Broker Technology Research Archives

Nielsen credits HAR and Zillow among others

When it comes to measuring marketing effectiveness, there is little argument that Nielsen is the leader. Nielsen believes that providing clients with a precise understanding of the consumer is the key to making the right decisions — decisions that can lead to profitable growth. At Nielsen, they are always innovating to keep pace with emerging market trends and the increasingly diverse, demanding and connected consumer. Joining Nielsen is the Houston Association of REALTORS, Zillow, a few dozen brokerages, and about 500 of the more than 1 Million REALTORS in America today. These REALTORS are the bold, the true, the transparant, [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:23-07:00November 7th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights|Comments Off

CMLS reviews pending IDX policy changes

I am a big fan of CMLS, the acronym for the Council of MLS. The Council does more than any other organization to support best practices among MLS service providers. Today, CMLS hosted a member webinar that provided a 360-degree overview of the pending IDX rule change, a consideration that will be discussed and submitted to the NAR Board of Directors for approval at the NAR Convention in Anaheim. The suggestions to the NAR Board of directors from the call were simple. Cathy Holefelder of Heartland MLS provided a great summary of the call and suggested this synthesized overview. – [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:23-07:00October 31st, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off

A New Perspective on Google+

Like so many other geeks, technos, and socialphiles – I jumped on the Google+ bandwagon as soon as it came out. I must confess, I did the same on Linkedin so may years ago. Remember Plaxo? In any case, I was not very impressed Google+ on first glance. I doubt anyone was. My first complaint was that the same people I connect with on Twitter and Facebook were on Google+. Why bother? As a result, I would not even think to look at Google+. Today, am beginning to see the +1 button show up on all of the blogs and [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:25-07:00October 29th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category|Comments Off

News from Property Panorama and Trulia

Property Panorama as appointed real estate industry veteran Mike Barnet as its new CEO, and Trulia releases information about the source of inaccurate data on their website today. Property Panorama was not specific in outlining the reasons for changing their leadership, but a new captain is at the helm. Barnet joined the company as the CIO about a year ago, and has been working to lead the charge to take the popular virtual tour solution to a higher level. Property Panorama was a unique offering in the industry when it launched its MLS Data Powered automated virtual tour creation program. Today solutions [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:26-07:00October 4th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Marketing|1 Comment

How many consumers visit agent and broker websites?

I had an email question come in from with Kevin McQueen of Focus Forward Consulting this morning. Kevin asked “If Move, Zillow, Trulia, Yahoo, and Homes a couple of others each pick-up about 5% of the unique visitors to RE sites, who makes up the other 80%?” The presumptive answer might be Agent, Broker and MLS websites, right? Unfortunately, presumptions lead to bad decisions and strategies in business today. In this case, the presumptive answer is very far from the truth. WAV Group WIN Reports uses Experian Hitwise to measure web traffic to real estate websites – all real estate [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:27-07:00September 28th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning, Suveys and Research|Comments Off

WAV Group Webinar Today for brokers

WAV Group partner, Mike Audet published a widely acclaimed paper this year called the Shift in Real Estate Technology. The paper outlines the needs of large real estate brokers spanning multiple MLSs who are developing a single source solution that puts the brokerage back office solution in the center of the agents’ life. Like this year’s earlier WAV Group report on broker back office solutions, the task of aligning all of the company offices and agents using integrated solutions is no simple task. WAV Group partner Victor Lund will be moderating a free online webinar in which WAV Group partner Mike Audet [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:27-07:00September 22nd, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category|1 Comment

LPS issues announcement on MLS Services division

Transfers Products to Newly-Formed Real Estate Digital (RED), and Enters into a Joint Marketing Agreement with RED. In an effort to expand its commitment to and focus on the MLS market, LPS has merged its MLS business unit into LPS Applied Analytics and has sold a number of its real estate products to Real Estate Digital, LLC (RED), with whom LPS entered into a joint marketing agreement. This new alignment will enable LPS MLS Solutions to expand and streamline its current offerings to enhance MLS solutions and better serve our customers and their clients. “Our assimilation into LPS Applied [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:29-07:00September 14th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|4 Comments

Real Estate Digital Spins Out of LPS Real Estate Group

Real Estate Digital (or RED), announced a management buy-out of select assets of LPS Real Estate Group and the formation of the new company. RED, the new privately-held corporation, will focus on the support of 12 core technology products offered to the real estate industry today: rDesk® Websites, rDesk® CRM, rDesk® CMA, rDesk® IDX, Real Estate & Living Media®, reDataVault, TransactionPoint®, DocCentral, FormCentral, Data Aggregation System, Neighborhood and School Reports and MLS Portal. Executive leadership of the company includes current LPS Real Estate Group President Jay Gaskill, CTO John Hensley, CSO Prem Luthra, and CFO Mike Kovar. The company expects [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:29-07:00September 14th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases, Strategic Planning|Comments Off

WAV Group Week in Review September 10 2011

In real estate technology this week, there were two announcements that caught our attention regarding Automated Valuations (AVM). Trulia launched Trulia Estimates, their version of property valuations for consumers that competes with public website rival, Zillow and Zestimates. Along the same lines, CoreLogic announced this week that they have licensed more than 1 million active property listings from MLSs through their Partner InfoNet program (PIN) powering their institutional AVM products. CoreLogic is in a race with NAR’s initiative called Realtors Property Resource or RPR. Lender Processing Service (LPS) licenses active listing data from RPR to power their commercial AVM product. [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:29-07:00September 10th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off

RE Technology launches VScreen Training Videos

Leading real estate technology media site, RE Technology, has partnered with VScreen to create agent training videos from top industry trainers. Arroyo Grande, CA (September 2011) – As a leading technology resource for the real estate industry, no one understands the value of video for websites better than the team at RE Technology. The company has partnered with VScreen, a leader in real estate training video creation and distribution, to improve their website’s home page: www.RETechnology.com. “We’ve published many articles about video on our website,” says Victor Lund, CEO of RE Technology, Inc. “We figured it was time to ‘walk [...]

By Marilyn Wilson|2018-05-03T21:25:30-07:00September 8th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Our Company, Technology Evaluation|1 Comment

Trulia launches Trulia Estimates

WAV Group spoke to Trulia to gain a preliminary glimpse into the new product offering that launched today. The areas covered in the beta include five San Francisco Bay area counties including San Francisco County, Marin County, San Mateo County, Santa Clara County and Contra Costa County. Trulia indicates that they have been working on developing their property estimate algorithm from scratch internally, leveraging the strengths of their data team and property scientists. The company has been benchmarking the effectiveness and accuracy across multiple commercial and consumer AVM solutions for many months to gain confidence in the quality of the [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:30-07:00September 7th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Marketing|1 Comment

Communication Strategy for Real Estate
Gallery
Communication Strategy for Real Estate

Broker Technology Research, How to Make Strategic Planning Really Work in your MLS, Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning

Communication Strategy for Real Estate

One of the fundamental core values of the MLS (beyond offers of compensation) is the organization and communication of property information database. The role of the MLS as a communicator is a hotly debated topic, because the communicator becomes the identity and spokesperson to a wide range of agents and consumers alike. The MLS as a communicator is largely predicated by the governance of the MLS, its bylaws, and the standards set by the MLS shareholders and board of directors. Today, most MLSs have one or more REALTOR Associations as their shareholders. The board of directors is typically appointed by [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:25:30-07:00August 30th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, How to Make Strategic Planning Really Work in your MLS, Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning|Comments Off