If you have traveled abroad, you have undoubtedly experienced the discomfort of communicating in a foreign language. I can tell you that in hotel speak, a salon is not a suite. The language barrier can create all kinds of misunderstandings. Where I see this happening frequently in real estate is the amount of geek speak that is in the board room.
I look at technology products every day. I do not want to lay any hate on any particular company. But, I have observed a number of company brands who offer real estate technology that have not differentiated the company name from the product name. For clarity, Apple is a company brand, iPhone is a product, and X is a product version. Kleenex is an example of a company brand name and product name that are the same.
It was exciting to be invited to interview to become part of the Forbes Real Estate Council last year. The biggest attraction for me was the opportunity to be published on Forbes.com. Forbes, for me, is the gold standard when it comes to business publishing.
The Hilton Head MLS is small, but mighty. They take their job of serving the brokers in their community very seriously.
Milestones. Every career has these extra special events. So what qualifies something for milestone status? I think it's when all you have to do is mention what you did and the immediate reaction from others is: "Wow." Lifelong Realtor Ben Caballero's career is filled with milestones.
Tech enablers. That’s what I will be looking for at the REALTORS® Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo, May 14-19 in Washington DC this week, best known as NAR Midyear. I’ll head down to the trade show floor and spend the rest of my time shuttling between the Marriott and the Omni lobbies talking to influencers and tech leaders.
Homes.com has been running in 4th position in the portal race, tucked in behind Zillow, Realtor, and Trulia. I thought that their old site was fine, but their new site adds in Artificial Intelligence in ways that make the consumer experience fantastic. In a world of sameness, Homes has changed the game.
More than any other time in my 20-year career in real estate, I am seeing significant unrest in the relations between the various tiers of the REALTOR Associations. The struggle for power is real, and the center of that struggle is technology. As we head to midyear, we are expecting to see the sparks fly.
When Elm Street Technology partnered with This Old House, the primary goal of the partnership was to allow brokerages and MLSs to have access to the high-quality video content.
Allow me to share a professional rant. We have to stop listening to the lawyers on this one. Companies are habitually adding registration marks to their news releases. I confess. I have more than one client that requires them. But I have to stop, raise my hand and ask one question. Why?
Since its early days, Zillow Group has maintained a position that the consumer interest is best served by allowing listings from all sources, including For Sale By Owner, to be posted to their site. This may be, in part, why Zillow sites had up to 187 Million unique users visit their sites last year. Recently, WAV Group has noticed a new type of broker support that is in line with this policy.
RESO sold out its Spring Tech Summit in Denver last week three times, organizers said. Demand by industry tech and business leaders wanting to attend within the last two weeks forced the nonprofit to re-open registration twice until it pushed to capacity. The Real Estate Standards Organization filled the main ballroom to the brim, with just short of 300 people, at the hip Curtis Hotel in downtown Denver. Art Carter, RESO Chair and head of the largest MLS in the nation CRMLS, noted how far the organization had come in the last five years. One of the most vital breakthroughs: [...]
