part of the Change!

WAV Group is a part of strategic plans very often for some of the largest MLSs and Associations in our industry. When conducting strategic plans we hear from brokers and board members that their organization is out of touch with today’s reality. So how do you get your board in touch? You can pay thousands of dollars for several of your board members to attend industry events. Many of these events can be very valuable for the content that is presented, the networking, and peer-to-peer learning. The CMLS conference and the AEI conference are two great opportunities for MLSs and Associations to get in [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:23-07:00February 18th, 2016|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights, Our Services, Strategic Planning|Comments Off on Be a Part of the Change!

Brokers Talk Marketing Webinar Invitation

  WAV Group supports brokerage companies in selecting and implementing marketing automation software. Firms of all sizes need and easy to use, a one stop shop for agents to access all of the marketing tools that power their success.  Last year we worked with Hunt Real Estate and others as they integrated their chosen solution into their broker back office solution.  Dan Mirsky of Hunt Real Estate will be joined by marketing executives from Berkshire Hathaway, Coldwell Banker, and RE/MAX to share their perspectives on the experiences they have had with marketing automation. Joining the call with be automated marketing [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:25-07:00January 15th, 2016|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|Comments Off on Brokers Talk Marketing Webinar Invitation

Opportunity for a Senior Technology Director

WAV Group is working with a company in the southeastern United States  to find a skilled Senior Technology Director to join their team. The company is a large broker  committed to offering amazing service. The businesses are driven by a dynamic leader whose vision permeates each business unit. That vision, always putting the customer first and going a “step beyond” that, which is expected, has made the company the area’s #1 service-oriented real estate firm, year after year. FUNCTION/ROLE: The company enjoys an extremely strong brand that has established a reputation for delivering solid, and thoughtful integrated technology solutions for its [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:26-07:00January 6th, 2016|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Our Services, Recruiting|Comments Off on Opportunity for a Senior Technology Director

Is there a hidden downside to lead generation?

Real estate lead generation research tells us only about 1 or 2 percent of all purchased online leads become transactions. Another way to say that is 98 out of 100 times, an agent fails to turn a lead into a client, or 98 times out of 100, they are being rejected. Yet, the conventional wisdom in real estate is that you only need to turn one lead into a transaction to pay for all the leads you’ve purchased this year many times over. But is there a problem with this logic? Is it looking at only one side of the [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:27-07:00December 16th, 2015|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|1 Comment

7 Surprising Facts from NAR’s Newest Research on Buyers and Sellers

Each year, the National Association of REALTORS releases a study of homebuyers and sellers, which is my favorite REALTOR research publication. The NAR Research Group publishes publishes excellent research  -- including its superb daily Economists' Outlook -- but this one is especially chocked full of golden statistical nuggets, which is ideal for a data junkie like me. These are the kinds of facts I love to pull from research because these data points are what help tell a story, and that’s a great way to earn the attention of a reporter who covers our industry. Here are seven facts from [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:28-07:00November 11th, 2015|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|2 Comments

Solving for Technology-Confused Agents

WAV Group supports organizations (Brokers/MLS/Associations/Franchises) to develop support services for the technology applications used by agents. To kick off these programs we audit the systems that an agent has access to. This is an administrative process whereby we inventory all of the tools that they access from any source. 7 Sources of Real Estate Agent Technology (with one common example) National Association of Realtors – RPR State Association of Realtors – Forms Local Association of Realtors – Lockbox Multiple Listing Service – MLS system Franchise – lead management Brokerage - eMail Self – website The Big Problem: 7 different channels [...]

By |2016-07-02T04:32:55-07:00November 11th, 2015|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Our Services|Comments Off on Solving for Technology-Confused Agents

CoreLogic and Instanet Get Married

WAV Group will be publishing a case study later today about how Hunt Real Estate leveraged Instanet, and MLS solution to deliver more value across their brokerage. There is a lot of alignment between the broker customers and MLS customers of both firms.   November 06, 2015, Irvine, Calif. - CoreLogic® (NYSE: CLGX), a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider, today announced that it has signed an agreement to become the exclusive provider of Instanet Solutions® to clients of its market-leading real estate platforms, including Matrix™, Realist® and AgentAchieve®. CoreLogic real estate solutions are used by more than 900,000 real [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:29-07:00November 6th, 2015|Broker-Agent Information, MLS Insights|Comments Off on CoreLogic and Instanet Get Married

Is Email Volume Killing Your Company?

Lingchi is the roughly the word that the Chinese use to describe a form of torture whereby a person is executed by 1000 cuts. Dying the death of a thousand cuts has become a familiar business term that can have any range of meaning. WAV Group fielded a question from large brokerage firm – "how do we reduce email in our company?" Communication in a company is good, but too much communication as an adverse impact. What follows is my reply. Calculate the spoilage - If it takes each member of the company an hour to clean out their inbox [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:31-07:00November 3rd, 2015|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|1 Comment

WAKE UP BROKERS! Hablas Espanol?

Today, 85% of homebuyers are white, but that is changing rapidly in America. The new and growing homebuyer population is Hispanic or Latino, and most do not speak English well enough to have confidence in a real estate transaction written in a foreign language, with an agent who is not bilingual. Yikes or Opportunity? We think opportunity. From 2010 to 2012, the number of Hispanic homebuyers increased 38%! Today, only 20,000 of the nations’ 1.2 Million members of the National Association of REALTORS is Hispanic. By the way – all of the stats quoted here look at data collected in [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:31-07:00November 2nd, 2015|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|Comments Off on WAKE UP BROKERS! Hablas Espanol?

Online Marketing is for Sellers, Recruiting, and Retention

It's November, the beginning of budgeting and planning for a successful 2016. WAV Group studies the online effectiveness of many of today’s leading brokers and provides audits and advisory services on optimizing these programs. The true measure of online effectiveness is closing a transaction. Unfortunately, we have observed that closing a transaction is coincidental to online marketing and not a direct correlation. The relationship between an agent and a consumer is akin to dating. Both parties must be attracted to one another. There needs to be a connection and the development of things like trust and confidence. It’s a dating [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:31-07:00November 2nd, 2015|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Marketing, Our Services|Comments Off on Online Marketing is for Sellers, Recruiting, and Retention