MLS Terms of Use Changes and Copyright FAQ

This post is the result of a collaborative effort amongst the Council of Multiple Listing Services, The Realty Alliance, The National Association of REALTORS®, and Larson Skinner PLLC.  Many MLSs have been making changes to the way they file copyright applications and their MLS terms of use. Those changes have raised some questions from participants and subscribers. This FAQ is intended to answer some of those questions and emphasize that the MLSs are not forcing participants or subscribers to give up ownership of listing content.

By |2018-03-27T06:00:37-07:00March 27th, 2018|Broker-Agent Information|Comments Off on MLS Terms of Use Changes and Copyright FAQ

Elm Street Technology Announces Acquisition of Agentjet

February 12, 2018 – Greensboro, NC – Today, Elm Street Technology (EST) announced the acquisition of Agentjet, Inc., a digital marketing, lead generation and technology provider for top producing agents and teams. Today’s announcement marks the fourth transaction in the company’s two-year history and provides a scalable lead generation compliment to the company’s Elevate productivity suite of technology and client servicing platforms.

By |2018-02-12T10:00:08-08:00February 12th, 2018|Press Releases|Comments Off on Elm Street Technology Announces Acquisition of Agentjet

HUNT Real Estate Buys Large Boston Brokerage

Another member of The Realty Alliance is kicking up activity on the acquisition trail. As Real Trends CEO Steve Murray has spotted, large firms are getting larger. HUNT Real Estate, the second largest ERA franchise in the world has expanded from the Upstate New York market into the Boston, MA market by acquiring ERA Key Realty. WAV Group congratulates the Hunt family and the Taylor family for opening another major demographic market area. I would expect that HUNT Mortgage and other affiliated companies in commercial, property management, insurance, and title will get added to the Boston market area. HUNT will [...]

By |2018-02-07T16:42:43-08:00February 7th, 2018|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Press Releases|Comments Off on HUNT Real Estate Buys Large Boston Brokerage

Swanepoel Trends Report Overview

Each year, I review the Swanepoel Trends Report. It’s a nod of respect for Stefan Swanepoel and the work that he does. His reports deliver exactly what they intend. They provide a few hours of reading that will stimulate you to absorb various perspectives and reflect. I have a full library of the reports and find myself pulling them off the shelf throughout the year for one reason or another. The real estate industry is a living thing that is fundamental to society. Like the history that comes before it, we watch change happen and are influenced by our years [...]

By |2018-02-07T16:00:40-08:00February 7th, 2018|Main category, Reports|Comments Off on Swanepoel Trends Report Overview

CoreLogic Expands Access to Natural Hazard Reports in California

IRVINE, Calif., February 7, 2018—CoreLogic® (NYSE: CLGX), a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, today announced it is adding DisclosureSave to the Clareity® SSO Dashboard to enable nearly twenty-thousand California agents simpler access to natural hazard disclosure reports required to close each transaction. Three multiple listing organizations throughout the state now display DisclosureSave as an option for their members—allowing them to conveniently select and order reports directly from the Discover Network panel within the Clareity SSO Dashboard. “We brought DisclosureSave into the CoreLogic family to offer real estate professionals in California a high quality, data-powered product and [...]

By |2018-02-07T05:00:07-08:00February 7th, 2018|Clients, Main category, Press Releases|Comments Off on CoreLogic Expands Access to Natural Hazard Reports in California

Inside Real Estate Acquires Circlepix

Circlepix has sold everything. They operated an extensive network of photographers that they sold to VHT Studios in January. Now they have sold the rest of their company to Inside Real Estate. If you have not followed Inside Real Estate lately – pay attention. Inside Real Estate is the incredible company that recently landed Keyes – one of the largest firms in South East Florida among others. They are taking a piecemeal approach to purchasing world class software providers to complete their suite of an end-to-end solution for brokers, teams, and agents. At the heart of Inside Real Estate is [...]

By |2018-02-01T07:17:20-08:00February 1st, 2018|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Marketing, Press Releases, Technology, Technology Evaluation, Virtual Office Website Series|Comments Off on Inside Real Estate Acquires Circlepix

Broker Public Portal with Homesnap Grows Over 150% in First Year

  Industry effort ”blows the doors off estimates;” Should quiet critics, leaders say ROCKVILLE, MD, January 23, 2018 – Broker Public Portal (BPP) since its launch with Homesnap in January last year has grown from serving 45 Multiple Listing Services to more than 120 MLSs today, representing 800,000 real estate agents and brokers. As a result, Homesnap has become one of the nation’s most collaborative consumer real estate apps. Real estate agents have invited more than 19 million clients and contacts to access MLS listing data, and 8.5 million consumers have engaged with their agents through Homesnap. Broker Public Portal [...]

By |2018-12-19T15:26:40-08:00January 23rd, 2018|Broker Public Portal, Main category|7 Comments

Real Estate’s First HyperLocal White Paper Discovers A “Movement”

Social media, mobile technology and marketing automation: those are the three ingredients that are changing real estate in a profound and everlasting way. And, unlike many skeptics, I believe it’s for the better. My proof is the emergence of a “HyperLocal Movement” in real estate that the confluence of these three has fueled. Now there is really nothing new about the “idea” of HyperLocal in real estate. No other industry has been more focused on being local than ours. Many agents have legitimately been practicing hyperlocalism for years, if not decades. What is new is what's happening NOW with hyperlocalism, [...]

By |2018-01-19T12:00:23-08:00January 19th, 2018|Main category|Comments Off on Real Estate’s First HyperLocal White Paper Discovers A “Movement”

Brokers Need to Know that Bitcoin has an Economic Flaw

But the biggest gains may be ahead. If you took economics class in college, you understand that currencies of any type have a relationship between four very important metrics: MV=PQ. M is the total amount of money supply in circulation. V is the velocity of money and the frequency that it is being circulated. P is the price level Q is the inflation adjusted index of goods and services. The economic flaw with Bitcoin is that you cannot buy much with it. Sure – we hear these isolated discussions about people buying houses with Bitcoin, but those are isolated one-offs. [...]

By |2018-01-10T10:00:53-08:00January 10th, 2018|Cyber, Main category|Comments Off on Brokers Need to Know that Bitcoin has an Economic Flaw

Google Tag Manager – A Broker’s Best Friend

Real Estate brokers need to leverage reporting to know what is working in their digital marketing assets. The good news is that Google Analytics can provide answers to the performance of your website pages and campaigns if you train it. The tool to deliver these reports is called Google Tag Manager, and if you are not using this utility in your brokerage today, you need to start. Google Tag Manager (GTM). Brokers now have more accessibility to track usage for all their Internet assets. GTM easily installs on your website and intranet, and is available for native mobile applications on [...]

By |2018-01-08T13:00:41-08:00January 8th, 2018|Main category|Comments Off on Google Tag Manager – A Broker’s Best Friend

Collateral Analytics Sues Nationstar and Xome for Stealing IP

Real Estate brokers and MLSs are pretty familiar with Collateral Analytics®. Collateral Analytics provides real estate brokers with a variety of tools including market trends, market share, and AVMs. Collateral Analytics is particularly interesting to real estate brokers because of the unique blend of MLS data and Public Record data. Brokers believe that MLS data introduces a level of accuracy and timeliness to analytics products, making them profoundly more accurate than Zillow Group’s® Zestimates®. Many of America’s top real estate firms also participate in the Collateral Analytics network of firms that provide Broker Price Opinion(BPO) services to the capital markets.  [...]

By |2018-01-08T12:45:02-08:00January 8th, 2018|Main category|Comments Off on Collateral Analytics Sues Nationstar and Xome for Stealing IP

RESO: Fairy Tale or the Future?

It’s hard to argue that standardized input, distribution and display of real estate information is not the desired path for our industry to follow. There aren’t many technology companies that would PREFER to map nearly 700 individual MLS data sets if they have the data and a choice. The Real Estate Standards Organization has set out on a path to remove millions of dollars in cost to real estate technology development and deployment while encouraging more innovation.   Download the results of the study here: When you get past the obvious technical advantages what does it really MEAN to have data [...]

By |2018-01-08T12:00:38-08:00January 8th, 2018|Main category|1 Comment