MLS Insights Archives

RE Technology Top 5 Articles of The Week

Each week, RE Technology publishes the top 5 most read articles. These articles may be republished by MLSs and Associations in newsletters or blogs for free. If you are not offering RE Technology as a member benefit, join more than 82 MLSs currently offering the service. There is never any charge. 8 Reasons You're Not Generating Real Estate Leads Through Social Media When using social media, there are so many pitfalls you can potentially befall an agent trying to generate leads for themselves online. In many cases, you see agents making the same mistakes online, then throwing their hands [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:28-07:00September 5th, 2013|Main category, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off

Advertising in an Association Owned MLS Webinar- Don’t Miss This!

Join WAV Group for an informational webinar on advertising in an Association owned MLS! This webinar will feature a Q & A session with GLVAR, BNAR, and GEPAR - three leading Association-owned MLSs who have launched advertising programs to help generate non-dues revenue. If your Association or MLS is considering adding or modifying your advertising strategy, be sure to register today! You are encouraged to prepare questions and invite your leadership to attend this webinar as well. There is no fee for attendance but the capacity of the meeting room is limited to 1000. Register early to ensure your access. [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:28-07:00August 30th, 2013|Main category, MLS Insights, Our Company|Comments Off

Product Overview of BombBomb for Real Estate VMail

BombBomb is a video mail program. You can record yourself talking on your computer or mobile device and send that recording as an email. It is a streaming email, so you are not sending a large file. Beyond vMail, BombBomb allows you to vLog or video blog. You can publish the recordings you make in newsletters, on your blog, website, or social media page. Suffice it to say, once the video is created, you can ship it anywhere. Using BombBomb for the first time was quick and easy. I entered a little bit of profile information and was off creating [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:28-07:00August 28th, 2013|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases, Suveys and Research, Technology Evaluation|8 Comments

MLS – It’s All About The Community by Carl DeMusz

If you know anything about the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) you know they are communities and they are better when they are more inclusive than exclusive. A more inclusive MLS will generally have more members, more listings to share with its members and more opportunities for those members to make sales. That makes members happy but it also makes their consumers happy. It would be hard to make the case that less members and less listing content would make an MLS better than a MLS with more members and more listing content looking at it from either the member or [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:29-07:00August 19th, 2013|Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning|1 Comment

Top 5 Ways to Become More Relevant with Consumer Research

The real estate industry suffers from what I call the “lowest common denominator” phenomenon. Every one of the business models in the industry – associations, MLSs and brokerages are built on attracting and retaining as many agents as possible. Many real estate entities collect monies every month from every participant – regardless of their productivity. While these models each have their own reasons to exist, they have created a major problem in my view. Real estate organizations are so busy attracting sales professionals that many ignore the needs of the most important group – the customer. It’s no wonder that [...]

By Marilyn Wilson|2018-05-03T21:24:29-07:00August 16th, 2013|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Suveys and Research|Comments Off

Call for MLS Technology Survey Participants

WAV Group will be fielding the third annual WAV Group MLS Technology survey in September. We are inviting all MLSs to take part. This is a free, non-sponsored survey we provide for the benefit of the industry. The more participation we have the more valuable the data will be for everyone. There is no cost to participate. Each participating MLS will in turn receive three reports: National Results for all MLSs Your Vendor Specific Results (i.e., All results from users of MLXchange); Your MLS Member results in a system generated report Your MLS will receive the reports prior to the [...]

By THE WAV GROUP|2017-12-27T16:47:54-08:00August 15th, 2013|Clients, Main category, MLS Insights, Our Company, Our Services, Reports, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off

Revenue Generation Emerges in MLS strategy
Gallery
Revenue Generation Emerges in MLS strategy

Main category, MLS Insights, Product Management

Revenue Generation Emerges in MLS strategy

MLSs are for profit entities. They have investors and a board of directors and have a stated goal of providing returns. Normally, the investors in the MLS are the Associations of REALTORS® or brokers that put up the initial funding for the MLS. The MLS was the natural extension of sharing property listings between real estate professionals pre-dating the founding of NAR. When printed listings were replaced by the electronic MLS, the business model, payment per month by members continued. That model still exists today and is in line with how software as a service (SaaS) is typically delivered across [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:29-07:00August 14th, 2013|Main category, MLS Insights, Product Management|Comments Off

Andy Rapattoni and Rex Marr Celebrate 45 Years in the Real Estate Industry

If the real estate technology industry had an Old Boys club, Andy Rapattoni and Rex Marr would most certainly be founding members. They have each contributed their life's work to the advancement of our industry. WAV Group would hope that you will join us in congratulating these industry pioneers and leaders on the celebration of their 45th year in our industry. Below is the announcement. Rather than clog up their email with congratulations, consider sharing a note on Facebook: Here is a link to their company page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rapattoni-Corporation/374152779313159 SIMI VALLEY, Calif., August 13, 2013 – Rapattoni Corporation (Rapattoni), a leader [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:30-07:00August 13th, 2013|Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off

FBI Overstates Mortgage Fraud

President Obama's administration released a report from a year long mortgage fraud initiative conducted by the FBI. This probably hits home with many MLS who have been cooperating with FBI investigators who are using MLS data to detect potential fraud. Sadly, the report was found to be way, way out of line, overstating the scope of the problem by significant margin. According to the initial report, the FBI indicated that they had criminally charged 530 people. The restated report indicated that they only charged 107 people. According to he initial report, the FBI indicated that total losses from the fraud [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:30-07:00August 12th, 2013|Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off

5 Ways to End the “MLS/Broker Stand-off”
Gallery
5 Ways to End the “MLS/Broker Stand-off”

Main category, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation

5 Ways to End the “MLS/Broker Stand-off”

A few weeks ago I wrote a post called the “Challenge for Positive Change” that highlighted many of the relationship dysfunctions we are experiencing in the industry today. At Inman Connect in San Francisco I was invited to be part of a panel called the MLS/Broker Stand-off. It’s clear that there are many that are feeling as though our industry could be working together much better than it is at the moment. I’ve been thinking a lot about what is causing this stand-off and trying to find suggestions about ways to fix it. Here’s what I’ve come up with so [...]

By Marilyn Wilson|2018-05-03T21:24:32-07:00July 24th, 2013|Main category, MLS Insights, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off

Hotel Industry is Trying to Put the “Horse Back in the Barn”
Hotel Industry is Trying to Put the “Horse Back in the Barn”

Main category, MLS Insights, Our Company

Hotel Industry is Trying to Put the “Horse Back in the Barn”

The concept of Listing Syndication is just as prevalent in marketing hotel rooms as it is with real estate inventory today. There are many syndication sites like TripAdvisor, Expedia, Hotwire and hundreds more. In theory, these sites were set up, in theory to HELP hotels, especially with last minute inventory to maximize their ability to sell room nights. Sound familiar? The Theory failed. What actually happened though was that these sites have disintermediated consumers from corporate hotel sites like Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt and others. It changed the way consumers shop and eroded hotel price points. Moreover, it eroded the ability for hotels [...]

By Marilyn Wilson|2018-05-03T21:24:32-07:00June 27th, 2013|Main category, MLS Insights, Our Company|1 Comment

More MLSs launch FIND search from MOVE

Move spread the news this morning that MRED (Chicago) MLS PIN (Boston and most of Mass) and SFAR (San Francisco) have all entered into agreements to offer the FIND product. If you are not familiar with FIND, it is a product that was the early candidate for the National Association of REALTOR's Property Library. It ties all of the active listing data on Realtor.com to a suite of extensive property attributes ranging from demographic data to flood maps to airplane fly over zones and noise. The Find products sits at the top of the page when the agent is logged [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:33-07:00June 17th, 2013|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off