Wednesday, November 9, 2011
11:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Where:
Sheraton Anaheim
Regent Room, Main Lobby Level

What:
CMLS Members Only
Seminar Price per Person - $59
Optional Lunch Buffet - 11:30 a.m.
Seminar plus Networking Lunch - $89

• Branding data as "MLS" provided - will the consumer see value in that? Brokers?
• Branding data - who should get to do it? MLS and brokers or any compliant publisher? What would the standards be?
• Branding MLS as an authentic/accurate site (MLS domains)
• Branding for brokers - not only on MLS data but in other ways - should the MLS focus more on products that allow broker and/or shareholders (for regionals)?
• Branding for branding sake - no value in the end if anyone has the "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval"

Register here: http://www.regonline.com/Register/Checkin.aspx?EventID=1021013.

[...]

Tagged: Webinar

Read more...

Date: Thursday, September 22, 2011

Time: 12:30pm (Eastern Daylight Time)

This webinar will feature a panel of experts discussing how brokers are increasing profits through great technology strategy. Moderated by Victor Lund, the three panelists will discuss a case study outlining how one large broker spanning multiple MLS regions accomplished this goal.

Panelists: Victor Lund, WAV Group, Harper Thorpe VP CoreLogic, Alan Scearce, COO Prudential California Realty, Mike Audet, WAV Group.

To register for this event, please click the following url:

https://wavgroup.webex.com/wavgroup/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=668519111

Upon successful registration you will receive an email with complete webinar instructions.

[...]

Tagged: Webinar

Read more...

As many of you know I am pretty passionate about the opportunities for MLSs to create relevance by generating leads for their customers via their MLS Consumer Website.

Russ Bergeron joined a new term for MLS Consumer Websites - he calls them Lead Generation Engines or LGE’s. I just LOVE that statement because that’s exactly what a successful MLS consumer website will do for MLS customers.

Tagged: MLS MLS / Association Website

Read more...

The Power of Benchmarking

WAV Group strongly believes that you cannot accomplish what you cannot measure. How do you know if your customers are loyal fans and would recommend you to others? By asking them, of course. And not just asking them on occasion, but every time anyone in your organization connects with them in any way.

We have witnessed significant improvements in customer satisfaction when a MLS regularly measures satisfaction levels and then, of course, continues to improve in the areas where they have received suggestions for improvement.

Tagged: MLS

Read more...

On a recent business trip, I read a book called The No Asshole Rule:  Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One that Isn’t by Robert Sutton, PHD and Stanford Professor. It is a delightful quick read that demonstrates that “a__holes” destroy companies and the people they mistreat.  Seems obvious enough, but often the “a__holes” are also power mongers who frequently succeed in life (Steve Jobs, for example, is rumored to be one of these!)

After finishing the book, I opened the window and took a few pictures of the Grand Canyon, then considered the plight of the MLS CEO. As an MLS consultant, I care deeply about the success of the MLS industry.  I know there are a lot of smart and hard-working people dedicated to evolving the industry and constantly seeking to make their service more relevant and satisfying to their customers.

[...]

Tagged: MLS Advice Editorial Trends Association Management

Read more...

In many of our conversations with MLSs we hear frustrations expressed about how board meeting discussions dwindle down into minutiae on a regular basis. Instead of talking about how to position the company for the future, the dialog degrades into discussions rehashing a committee recommendation for a small change to the rules and regulations or a $349 line item on the budget.

Does this sound familiar?  If so, then there are several changes you might want to consider, but let me focus on just one for this article.

When you look around the room at your next MLS board meeting you likely will see only those involved in the real estate industry as practicing REALTORS®, affiliates or Association Executives. While these professions and perspectives are VERY important to an MLS organization, there are others that may need to be considered as well, in our view.

Tagged: MLS Advice Editorial Recommendation Trends

Read more...

Lani Rosales at Agent Genius.com wrote an interesting article about whether there are too many REALTORS® in the market at this point.

While I understand why many would suggest that the market may, in fact, be oversaturated, I would argue that NAR serves a valuable purpose as a political organization. The more members, the more influence.  There’s nothing wrong with its role as THE advocate for the real estate industry.

Instead of trying to revamp NAR, I would love to see a new organization meant only for top producers and  highly trained professionals new to the industry. The entry stakes would be a lot higher for this new “higher form” of real estate professional.

Tagged: MLS Editorial Recommendation

Read more...

MLS organizations many times suffer from branding confusion. When they are a division of the association, for example, yet they have their own identity members don’t know the name of the MLS entity. When regional MLSs deliver their services through local associations their brand recognition gets even more muddied.

Here’s one area where there may be an opportunity to deliver a more clearly-branded service to build the strength of the MLS organization’s brand - the MLS system.

Tagged: MLS Consulting Professional Services Education Tech Services

Read more...

WAV Group subscribes to Experian’s Hitwise product to provide market intelligence to our MLS Clients. Part of the inforamtion that we harvest from this service is an understanding of where website traffic comes from geographically.

What we find is that traffic patters vary widely from market to market. To illustrate this, here are the traffic patters to Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, and realestate.yahoo.com. Look carefully and you will see that although there are patterns, there are also differences.

Tagged: MLS Professional Services Research Recommendation Education Tech Conference Tech Services Trends

Read more...

Lender Processing Services (LPS) announced a new valuation model for Lenders that brings listing and pending-sale data into the AVM equation. The mortgage and real estate services provider has struck an agreement with the National Association of REALTORS® to productize MLS data derrived from the REALTOR® Property Resource (RPR) to create derivitive products for lenders. In this case, LPS is offering a product called the LPS REALTOR® Valuation Model or (RVM)

According to the release, LPS plans to leverage this information to expand the reach of traditional automated valuations. In a quote, Rober Walker, managing director, valuations for LPS Applied Analytics told media sources that "By factoring listings and pending sales (from the mls) in the report, it becomes easier to better understand the external factors impacting the value of a specific property."

Tagged: MLS Research Reporting Tech Products Trends

Read more...

A new clue emerged today about the future of real estate mapping.

The University of Washington and Cornell University are working together to build mathematical models that will use photos to dynamically build three-dimensional renderings of buildings, neighborhoods and potentially entire cities. The name for this project is called PhotoCity.

PhotoCity is a process whereby multiple two-dimensional photos are combined to generate mathematical scale to buildings. Microsoft has commercialized this process with a product they call Photosynth. Microsoft has failed in scaling their Photosynth service to cover any significant geographic region.

Tagged: MLS Software Advice Editorial Reporting Tech Products

Read more...

It was reported today in Overseas Property Professionals that a group consisting of Immobel, NAR, FECEPAC and others are collaborating on a project to create an international MLS system for Central America.

This landmark agreement will create an international multiple listing system (MLS) for Central America, bringing the concept of a genuinely global listings exchange a step closer.

Tagged: MLS Reporting Education Tech Services Trends

Read more...

Move, Inc., the operators of REALTOR.com® and a list of many quality products and services to the real estate industry has had a rough ride. In total, they have lost over $2 billion dollars in their history, and were profitable for two years. On the surface, this sounds like pretty poor performance, but nothing could be further from the truth. They have accomplished some outstanding milestones and could be close to hitting a homerun. All of the ingredients are in place. They have the largest consumer audience with strong advertiser support, the most data, and significant agent/broker sales revenue.

Music streaming company Pandora faced similar performance from their early beginnings in 2000, but just hit the profit button to the tune of $100 million (pun intended). In reading their business story, they sound a lot like Move.

Tagged: MLS Editorial Research

Read more...

If you have worked in the MLS world as long as I have, you know how many moving parts there are in terms of technology to run the MLS organization effectively. With the creation of RETS, the so called “standard," the use of multiple modules to provide real estate services has increased even more. What has been obvious to me for many years looking at real estate technology, however, is that no one has done a good job of pulling all of the important data points together for the MLSs so they can run their organizations more effectively.

Today, MLS systems do a great job of helping brokers and agents look and use property data. Accounting and membership systems manage member information and allow for billing while call tracking systems, if in place, allow MLSs to track user interactions. MLS websites reach out to consumers and may provide valuable analytics on search behavior. But, with few exceptions, these systems and products really don’t share[...]

Tagged: MLS Consulting Software Editorial Reporting Tech Products Internet

Read more...

MLS of Choice has been with us for a while now, but has not created any landscape changes in the MLS industry.

WAV Group has had the opportunity to observe the behavior of agents in two divergent situations in California: CARETS and CalREDD.

Hypothesis: Agents don’t care about the MLS system; they care about selling homes, the service they get from their MLS, and the relationships they have with the organizations offering them services.

Tagged: MLS Consulting Editorial Research Education Tech Products Tech Services Trends

Read more...

A few weeks ago we took an RE Technology staff member to Disneyland for her birthday. She is in her 30s and had never been. We all had a blast, even in the cold and the rain.

As a consultant and entrepreneur, I take note of excellence. Everything we touched and everywhere we went and everybody we encountered from Disney was excellent. The trip to Disneyland was as much about learning how to provide awesome service as it was about celebrating a team member’s birthday. I am sure that there are a thousand books about doing business the “Disney Way,” but I must discourage you from reading them, or even taking my word for it.

Pack up your team and head to Los Angles or Orlando. It will cost you a small fortune, but you will gain an even larger fortune in fun while you learn a lot about customer service. Be sure that a person or two in[...]

Tagged: MLS Advice Editorial Recommendation Evaluation

Read more...

WAV Group has worked with many of the Nation’s MLSs to develop their social media strategy. I tend to follow a bunch of REALTOR Association and MLS fan pages to see examples of using social media to stay connected to members/subscribers (lets call them customers). Now I celebrate whenever I see an MLS or Association using Facebook correctly.

In general, the principal business component of a social media strategy is to publish information that connects with customers and redirects them to information that enhances the provider-supplier relationship. The principal social component is to listen to your customers to better understand what is going on in their professional and personal lives.

Tagged: MLS Consulting Advice Editorial Recommendation Social Media

Read more...

WAV Group strongly believes that the best way to attract consumers is to provide them with valuable information to help position an agent as a local expert.  We believe that advertising is dead and “edutizing” is replacing it.  According to Socialnomics, 78% of people rely on research and referrals to make product decisions, while only 14% trust advertising as an information source.  It appears as though the market, at least in California agrees. Real Estate Business Services Inc. (REBS) today announced that two real estate associations, Ventura County and Victor Valley both renewed their agreements to provide robust market statistics to their agents via an agreement with Clarus MarketMetrics®. These renewals signal a maturation of the concept of using market statistics as a tool to educate consumers.

Tagged: MLS Consulting Advice Editorial Recommendation Education Tech Products

Read more...