MLS Insights Archives

Swanepoel Publishes Power 200 List of RE Executives

Stefan Swanepoel is best known for his engaging conference lectures and the running line of Swanepoel Trends Reports that has published since 2006. This year, Swanepoel partnered with Rob Hahn, Chris Nichols, Kelly Mitchell, Michael McClure, Susan Browne, Michael Krisa, and Shannon Musgrove to produce a new publication called the Swanepoel Power 200, The most Powerful People In Residential Real Estate in 2013. These types of lists were made famous by Forbes Magazine, the publisher who releases 52 Top lists a year, including Rich Lists, Top Companies, People, Investing, Places, Sports, Technology, and Education. I spoke with Swanepoel for a [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-08-20T06:12:08-07:00January 9th, 2014|Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off

MRIS Tackles Coming Soon Listings

MRIS is among the few multiple listing services in the country that manage their own listing input system. Keystone, developed, owned and operated by MRIS, gives MRIS the ability to respond directly to subscriber needs for innovative listing management tools. Often, third party vendors have a difficult time responding to local market needs, in particular when it comes to listing input solutions. Based on market research, MRIS has been, and continues to, progressively update and enhance Keystone using a phased approach. Keystone provides an easy to use intuitive user experience to input and maintain listing data and facilitates the easy [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:19-07:00January 6th, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off

NAR REach Program Accepting New Applicants

Here is a note from Constance Freedman, Managing Director of NAR's venture capital arm, Second Century Ventures. If you have a business that would benefit from NAR support, be sure to submit your application. It is an online process at www.narreach.com On 01/06/14 12:42 PM, Constance Freedman wrote: -------------------- Friends, Applications for NAR’s 2014 REach™ class are now open - please help us spread the word! REach™ is a strategic accelerator launched last year in conjunction with the National Association of Realtors® to help great technology companies gain access to the $1 trillion real estate industry. The opportunity for companies to [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:20-07:00January 6th, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off

Brokers Should Audit Their MLS

2014 may well be the year of the broker, or as they are referred to in MLS speak, the year of the Participant. If your MLS has adopted the National Association of REALTORS® template for MLS Rules and Regulations, you will find that brokers are Participants and agents are Subscribers. As a Participant in the MLS, brokers accept full responsibility to adhere to MLS rules and regulations. The MLS does a pretty good job of enforcing those rules. But who among you is making sure that the MLS is not running afoul? WAV Group MLS clients are traditionally the largest [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:20-07:00December 30th, 2013|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off

Will 2014 Be a Break Out Year

For the last half of a decade, the real estate industry has taken blow after blow. Through grace, we have recovered as an industry and that has a profound impact on homeowners and REALTORS® alike. The number of families losing their home to foreclosure has reset to reasonable levels. WAV Group facilitated nearly two-dozen strategic plans for some of our industry’s most significant market makers. In many cases, boards of directors are thinking pretty big. They are taking on difficult policy issues including syndication, data licensing, and data management. If these organizations accomplish half of what they have set as [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:20-07:00December 23rd, 2013|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning|Comments Off

Broker Intellectual Property At Risk

Many real estate brokers are being asked to sign new MLS Participant Agreements. The cause for a new agreement is based upon the MLSs efforts to support real estate brokers to protect their intellectual property. This is a very important initiative that every broker should take very seriously. Every broker should also consult with their attorney to discuss ramifications and meet with the MLS in a forum to discuss the best path. There are a couple cases before state supreme courts (MD and MN) that are ruling on the ability for the MLS to defend the intellectual property rights when [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:20-07:00December 20th, 2013|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off

Build Broker Support of your MLS Consumer Website with this FREE tool!

Build Broker Support of your MLS Consumer Website with this FREE tool! MLS Consumer Facing websites collectively deliver millions of leads and thousands of inquiries for their subscribers every year. In every market that I have evaluated the MLS delivers 2 to 3 times the number of inquiries that any other leading third party site does including Zillow and Trulia. Sadly, most brokers and agents are not aware of this amazing value they receive from their MLSs. I solidly believe that if MLSs did a better job of communicating the amazing marketing value of these sites, brokers of all sizes [...]

By Marilyn Wilson|2018-05-03T21:24:21-07:00December 19th, 2013|Broker Technology Research, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off

How Great Companies React To Feedback

AgentMatch from realtor.com was a solution that was tested in two real estate markets – Boulder, CO and Las Vegas, TX. The pilot program was developed as a service to connect consumers with agents based on performance, interests and recommendation data. Putting aside the debate about the strengths or weaknesses of this form of rating an agent, there is plenty to learn from how it was rolled out, how feedback was generated, and how the company reacted to the feedback. Pre-roll Out Decisions With any new service, the first question should be opt-in or opt-out. WAV Group has always recommended [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:22-07:00December 13th, 2013|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off

Top 5 Broker Website Trends for 2014

There is a significant gap in the depth of information found on listing portals vs. broker websites today. Aside from marketing acumen and marketing investment, the quality of the experience is simply better on many portal sites. A few years ago, portals dominated brokerages with map search. As brokers got a handle on that, portals evolved with the single, Googlesque search bar. Most good broker sites have gotten a handle on that now too. But the bar continues to move in new directions. The biggest gap seems to be the information contained on the listing detail page. I had a [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:22-07:00December 11th, 2013|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights|1 Comment

Support MLS Domains Association

WAV Group would like to share an update that was released today from the MLS Domains Association. If you are not familiar with the initiative, it is a collaboration of companies that seek to buy the domain extension of DotMLS. ICANN, which is the international group that determines domain extensions is in the business of licensing domains to legitimate parties. Determining what a Legitimate Party is can be quite a cumbersome (and expensive) task. .Com, .Biz, .Gov, and all of the county domains like.CA.IT and the like have already been issued. ICANN became widely known when they issued.XXX. ICANN is [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:23-07:00December 10th, 2013|Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases, Strategic Planning|2 Comments

It’s Your Data – Make Sure You Can Use It!

I do a lot of work helping MLSs choose their next MLS technology vendor and I also work with brokers that use multiple real estate technology tools. The one thing both sets of technology have in common is the fact that without good data the technology is worthless. Numerous roadblocks exist today, however, on the data front that often derails the best software. Some roadblocks come from within the MLS but some come from the technology vendors themselves. MLSs can serve as roadblocks to listing and sales data at the source, meaning they may put arbitrary restrictions on data use [...]

By THE WAV GROUP|2018-05-03T21:24:23-07:00December 9th, 2013|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off