MLSs Need To Focus on the Customer Record

The Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) is clearly picking up steam at driving standards across the real estate industry. A pivotal inflection point in the success of standards is the adoption of those standards by MLS service providers and their vendors. One of the vendors who is particularly aggressive at adopting those standards is FBS, developers of FlexMLS and Spark. You can translate “particularly aggressive at adopting standards” to leadership in real estate technology. I will be using FlexMLS to demonstrate my point thought out this article, but to be clear – many MLS Vendors and MLS service providers are [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:00-07:00August 25th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights, Reports|Comments Off on MLSs Need To Focus on the Customer Record
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Are you living the life of a Customer Servant?

We all know that our businesses are dependent on our customers, yet we don’t always live the dream of providing amazing customer service. It’s easy when you get tired to say “I’ll get up early and do it tomorrow”.   When the phone rings and we don’t answer it we might justify it by saying I need to focus on this CMA I am building. Or worse yet, the phone might ring and we ignore it because we’re talking to one of our friends or having a cup of coffee. While we’re all human and we have our moments of weakness, [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:00-07:00August 25th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Are you living the life of a Customer Servant?
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An Industry Can Change In A Moment

There are many in our flocks that don’t have a calculus for a manifestation of change. It just seems to rub them the wrong way. The belief is that, among those who fight change, there are the people who have wired the world for their own success. I don’t think so. I believe that fear of change is something internal, and innate in the nature of some portion of our humanity. It is probably not a bad thing either. It makes change difficult, and perhaps more worthwhile. After considering all of the testimony, documentary evidence and arguments of counsel presented [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:01-07:00August 25th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on An Industry Can Change In A Moment
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We’re Losing the Race for Relevance – How to Stem the Tide

Idea #1 - How to Take Credit for the Industry’s Service Quality Every real estate association I have the pleasure of working with is struggling with how to re-invent themselves. Everybody knows it’s a problem at some level, but yet there has been no fundamental change in the focus, governance or scope of associations in several years. Are we just going to sit by and watch the association business go away?  Should it go away?  Has the value of an association run its course? My fundamental belief is that Associations CAN and DO play an important role in the industry, [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:01-07:00August 25th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Reports|Comments Off on We’re Losing the Race for Relevance – How to Stem the Tide
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Who Syndicated My Listings?

We have learned over the last half-decade of doing listing syndication that it is complicated, especially for firms that have multiple offices, multiple associations, multiple MLSs, and possibly a franchise or network. We call this overlapping syndication disorder and the existence of this disorder can lead to syndication fraud. Last month, Amy Gallagher of Century 21® Hometown Realty in California encountered a fraud attempt that was blocked by ListHub. This is an important component of our service that you may not be aware of. Gallagher’s firm participates in three primary MLSs along the central coast of California and is also [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:01-07:00August 25th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on Who Syndicated My Listings?
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The End Of War Between Zillow and Trulia

There is a major war going on in the taxi industry today. Uber and Lyft are duking it out. Both companies have deep cash pockets and they are deploying it in marketing and undercutting each other. It is pretty hard to know which service is better as they work hard to drive market share. As Zillow marches toward the stock swap to join forces with Trulia, perhaps a new wisdom of that transaction will reveal itself. They just avoided a very expensive war where the two of them may have killed each other off to reign supreme. It is pretty [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:01-07:00August 13th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on The End Of War Between Zillow and Trulia
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Sometimes Profitability is NOT as Important as Market Share

Of course, the ultimate goal of any business is to create profitability for its owners, shareholders, and stockholders.  Without profitability, the business will cease to exist. To quote Kenny Rogers, sometimes you need to know when to hold up and when to fold up, though.   There are times when a company is in a significant competitive situation where it needs to go into the market guns a-blazing and grab as much market share and mind share as it can. In the market we’re in right now, some might think the worst is over.  They may think it’s time to start [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:02-07:00August 6th, 2014|Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Sometimes Profitability is NOT as Important as Market Share
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Real Estate Book and Homes & Land Under One Roof

Real Estate Media Holdings, LLC, a Lion Equity company, has broadened its investment in the real estate marketing space by adding Homes & Land, a leading real estate media brand, to its portfolio, along with the additional brands Estates & Homes, Rental Guide and Home Guide. The group purchased NewPoint Media Group, publishers of The Real Estate Book, in June of 2012. Both The Real Estate Book and Homes & Land publish local real estate magazines in hundreds of markets across the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean through a network of independent business owners. In addition, both brands power high [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:02-07:00August 5th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off on Real Estate Book and Homes & Land Under One Roof
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Zillow Announces Trulia Acquisition

Two of America's third party real estate portals have entered into a definitive agreement for Zillow (Z) to purchase Trulia (TRLA) for $3.5 billion in stock-for-stock trade. The Board of Directors of both companies have agreed to the transaction which represents a 25 percent premium to Trulia Stockholders, based on Trulia's closing price on Friday, July 25, 2014. The transaction will now face regulatory approval. Goldman, Sachs & Co. brokered the transaction. Trulia CEO Pete Flint will retain that title, join the Zillow Board of Directors along with one other designee, and will remain the leader of the Trulia.com business unit. He will report [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:02-07:00July 28th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off on Zillow Announces Trulia Acquisition
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Goomzee Growth

MLS Mobile is a highly competitive space. There are so many companies challenging for the lucrative contracts that I am afraid to list them all here. We get press releases sent to us almost every day about who has signed a contract with this MLS or this Mobile provider. One of the things that angers me when we get these press releases is that many of them are renewals. I am not sure what is press worthy of a renewal – but that is another story for another day. Goomzee announced this week the addition of a bunch of new MLS [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:02-07:00July 24th, 2014|Marketing, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on Goomzee Growth
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MLSs Important to Your Business? Don’t Miss out on CMLS 2014!

For those of you that believe relationships with MLSs are important either for distribution partnerships or data access, I would HIGHLY recommend that you attend and exhibit at the upcoming CMLS 2014 Conference in Huntington Beach, CA from September 24th to 27th, 2014.  I served on the board of the Council of MLS previously and I can tell you that is it THE single best way to build relationships with leading MLSs, bar none. It is an intimate conference focused exclusively on MLS issues so it is a great place to build relationships with the movers and shakers of the [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:02-07:00July 24th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on MLSs Important to Your Business? Don’t Miss out on CMLS 2014!
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WAV Group 2014 Road Map to Listing Syndication

 Listing syndication to online portals is in the throws of a revolution in real estate today. Listing syndication has followed a philosophical pattern first envisioned by the German philosopher G.W.F. Hagel in his triadic process - thesis, antithesis, and then synthesis. This paper will walk though the first two phases of the process, discussing the evolution of the original thesis of listing syndication followed by the new roots of today's chaotic antithesis. The industry is developing a plethora of new models to transmit listings for online advertising at a pace that is eroding the effectiveness of the process in a [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:03-07:00July 22nd, 2014|Broker Technology Research, MLS Insights, Our Services, Strategic Planning|Comments Off on WAV Group 2014 Road Map to Listing Syndication
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