What should we look for at NAR Midyear?

Real estate’s annual May pilgrimage begins in a couple of weeks. Its formal name is “REALTORS® Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo,” but I’ve never met anyone outside of NAR that doesn’t call it NAR Midyear. Even the url for the location on realtor.org labels it “midyear” (http://www.realtor.org/midyear.nsf). For several days – this year May 11-16 – local associations as well as state and regional associations leadership descend on Washington D.C. It’s a time largely filled with policy meetings, committee confabs and a full-court press for face-to-face meetings with legislative reps. Tucked in the middle of all this is a trade [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:46-07:00April 23rd, 2015|Our Services|1 Comment

Coming Soon Listings Revisited

Last summer, the issue of Coming Soon listings hit a peek of interest among the nation’s MLSs. As our industry is naturally prone to do, the issue was well vetted for more than a year thanks in part to the efforts of Mountain View, CA based MLS Listings CEO James Harrison and his Chairman Robert Bailey. It was discussed at every MLS conference and forum and MLSs created a new status to handle Coming Soon listings. Leading MLSs understood the need for this field and brokers learned about the inherent concerns of this listing type. Today, most of the leading [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:46-07:00April 23rd, 2015|Main category, MLS Insights, Our Services|Comments Off on Coming Soon Listings Revisited

Enabling an Ecosystem of Innovation for Real Estate

The MLS technology model has been relatively flat-footed for some time now. Many MLSs offer one MLS system, one Public Records system and other services like showing appointment software, document management, and they call it a day. In Part IV of his blog series last Thursday, Bob Bemis outlined a vision of a brand new way for MLS platforms to operate. A new program called AMP™ or Advanced Multi-List Platform™ that would leverage RPR is a very interesting and even scary concept to some. In its simplest definition, AMP would be the “back end” of an MLS. It would provide [...]

Size Matters

Bigger is better. At least that's what Apple discovered when it unveiled larger iPhones. The sales numbers stunned everyone: 74.5 million iPhones in the first quarter of release. That’s more than 34,000 phones an hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even Tim Cook was taken aback, telling analysts the “Demand for iPhone was staggering,” adding, “This volume is hard to comprehend.” Every major smartphone vendor has discovered that when it comes to consumer preferences, they are turning to larger screens. The bigger story But what is happening here goes beyond record sales numbers for Apple, Samsung, Google, [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:46-07:00April 23rd, 2015|Main category, Marketing, Our Services, Strategic Planning, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on Size Matters

RESO Announces Executive Director

Jeremy Crawford joins RESO from MLSListings, where he has been Chief Operating Officer since 2012. He was responsible for all aspects of Enterprise Information Technology, including infrastructure, design, development, implementation, and management for MLSListings, Inc. Crawford has more than 15 years of information technology experience in the real estate, financial services and education sectors. Since 2013, he has served on the Board of Directors of the Real Estate Standards Organization. Crawford also serves on the DocuSign Executive Advisory Council, the Interop Advisory Board, and is the lead for the Council of MLS technology sub-council.  Crawford was awarded San Diego’s Information [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:47-07:00April 15th, 2015|Main category, Our Services, Press Releases|Comments Off on RESO Announces Executive Director

Funny – Anti-Zulia Radio Campaign

WI Homes is the consumer facing website of Milwaukee Wisconsin based MLS, Metro MLS. The website is a regional powerhouse for providing consumers with access to search the MLS property search database. In an effort to advertise a differentiation between their website and websites that they call “Zulia and Trillow,” they created these rather humorous radio ads. The first ad talks about the two biggest events in a couple’s life – when they buy a home and when they have a baby.   In the second ad, they talk about a family buying a home of their dreams [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:47-07:00April 2nd, 2015|Main category, Marketing, Our Services|1 Comment

Fox and Roach Internal Marketing Excellence

Fox and Roach is among the largest real estate brokerages in America. They recently published an internal communications piece that is a great case study for how brokers stay connected to their agents using video, and move the needle on adoption of brokerage services. Watch this short 2 minute video https://youtu.be/cy_UUGiKcao Why I like it. First, its short. To many people try to say too much. Make your video quick, clear, and drive action. Second – its familiar – Fox and Roach does a great job of promoting people across the organization – staff, team leaders, top agents. Message – [...]

Association MLS Service Provider Controversy

WAV Group is a leading provider of satisfaction research to a large number of MLSs in the United States and Canada. This type of research is often performed annually by mid-sized MLSs and quarterly by large MLSs. Our satisfaction research is unique in that we support MLSs to benchmark off of their prior performance along with benchmarks against their peer group. WAV Group does not ever share another MLS’s data with any other MLS. But we do extract observations about what strategies are most effective at improving satisfaction in areas where MLSs are weak. As we have voiced on many [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:48-07:00March 26th, 2015|Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights, Our Services, Strategic Planning|Comments Off on Association MLS Service Provider Controversy

Back to Basics

The other day I was on the phone with Mark Z. He’s a leader of one of the top producing Keller Williams Realty teams in the country. The Mark Z. Home Selling Team closed over $59 million in sales transactions, just short of 500 deals, last year. He and his team are on target to eclipse 500 deals in 2015. That means they are closing more than 2 sales every business day this year. With that kind of volume, I was certain Mark Z. must be West Coast, East Coast or Texas based. That’s where most of the hottest housing [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:48-07:00March 26th, 2015|Main category, Our Services|2 Comments

Looking for an Amazing New Career Opportunity?

Looking for an amazing way to leverage the network of relationships you have built in the industry?   How about selling one of the most insightful, relevant and effective educational tools in the industry today – RE Technology.com, WAV Group’s sister company? We’re looking for a few amazing sales warriors to help us expand the reach of our platform to even more agents and brokers and in turn, take their sales careers to the next level. Currently the site is available to over 750,000 agents and brokers.   It is one of the most popular tools available in nearly 100 MLSs around [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:48-07:00March 18th, 2015|Main category, Our Services|Comments Off on Looking for an Amazing New Career Opportunity?

Down Payment Resource™ Job Opportunity

   JOB OPPORTUNITIESAccount Manager   Down Payment Resource™ is seeking an Account Manager responsible for establishing and growing collaborative relationships with our customers and partners. With the goal of maximizing the growth and value of our existing client base, objectives for this position include strategic customer lifecycle management, customer adoption of Down Payment Resource products and services and customer satisfaction. Job requirements: Ability to work remotely Ability to travel frequently Thorough understanding of the real estate industry Knowledge of the home buying process, mortgage finance and homeownership programs 10 years of experience in real estate and account management Proficiency in [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:50-07:00February 24th, 2015|Main category, Our Services|Comments Off on Down Payment Resource™ Job Opportunity

Part 2: Customer service or lip service?

[Part 2 of 2]   Last month I shared a theory that most real estate technology companies stink at customer service. I asked for people to challenge my theory, but only one person said, “You’re wrong.” Randall Standard, who heads up VoicePad, took strong exception my piece. He made several valid points in taking me to task, among which included my failure to point out that some real estate technology companies are providing good customer service. And he share this observation with me, which I think is spot on: He wrote, “A closer examination of real estate technology firms would [...]

By |2019-09-15T10:06:16-07:00January 21st, 2015|MLS Insights, Our Services|Comments Off on Part 2: Customer service or lip service?