Accolades Continue for Broker Public Portal with Homesnap: 38th Fastest Growing Company in America
Be sure to pick up a copy of the September issue of Inc., which features the top 500 companies named to the 2019 Inc. 5000 list. Homesnap's three-year growth rate since partnering with the Broker Public Portal (BPP) is a whopping 6,176.7%. Broker Public Portal with Homesnap reaches over 200 markets across America and is now accessible to over one million real estate professionals! This massive expansion has led Homesnap to become the third fastest growing company in America in the real estate category. The net effect is a win for real estate agents, brokers, and their MLSs, and may spell doom for Zillow Group.

Broker Public Portal with Homesnap Hits Milestone: 1 Million Agents
All I can say is WOW! In the real estate market, we TALK about doing a lot of things, but many of our ideas do not come to fruition. Contrast that with Broker Public Portal (BPP) with Homesnap. In less than 18 months, this highly successful initiative has been rolled out to more than 1 million agents. Like every new idea, there have been--and still are--critics of this initiative. I think it's worth restating just a few of the reasons why I believe BPP with Homesnap is a winning strategy and program that is helping to strengthen the real estate industry's ability to generate listing exposure and leads affordably and effectively.

Client Engagement Leads to Early Buy-in
Glen Moss, a broker from Austin, Texas with more than a decade of success in the real estate industry, takes client engagement seriously. He believes securing an early buy-in from would-be homeowners gives them ownership of the process. And he uses the RPR app to do so. "As soon as my clients are in the car, I give one passenger my wifi enabled tablet and ask the other to use his or her smartphone," said Glen, who holds several leadership positions with the Austin Board of Realtors®. "One touch opens the wide world of RPR." Glen first directs his buyers to the app's map feature which is guided by the phone's GPS. He explains the color-coded icons ("for sale" or "recently sold," among others) and shows the client how to move the map around to reveal on-and-off market properties in surrounding areas. Frequently, a client will find a listing not included on their tour. Right there in the car, Glen will show his buyer how to pull up the property's characteristics, photos, taxes, history, and hundreds of other datasets. "They are simply amazed by what they see," he said.

Discover MLS-Touch!
Tuesday, February 9, 2017 at 1:00 PM PST MLS-Touch is the application you've been waiting for... and we want to take a few minutes to show you what it can do! MLS-Touch is the most powerful mobile MLS solution packed with features like map search, instant sales comparables, quick access to your listing inventory, email multiple listings and the InstaView which can get you details of the property in front of you instantly. Available for the iPhone, iPad and Android devices, this feature-packed mobile application will allow you to research and show homes, respond to information requests, set up future showings, and much more! Register now!

[Infographic] Mobile Use in the Real Estate Industry
Go mobile or go home – it's a cliché marketing slogan, but it couldn't be any closer to the truth. Mobile use, especially amongst millennial buyers, continues to grow at an exponential rate. Consumers want the option to browse, purchase, chat, and generally reach their favorite brands and services while on the go. For real estate professionals, it's important to understand the way your clients utilize this platform throughout the home buying process. How your website and property search performs across multiple devices is critically important to lead capture and consumer engagement. Sites that aren't optimized for mobile miss out on new leads and sales. Still not convinced of the importance of mobile? We've compiled an infographic full of insights on how consumers are using mobile within the real estate industry.

Discover MLS-Touch! (9/15)
Thursday, September, 2016 at 1:00 PM PDT MLS-Touch is the application you've been waiting for... and we want to take a few minutes to show you what it can do! MLS-Touch is the most powerful mobile MLS solution packed with features like map search, instant sales comparables, quick access to your listing inventory, email multiple listings and the InstaView which can get you details of the property in front of you instantly. Available for the iPhone, iPad and Android devices, this feature-packed mobile application will allow you to research and show homes, respond to information requests, set up future showings, and much more! Register now!

Rate My Favorite Learning (8/18)
Thursday, August 18, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT This session is for agents who are looking for a better way to engage with their clients, especially Millennials. Benefit to the Agent Pro Agents are able to give their clients a branded website that allows friends/family to rate their favorite properties As a Pro Agent you have access to all ratings and comments from your clients unique influencers Gain exposure to potential leads that invite their friends and family to rate their favorites. Client Benefits Provide clients a tool to easily communicate with their friends/family during their home buying process Perfect tool to provide those Millennial buyers who are looking for instant feedback while they search for their favorite property Register now!

Turning Your Real Estate Business from Good to Great
As a real estate broker, your goal is to generate leads that will increase business for your agents and company. You probably already have an eye-catching website that generates leads. Your business is good, but is it great? To turn your business from good to great means incorporating some of today's latest technologies into your overall marketing strategy. Start with a mobile responsive website design. A mobile responsive website design automatically scales its layout and content to fit whatever device visitors are using at the time. With 89 percent of new home buyers using mobile search engines, it only makes sense to give your visitors a modern and easy-to-use website. Still a little unclear about what makes a responsive design such an important part of your digital marketing plan? Here Are Our Top 6 Reasons to Go Mobile Responsive: 1. There are plenty of reasons to implement a responsive design for your website; however providing a better user experience tops the list. Your website should look and function phenomenally whether a smartphone, desktop or tablet is being used. A better user experience decreases bounce rates, increases website conversion and enhances your brand image.

Discover MLS-Touch! (6/7)
Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT MLS-Touch is the application you've been waiting for... and we want to take a few minutes to show you what it can do! MLS-Touch is the most powerful mobile MLS solution packed with features like map search, instant sales comparables, quick access to your listing inventory, email multiple listings and the InstaView which can get you details of the property in front of you instantly. Available for the iPhone, iPad and Android devices, this feature-packed mobile application will allow you to research and show homes, respond to information requests, set up future showings, and much more! Register now!

Broker Members of The Enterprise Network Hit Mobile Milestone
We have been talking about mobile in real estate for far too long now. Two years ago Trulia, Zillow, and Realtor.com all announced that mobile was passing other methods of accessing their site. As brokers began to adopt mobile solutions, the debate about mobile browser vs. mobile app went on for an eternity until everyone put down their guns and agreed that the answer is both. One of the broker website service providers that we have been tracking is Booj or The Enterprise Network. They offer a good benchmark because of their unique client base. If you are not familiar, here is the scoop: The Enterprise Network only works with one broker in any given market. As a researcher, this eliminates the network effect that can often happen when a mobile solution is adopted by many firms in a given area. No franchise means that the brokerage is standing on their own brand to drive awareness and adoption of mobile. Many franchise organizations drive mobile adoption in local markets, i.e., Century 21 Hometown Realty gets all of the mobile traffic in their area for Century 21. The Enterprise Network is geographically diverse. They cover the major market centers across America, mitigating geographic bias. I think that they have 32 brokerages across the nation representing 15,000 agents. Again, the average size of the brokerage is somewhat in the middle or "lower upper" in terms of agent count. Huge firms like Weichert, Howard Hanna, Long and Foster, and the like can distort research.

Google’s Push for a More Mobile Internet
I'll admit that I don't particularly like to use social media myself for my own business purposes, but it is often a necessary avenue for many. Much like for my own day to day purposes, I don't have a great deal of personal need to rank well in Google (most of the Gordon Wallaces in the world appear to be either footballers or Physicists). But while I don't have a particular need to benefit from these myself, I do have to be aware of changing trends and popular topics as they flare up in order to properly assist the direction of our own products as well as answer client questions or concerns. So, let's talk a little bit about Google's (seemingly) new push for a more mobile-friendly internet. Whenever I talk about Google, I always feel the need to preface things by reiterating to the audience that they are a business, and as a business need to generate a profit. They still primarily do this through their ad revenue (more on that topic here if you like). Though they are currently experimenting with a subscription based model to replace Adwords on certain participating sites, with the volume of traffic they receive to Google.com you're not going to see that revenue mix changing dramatically any time soon. So, how do they keep the traffic flowing to Google.com and keep their revenue up? Keep a positive user experience going – and on mobile that means highlighting sites as "mobile friendly" before you click through.

Leading the Mobile User to Your Website
The Internet has done a lot to change and enhance the way we market and the ways in which consumers can access information about real estate in general and properties specifically in geographical areas. It's all good, but we need to keep pace with advances, and staying ahead of the competition is nice too. Mobile device usage is skyrocketing: 91% of people on earth own a mobile phone 56% of those are smart phones Of the seven hours per day in media consumption, here's how we spend our time: Mobile - 1.8 hours T.V. - 1.5 hours PC - 1.6 hours Other - 2.1 hours People are buying online with mobile devices, it's hard to think of a more mobile activity than driving around neighborhoods checking out homes for sale. It's the ideal situation for the real estate professional to take advantage and guide the home shopper to their website. We've come a long way from sign riders with our office phone number or our name on them. We've moved through brochure boxes to website domains on riders. However, we can be more focused than that.

Staggering Mobile Traffic Growth: What Brokerages Need to Know Now
Guest contributor Joel Maas says:  It happened the entire time I stood in line for coffee this morning. It didn't stop while I was at dinner the other night. It was going on every second of the last concert or sporting event you attended, and even while you walked down the sidewalk. Heck, it happens while I am watching TV with my family. It seems no matter where you are or what you're doing, someone around you is on his or her smart phone. What used to be a rude habit has now become a cultural norm, and there's no indication the course will ever reverse itself as millions of new smartphones are activated in the U.S. each day. Those people aren't all working. Many are using their mobile phone as a convenient avenue to access the things they would have checked anyway. That means checking email. It means logging onto social networks. It might mean shopping, finding a quick answer, or doing more extensive research. When I joined Delta Media Group, I heard over and over again the importance of brokerages having a website optimized for mobile customers. Not because all people are searching for homes from their cell phones rather than their desktops (though statistics highlighted in our new White Paper show mobile real estate website searches are growing rapidly). It's because people now expect the ability to access everything from their cell phones. This explosive mobile growth trend is why Delta decided to author its latest white paper,"The Mobile Customer Experience: Trending, Optimization, and Application." In this paper, we publish statistics and insight gleaned from our national customer base of REALTORS®. I interviewed our CEO, Mike Minard, to get his perspective on why this paper is important and preview some of the topics discussed therein.

What are On-the-Go Homebuyers Searching For?
This post comes to us from the HomeFinder.com blog: Are online house hunters conducting the same home searches on mobile devices/tablets as they are on desktops? HomeFinder.com explores the type of dwelling these digital home searchers want (based on HomeFinder.com search data for the month of June 2013). Read on to find out who is searching for your listings, and how you can apply these findings to your business. Desktop home searchers are more often in the market for single family homes: 72% of all HomeFinder.com single family home searches were made from desktops, vs. 67% of single family home searches were made from mobile devices (including tablets). How can you apply this to your business? If the majority of your listings are single family homes, make sure your website has clear, concise text, a simple scrolling feature, and an easy search function. However, don't exclude mobile and tablet users; make sure your website doesn't have any Flash content (iOS devices do not support Flash), so mobile and tablet users can easily access your listings.

Tips to Optimize Your Website for Mobile Users
As more and more consumers turn to their mobile devices when researching real estate, brokers and agents across the U.S. are searching for the best approach or the best way to optimize their presence on the smaller screen. In fact, a recent report from Google and the National Association of REALTORS®, The Digital House Hunt: Consumer and Market Trends in Real Estate, shows how actively buyers are using mobile in their home search. Source: Google & Compete New Home Shopper Mobile Survey, 2012 So what is the best approach as a broker to optimize your website for mobile users? With so many options, it can be paralyzing. This was the topic of discussion at our Beta Broker Hangout this week. I had the pleasure of hosting two brokerage founders, Dominic Morrocco, co-founder of M Squared Real Estate in Washington, D.C., and Miguel Berger, president of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Tech Valley in Albany and Saratoga counties, N.Y. During the hour-long discussion, each speaker shared ways they've optimized their sites for mobile, best practices, consumer insights on usage and more.

5 New Digital Buyer Insights from NAR/Google
Have you read the joint report from NAR and Google on the digital house hunt? It's chock full of exploration and Google-provided insights on how consumers are using different combinations of web, mobile, and tablet to find their new homes. Some of the report echoes what we have been saying for years: today's digital consumer (which includes 90% of those buying homes today) does their homework ahead of time. What did surprise me from the report was just how much real estate-related local searches have grown. Consumers "switch devices to suit their needs at any given moment" and search carelessly, bouncing back and forth "to look at ratings and reviews, styles and prices, and then search[ing] again." Click through to the next page for five insights you don't want to miss.

Monday Morning Mobile: Maps on Mobile
The recent release of the iPhone 5 and the fact that they have replaced Google Maps with their own proprietary mapping system has brought a lot of attention to just how important the "mapping" feature on mobile devices has become. A recent report by comScore found that traffic to map websites on desktops has been steady now for quite a number of years, averaging between 95 to 100 million unique visitors during any month. This represents approximately 40 percent of the US population. However, in the past six months, the number of smartphone visitors to map websites and apps has jumped 24 percent to 92 million unique visitors a month, representing 83 percent of the smartphone population which still has a ton of room for growth.

Monday Morning Mobile: Google Changes = Broker Opportunity
Last week I had the good fortune to attend RISMedia's Real Estate CEO Exchange and, as always, their team led by John Featherston put together an absolutely phenomenal event! From start to finish, the day-and-a-half agenda kept all those in attendance fully engaged, offering countless insights and takeaways from industry leaders. Among the many great sessions, one in particular left the biggest impression, as it relates to today's mobile technology, which we focus on here at Monday Morning Mobile. John Lim, President and CEO of Mobile Real Estate ID, LLC, fresh off a twenty city Google "Adsense in Your City" tour, shared the details and corresponding opportunities that are being created for brokers right now due to changes taking place with Google mobile. Google, who essentially controls the consumer search experience, has made a major change in the way in which search results are presented on your desktop compared to your mobile device. Now, on mobile, local results are of much greater importance than they have ever been. For example, if you were to search for "homes for sale Tarrytown, NY" on your mobile device, you will see one paid ad--the top organic result--and then results for local real estate firms in Tarrytown listed through Google Places.

2012 Mobile Marketing Stats & Resources for Real Estate [INFOGRAPHIC]
Did you know that 80 percent of the world's population owns a cellphone? That's more people than have electricity or own toothbrushes. With this already astonishing number still steadily growing, it's more important than ever for real estate professionals to ensure their marketing efforts are mobile-friendly. We've compiled some of the most recent and relevant data for you in this handy infographic that we hope you will find useful as you plan and execute your mobile marketing strategy. Don't forget that ePropertySites provides you with mobile versions of your single property sites, including text and QR codes. Stay tuned this week as we explore these features in depth. Highlights: The 25-34 year old age range has the largest number of smartphone users and the largest number of first time homebuyers Smartphone subscriptions increased by 55% in 2012 Smartphone users spend an average of 25 minutes per day browsing the web on their device, compared to only 12 minutes making calls 70% of searches from a mobile device result in an action within one hour, compared to 70% of desktop searches that result in an action within one month 61% of users will go to a competitor's site if your site is not mobile friendly

Monday Morning Mobile: The Here and Now of Mobile Commerce
Those who say, "Mobile is the future," clearly haven't stopped to look around lately. Mobile is the epitome of present day culture and while it's only going to continue to grow, the foundation has been laid. Think back just a few short years ago when Blackberry ruled the roost; today they struggle to remain relevant. The way we search, are "social," and now shop have all been impacted enormously by our ability to be mobile. Online marketing and technology company, Monetate, analyzed over 100 million online shopping experiences and reported that tablet traffic to commerce sites grew by 348% from the year prior while smartphone visits increased by only 117% (no small growth, either). Tablets seem to make the ideal online shopping device. Their larger screen size combined with their mobility allow you to easily thumb through your favorite stores, search for real estate or order groceries while sitting outside or on your couch where you can be more comfortable than sitting at your desk with your desktop.

Same Internet – New Device
Many recent Monday Morning Mobile posts have focused on topics related to mobile web, not only on how fast mobile web adoption is growing, but also on how much money mobile web is generating as a commerce tool. What the mobile industry as a whole has accomplished since 2007--just five short years--is light years beyond what the traditional web accomplished. Mobile devices not only give us more access, but combine additional tools that allow us to interact in ways our desktops never could. Click-to-call and location based searches are prime examples of that. The way in which we are able to interact and connect through mobile makes it far more relevant than anything we have experienced thus far. The sheer size of the still untapped opportunity is what leads companies like Google to think mobile first.

Location Location Location
Contributor Seth Kaplan of Mobile Real Estate ID says: On a recent visit to Chicago, my first time there, I was anxious to get a lay of the land.  I had heard a lot about the city and it’s similarities to New York; so as a prideful New Yorker, I was eager to disprove those theories.  However, before I had the chance to disprove, I noticed that the term “getting the lay of the land” had changed. When I walked out the door of the airport and got on the Taxi line I already knew where I was going, what route I was taking and how long it would take.  I just plugged in the address to my hotel into the maps app on my iPhone.  Once I got in the cab and confirmed that he was on course based on the pre plotted route of my phone, I then began searching what was around my hotel on the map.  Once I came across an area which looked of interest such as Lake Shore Park, I Googled it to get pictures and more information. After getting settled into the hotel and catching up on the e-mails I missed while on the plane I embarked on checking out some of the places I found on the map while in the cab.  When I checked-in at Lake Shore Park I perused the tips left by other visitors to see what part of the park (which is right on Lake Michigan and gorgeous) I should go to.  As the day went on I got hungry so of course, Chicago Pizza was the obvious choice.  How do you think I found the Pizza Place that would handle my hunger on this afternoon?

Mobile Business on Mobile Devices
We found this post on the Zillow Academy blog. Business is mobile and Mobile is Global! Let's face it, cell phones are a thing of the past. We no longer refer to the little power-packed mobile device and tool as just a phone. There are more mobile devices sold than laptop and desktop computers and it's rare to be in any location where every single person in a room, class, auditorium or meeting doesn't have a mobile device. There are a variety of Carriers, Apps, Devices etc. and everyday there are new developments, new devices, and the programs that are being introduced are too many and too abundant to keep up with. Even as this post is published, it is already outdated and antiquated. None-the-less, here are some of the apps, sites, tools, and devices we wanted to share.

Monday morning mobile: #Fail
At Mobile Card Cast we try and be more than just a technology company, we are a collection of Mobile enthusiasts who adopted the mantra "iLive Mobile" throughout everything we do.  As such, many of you who frequently read this column know how excited I was when Verizon finally made the iPhone available.  Since adopting the iPhone I have expanded the Mobile boundaries I was once limited to by light years. The access to information and the level of efficiency which the iPhone has provided me is unparalleled to any device I have ever owned.  I have been able to elimate numerous other devices I once required because the iPhone is many devices all in one.  Those no longer needed include, but are not limited to: camera, iPod, and alarm clock.  In addition to needing fewer devices, a lot of the services I need on a daily basis have also found there way onto my iPhone; banking, weather, travel, movie tickets, social networking and more.

3 Ways Mobile Search Solutions Can Capture Leads: Text, Voice and Mobile Browser
I'm about to make a very bold statement. Here it goes: the Internet isn't everything. Don't believe me? Then learn about mobile search, the use of cell phones to obtain information on-the-go. With the ever-increasing use of cell phones, you don't want to miss this growing trend. REALTOR.com® released a great infographic to showcase how important mobile search is specific to the real estate industry. You won't want to miss this!