Strategic Planning Archives

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
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Will 2014 Be a Break Out Year

Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning

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

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

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

Don’t Miss this Webinar on How to Make Your Business Explode with a 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. WAV Group partner Marilyn Wilson is moderating this RE Technology webinar. This webinar is targeted to real estate brokers. Unfortunately, these sites can provide inaccurate data but time and again consumers head there because it’s the only location that provides them this information. Would you like to learn about an affordable program to attract potential new clients directly to your website, avoiding the [...]

By Marilyn Wilson|2018-05-03T21:24:26-07:00October 4th, 2013|Broker-Agent Information, Clients, Main category, Strategic Planning|1 Comment

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

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 Digital Budgeting Mistakes Brokers Make
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Top Digital Budgeting Mistakes Brokers Make

Main category, Our Company, Our Services, Strategic Planning

Top Digital Budgeting Mistakes Brokers Make

As summer draws to a close and fall sets upon us, it is incumbent upon all businesses to build their budgets for 2014. The old adage rings true, failure to plan is a plan to fail. Too many brokerages in America are guilty of this. Here are a few tips that will improve the planning process in your company. It is a good idea to print this out and provide it to your team as a reminder. Look at data first. Many brokerages fail to take a close look at the effectiveness of digital marketing programs. Dig deeply into your [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:30-07:00August 14th, 2013|Main category, Our Company, Our Services, Strategic Planning|Comments Off

The War That Few Are Watching

There is a War being waged between the leading portals today. They are fighting with all of their might to be leaders in consumer website traffic. Today, Zillow is in the lead with Realtor.com on their heals and Trulia not far behind. Homes.com is pacing with the pack too, and perhaps showed just how strong they are by climbing the rankings at a remarkable pace in 2012. In an announcement released yesterday, Move proclaimed victory at retaining their relationship with MSN.com, the portal operated by Microsoft. I tried to get information about the battle, but limited facts were made available. [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:33-07:00June 19th, 2013|Main category, Marketing, Strategic Planning|4 Comments

It’s a Kid’s World – Are you ready?
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It’s a Kid’s World – Are you ready?

Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Marketing, Strategic Planning

It’s a Kid’s World – Are you ready?

I just watched a fascinating documentary called Consuming Kids highlighting how advertisers are tapping into the ever-growing purchasing power of children under the age of 12. According to the film, children directly control $40 Billion in spending and indirectly influence over $700 billion in spending. The documentary goes on to talk about how brands are trying to create relationships with kids as soon as they can to create life long relationships. They are trying to create young “super” consumers that will be committed to purchasing their products throughout their lifetime. In my days at Fisher-Price, we never thought about the [...]

By Marilyn Wilson|2018-05-03T21:24:34-07:00June 12th, 2013|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Marketing, Strategic Planning|Comments Off

The Future of Anything
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The Future of Anything

Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, How to Make Strategic Planning Really Work in your MLS, Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning, Suveys and Research, Technology Evaluation

The Future of Anything

I would attribute the series of postures on The Future of the MLS to Saul Klein. He may not have been the first to coin the phrase, but he has embraced it and made it his own. It is with due respect that we leave that posturing behind and set forth on a new journey. Our industry is at an inflection point, and my fear is that we are too blinded by current affairs to look beyond the steps in front of us. This morning, I encountered a quote from Antoine de Saint Exupery, a French writer, poet, and aviator [...]

By Victor Lund|2018-05-03T21:24:35-07:00May 30th, 2013|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, How to Make Strategic Planning Really Work in your MLS, Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning, Suveys and Research, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off