MLS Insights Archives

Trulia tries harder, Alon Chaver speaks up

WAV Group works with brokers and MLSs who have been fed up and frustrated with the data quality on third party listing websites like Trulia, Zillow and others. We study and measure the problem in detail - and have published countless articles, papers, and reports on the topic. Frankly, the discussion about the ills of listing syndication are getting tired and laborious. It is the same stuff regurgitated over and over again. But today, a shining light appeared in an article on RE Technology. Trulia launched a dedicated effort to make a difference. Today, Trulia announced that they are moving to a [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:43-07:00January 30th, 2013|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights|2 Comments

TheMLS.com Senior .Net Developer Position Available

Opportunity TheMLS.com is seekng to hire a seasoned developer for the position of Senior .NET Developer . They are looking for a full time programmer with solid ASP/.NET/C# experience to design, develop, test and modify web based applications to join our Los Angeles based company. This position is looking for someone with excellent communication, organizational, analytical, and writing skills. The ideal candidate will be self-motivated, highly independent and proactive to help the company provide an industry-leading customer experience. ORGANIZATIONAL DESCRIPTION: TheMLS is one of the leading multiple listing service organizations in the country, serving approximately 11,000 real estate professionals in the Greater Los Angeles [...]

By Marilyn Wilson|2018-05-03T21:24:44-07:00January 8th, 2013|Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off

Larson Sobotka selected as general counsel for CMLS

Minneapolis, December 26, 2012: The Council of Multiple Listing Services (CMLS) announced that it has selected the law firm of Larson/Sobotka, PLLC, as its general counsel. Larson/Sobotka, led by managing member Brian N. Larson, brings substantial experience in MLS matters to the service of CMLS, the leading association representing multiple listing services in North America. "We are pleased to assist an important leader in the real estate industry," said Larson, who was chief staff officer of an MLS for nearly a decade and has served MLSs as outside counsel for more than a decade. "We have a unique set of skills and experiences," he [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:44-07:00December 26th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off

Cindy Miller joins NTREIS

WAV Group had the opportunity to work with North Texas Real Estate Information Systems in 2012, facilitating the company's strategic plan. NTREIS is among the largest MLS service providers in the nation, and probably covers more square miles of real estate than anyone (not fact checked). It is a great organization with a popular governance model that establishes each Association of REALTORS® as the MLS Service provider to their members, powered by NTREIS. The Associations are the first line of support, training, and billing to the agents. During our project, we had the opportunity to work closely with Cindy Miller [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:46-07:00December 4th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning|Comments Off

WAV Group 2012 MLS Technology Survey Report – Released!

We are pleased to present the results from the WAV Group 2012 MLS Technology Survey for your review and ongoing technology evaluation. From September 29, 2012 to November 4, 2012 WAV Group fielded the WAV Group 2012 MLS Technology Survey to participating MLSs. 72 MLSs, representing 37 different states or provinces participated in the survey at both staff and user level. 15,130 individual participants filled out the survey completely making it the largest survey of its kind. WAV Group would like to thank all of the MLSs and individual respondents that participated. Download the report here! Participants Receive Additional Report This [...]

By THE WAV GROUP|2018-05-03T21:24:47-07:00November 28th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights, Our Services, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off

Zillow expands rental offering with Hotpads acquisition

Market leading real estate publisher Zillow expanded their footprint by entering into an agreement to purchase Hot Pads today. The strategy behind the acquisition seems squarely aimed at conquering a larger audience of real estate consumers, namely consumers interested in rental properties. In October, Hotpads had nearly 2.8 Million Unique Visitors. Depending on how you add up traffic to Zillow and their other sites like realestate.yahoo.com, it adds up to less than a 5% increase in traffic. Moreover, Zillow picks up highly skilled staff that understand the real estate portal business, and how to manage data. Although Zillow already has [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:47-07:00November 26th, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off

Data Only Brokers
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Data Only Brokers

Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights

Data Only Brokers

There are lots of brokers who subscribe to MLS services. They are called participants, and as participants they are provided data rights beyond agents, and way beyond vendors or third parties. Moreover, participants are the nucleus of reciprocal offers of compensation, an agreement that if one broker represents a willing buyer and the other broker represents a willing seller, they will share compensation. There is a new brokerage model that has entered the MLS sphere, and I am not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing. I will call this type of brokerage a "Data Only Broker" or [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:47-07:00November 20th, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights|9 Comments

CMLS brainstorms new approach for MLS Rules

The CMLS meetings (Council of MLS) were held on Wednesday, November 7th. There were numerous presentations but one in particular seemed to engage the Nation's leading MLS executives in attendance - ReThink MLS. The question before the panel was "What If We Started from Scratch?" As we all know, MLS rules (including Broker Reciprocity) provides structure for how brokers and agents will behave when sharing listings with one another: Two problems have arisen since these rules were first crafted more than a dozen years ago. The MLS rules have become cumbersome in length and somewhat unwieldy to manage and enforce. [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:47-07:00November 12th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning|1 Comment

Your Real Estate Website is Illegal

It is November, that time of year when you need to schedule the update on your copyright to © 2013 before January 1st. But there is more that you should be considering, a revision to the way that you handle the terms of use. Most real estate websites place their terms of use conspicuously down deep in the footer of their website, along with their privacy policy. This is the way that it has been done for years. However, a court case involving Amazon.com subsidiary, Zappos just changed all of that. In the Zappos case, 24 million consumer email addresses [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:48-07:00November 1st, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights|3 Comments

How MLSs and MLS vendors are failing brokers
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How MLSs and MLS vendors are failing brokers

Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights

How MLSs and MLS vendors are failing brokers

Let me begin by saying that the remarks that follow do not apply to all MLSs. There are many that do an excellent job at servicing the data needs of brokers. The focus of this article is to talk about some of the common failures seen by WAV Group consultants trying to help brokers fix complex data problems. There is a fundamental understanding of the MLS which has been lost. Although MLS systems provide excellent services through the MLS software, many are failing at providing data services to the brokers and agents to power the many applications that live outside [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:48-07:00October 31st, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off

Black Sand Labs Launches MLS License Compliance Tool

Like all MLSes, Hawaii Information Service takes data licenses seriously. Aside from the natural investigation of reported violations, they wanted to find a way to crawl the Internet to find additional abuses of their data license agreements. After an unproductive effort to find a commercial solution to meet their needs, Hawaii Information Systems partnered with Falcon Technologies to build one. Now, the two cooperating companies formed a new startup called Black Sand Labs to deliver the service to other MLSs fighting the compliance battle. The new product is called APHIS – which may sound like a crawling insect, but was [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:49-07:00October 25th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off

MLS Listings to host Broker Summit

Broker Symposium: Engaging the New Consumer Techmart Santa Clara | November 2, 2012 When: Friday November 2, 2012 from 8:30 AM to 12:00 PM PDT Where: Techmart Santa Clara 5201 Great America Parkway Santa Clara, CA 95054 Get Driving Directions Add to my calendar Dear Myra, Please join us Friday, November 2 for a series of panel discussions centered on the new consumer, featuring local real estate media, top producing brokers and leading industry best practices consultants and of course, the target market itself. Event emcee: Robert Bailey, Bailey Properties 2012 Chairman, MLSListings Inc Hear directly from buyers [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:49-07:00October 22nd, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off