MLS Insights Archives

Thinking About Regionalizing Your MLS?

We all know there are too many MLSs in the US. It’s just a fact. MLSs were originally set up according to Board boundaries established by NAR based on market areas that existed many years ago. Times and technology have changed everything. Real estate market areas have expanded far faster then our industry has responded so in many areas of the country we have multiple MLSs serving areas that should logically be served by one. It is hard to argue that cooperation and ultimately consolidation is good for everyone involved in buying and selling real estate. Brokers and agents who [...]

By THE WAV GROUP|2018-05-03T21:24:25-07:00October 23rd, 2013|MLS Insights, Our Company, Our Services|2 Comments

One Path for MLSs and Large Brokers to Work Together More Effectively

As many of you know there is quite a bit of discontent with selected large brokers and their MLS relationships. While there are many components to this discontent, there is one tangible action step that MLSs can take to help improve the relationship. The Realty Alliance recently published their Fair Display For MLS Public Facing Websites Document. Fortunately, our experience suggests that most MLS websites comply with these rules. For any MLS that already offers a site or is considering launching one here are the gotta have rules you must follow to be in compliance with The Realty Alliance’s dictate: [...]

By Marilyn Wilson|2018-05-03T21:24:25-07:00October 23rd, 2013|Main category, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|3 Comments

Austin Board of REALTORS Bids Syndication Farewell

Sunsetting services are never any fun, especially services that do not cost the membership any money. That is exactly what the Austin Board of REALTORS® is on a path to do this spring. The ABoR directors released a formal statement this week announcing the plan to sunset the Listhub agreement by April 30th, 2014. The process for researching this difficult decision is nicely outlined http://www.abor.com/syndication. In June 2012, the ACTRIS committee, which is the MLS of the Austin area, created a Syndication Task Force with a diverse representation of members and brokers. They cited some interesting findings. The decision to syndicate [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:25-07:00October 10th, 2013|MLS Insights, Strategic Planning|6 Comments

Listhub Offers New Terms HAR Agreement

Listhub has finally enrolled the Houston Association of REALTORS® in its listings distribution platform by matching the terms of HAR’s unique needs for listing syndication. Historically HAR has entered into direct agreements with major portals. Houston CEO, Bob Hale spoke briefly about the organization’s strategic shift toward Listhub during our discussion at the Council of MLS meetings in Boise, Idaho. “We track everything so our brokers can maximize their success in online marketing,” said Hale. The Houston Association of REALTORS® pioneered the STAR reports that have long provided their members with detailed reports on listings and leads displayed on HAR.com. What was missing was [...]

By Marilyn Wilson|2018-05-03T21:24:25-07:00October 9th, 2013|Broker-Agent Information, Clients, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off

ReTechnology.com Top 5 Articles of the Week

Webinar: Make Your Business Explode with a Powerful Lead Generation Program Many consumers are looking to educate themselves on the housing market. They often end up on third party sites like Zillow and Trulia to see what listings in their area look like INSTEAD of your own site. This webinar will help explain how to leverage your agent or broker site to become your local market's go-to listing information portal that provides accurate information for prospective buyers. Learn how to attain qualified leads that will help your business explode this fall! Date: Tuesday October 8th, 2013 Time: 1 pm Eastern / [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:26-07:00October 1st, 2013|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, MLS Insights|Comments Off

Does Your MLS System Speak In Tongues?

One of the great attributes about conferences is that they set the stage for product releases. Product Managers, Marketing Staff, Developers, and of course Sales People are always working toward releasing a new feature that stimulates Buzz in the industry. Today’s top press release comes from Discover MLS – the MLS system that speaks in tongues. Discover MLS announced today that their product now includes multi-lingual functionality. This will come as a welcome announcement to our friends in Canada, and around the world. WAV Group has worked on projects for aspiring companies wishing to launch MLS service abroad and the [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:26-07:00September 30th, 2013|MLS Insights|1 Comment

Leveraging The Browser
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Leveraging The Browser

Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights

Leveraging The Browser

Many software solutions used in real estate today are offered as Software as a Service (SaaS), meaning that they are accessed through a browser or, in some cases, a mobile app. For most companies today, being cross-browser compliant is about as far as they have gone. Advanced companies, mostly those who have the luxury of products released in the past couple of years, have made their browser-based application “responsive” so as to fit naturally into any screen resolution on any browser. Cloud CMA just came out with a browser Bookmarklet that reminded me how many powerful browser features are not [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:26-07:00September 25th, 2013|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off

Pilgrims vs. Portals

History tells many stories of long ago that reflect on the conditions of today. I came across a story about the Pilgrims that made me think that in some way, it is similar to the real estate industry and portals. In 1630, a Pilgrim court dealt a nasty blow to one of its settlers. They ordered him to be incarcerated, burned his house, confiscated all of his goods, then ultimately exiled him from America. The Pilgrim’s name was Thomas Morton, and they said that he was a danger to society. Morton went to England and pleaded with the English court, [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:27-07:00September 20th, 2013|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Our Services, Technology Evaluation|7 Comments

RE Technology Top 5 Articles

Which Real Estate CRM Should I Use? Are you looking for a real estate CRM? There are so many systems on the market these days that weeding through them is often difficult and time-consuming. We feel your pain! That's why we want to make it as easy as possible for you to understand what to look for in a real estate CRM.Beyond Residential: Commercial Agents Can Use RPR, Too! Making the transition to the commercial real estate can be challenging for agents who come from a residential background. We recently spoke with Sydney Machaut, CCIM, CRE, a veteran [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:27-07:00September 16th, 2013|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights|1 Comment

It’s Time to Re-invent the Search

There’s a fundamental problem in the real estate business today. Since time immemorial real estate ‘searches’ have utilized a property-centric approach that ignores the other 50 percent of the business: the buyers. In the real estate industry, we focus so much on displaying listings hoping to attract a buyer without spending nearly enough time and resources to analyze and understand the market segment that are the drivers of the purchase. This is also symptomatic of the industry’s fundamental focus on the needs of agents, not consumers. Doesn’t it make more sense to focus on the needs of the consumer? The [...]

By Marilyn Wilson|2018-05-03T21:24:27-07:00September 10th, 2013|MLS Insights, Reports, Technology Evaluation|2 Comments

Build a More Well-informed Board with the WAVinar Series

Our industry is moving really quickly these days. There are so many challenges facing MLSs that threaten the viability of the entire industry--lawsuits, new players, technology revolutions, economic shifts. It is difficult and expensive to keep MLS leadership teams up to speed on the myriad of events, trends, policies, legal issues and research affecting the business. MLS organizations and their leadership need to keep up on all of these issues so they can make proactive decisions to keep their organizations relevant. That's why the WAV Group created its new WAVinar series. The Solution: WAVinars The WAVinar is designed to provide [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:27-07:00September 10th, 2013|Main category, MLS Insights, Our Services, Strategic Planning|Comments Off

FIND Offers Unique Reciprocal Data Sharing.

Before REALTORS® Property Resource (RPR) was conceived, the National Association of REALTORS® was working with their realtor.com partner, Move, Inc. to develop a library of information on every property in America. NAR selected another vendor and developed what we know as RPR today. MOVE took their prototype and developed a free product called FINDSM. FIND is proprietary software for MLSs that provides property centric data on more than 100 million real estate parcels in the United States, and offers agents and brokers access to timely, accurate and reliable listing information across MLS boundaries. Available as a link or a toolbar [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:28-07:00September 10th, 2013|Broker-Agent Information, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|2 Comments