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Articles

Tips on Expediting the MLS Approval Process
Your local MLS provides direct access to every available listing in your area, so there's a pretty good chance you'll have to work with yours at some point. In general, access to MLS data is only available to those agents who are members in good standing and go through the necessary to steps to seek approval. How do you get approval, you ask? I'm here to help you with that! The MLS Approval Process Gaining MLS approval can be a long and tedious process, especially for new agents. Not sure where to get the needed paperwork? What signatures you need to acquire? How long the entire process take? After working with MLSs on a daily basis, we've developed some great relationships and have tips on expediting this process. Here are some key things to keep in mind when looking for approval: Make sure you have the most up-to-date version of the data access agreement from your MLS. You get this from the MLS directly, or your IDX/VOW provider may have a copy on file, too! Know your website address by heart and make sure it's accurate on your data access agreement. Do you know your "Broker of Record" on file with your MLS or brokerage? This may be different than your own broker. Make sure to find out who this may be and obtain their signature on your data access agreement if necessary. Submit your completed data access agreement directly to the person that handles each approval.
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Getting Started with Listingbook (10/24)
Monday, October 24, 2016 at 8:00 AM PDT In this session you will learn: What Listingbook is and what it's for Basic System Navigation General Overview of Your Clients' Experience The Differences Between Listingbook Basic and Listingbook Pro Register now!
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Listingbook Basics (9/6)
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Rate My Favorite Learning for Non Pro Agents (7/27)
Wednesday, July 27, 2016 at 11:00 AM PDT 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!
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Products

Real Estate Webmasters Agent Websites

Real Estate Webmasters provides three kinds of website designs for real estate agents.  These designs provide real estate agents with the flexibility to start with a template and customize it 100%.  Agents can choose from template websites, limited edition custom websites, or fully custom websites. Template website features include: Contact forms that email the agent immediately when a user comes calling Flash slideshow of property photos, which can be updated anytime Ability to display property listings with photos Branding and agent contact info on every page Pre-made design styles for callout boxes, block quotes, etc. Content management solution –create pages and links, post photos, and edit Lead management solution- organize leads into groups, send automatic drip campaigns, track user behavior, manage a calendar of events, action plans Listings manager- An agent can enter his/her properties (even rentals) into the form fields of the listings manager to be displayed to users. Users can click on properties to see the details pages with more photos Limited Edition Custom (LEC) websites are a hybrid between template and fully custom websites. LEC’s are customized with a search engine friendly MLS search experience and built-in blogging platform.  Real Estate Webmasters recommends that an LEC is best for an agent who does not necessarily want to go through the time that accompanies a truly custom website. The fully custom website option provides high-end, custom real estate websites with built in integration of function. Real Estate Webmasters can design something professional and effective from the ground up, or they can take an agent’s mockups (or existing site) and build it onto a scalable, fully supported platform.  These websites come with lead management and content management technologies.
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Virtual Office Websites (VOW) by SEI Systems

SEI Systems offer Virtual Office Websites (VOW). VOW is an exciting new way to offer the most listing data possible through an office or agent website. Through a VOW, website visitors must create an account and agree to certain terms and conditions in order to access VOW listing information. The listing data will display all listing data/information about a particular property with the exception of confidential fields. By providing such an array of information per listing the brokerage/agent can offer the highest level of online services currently allowed by law. Give your online visitors the information they desire by providing VOW on your NAVICA Web Solution.
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Custom IDX/MLS Solutions by Real Estate Webmasters

Real Estate Webmasters provides custom IDX/MLS solutions for real estate professionals.  Local real estate boards publish property listings in a stream (a feed) that can be directed onto an agent or broker website with "IDX" technology. IDX feeds allow online visitors to search for their new house without leaving an agent or broker’s website. This gives real estate professionals the opportunity to get leads to register in their system in exchange for access to convenient, searchable property listings. Real Estate Webmasters’ CORE install is a fully functioning IDX platform (out of the box).  Features include: Google mapping, CRM / Analytics, drip email functionality and more. Real estate professionals have the option to pay to customize the search design and functionality. Real Estate Webmasters’ custom IDX solutions are integrated into real estate website content, rather than hosted in another location and iframed onto your site (as some IDX vendors provide). Real Estate Webmasters integrates the property listings and search results pages to become part of the overall website and attract a lot of relevant search engine traffic. With a custom, integrated IDX feed, real estate professionals have the ability to put "IDX snippets" onto pages, to show lists of properties, such as foreclosures on a foreclosures page, or properties over $1M on a luxury page, or Smithville properties on the Smithville neighborhood page. Real Estate Webmasters is an approved IDX provider to almost 100 real estate boards.
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Wise Agent Virtual Office and CRM

Wise Agent is an all-in-one solution that revolutionizes how real estate professionals conduct their business. Our platform combines contact management, lead automation, transaction management, and real estate marketing tools to streamline your operations, increase productivity and provide reliable, secure access to your virtual office from anywhere. With Wise Agent, you will have the ability to save time and make more money. One of the standout features of Wise Agent is its integration with GPT-3. This allows real estate professionals to easily write emails within the Wise Agent platform, eliminating the need to switch back and forth between multiple tools. With GPT-3's advanced AI capabilities, writing emails has never been easier.  Wise Agent also offers various features to accommodate real estate teams. With up to 5 team members able to use one account for no extra cost, and the ability to add more as needed, our platform is designed to help teams work together more effectively. You can assign contacts, appointments, calls, tasks, transactions, and more to individual team members and view their schedules to keep everyone informed. Branded emails for each member of the team and the ability to create an outside team by linking to other Wise Agent members help to create a seamless and organized team experience.  
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Industry News

New Study on Web Scraping of Real Estate Websites Shows Serious Cause for Concern
SAN FRANCISCO, California, Oct. 7, 2015 — Distil Networks, Inc., the global leader in bot detection and mitigation, and Clareity Consulting, the premier technical consulting firm for the real estate industry, today announced the, "2015 Study on Real Estate Website Scraping and MLS Data Security." The report examines two surveys that sought to understand the barriers to adoption of anti-scraping technology - one with Multiple Listing Service (MLS) executives, and another with the owners of companies that provide Internet Data Exchange (IDX) websites and Virtual Office Websites (VOW). "The real estate industry faces serious challenges with intellectual property infringement via web scraping, yet they've been slow to adopt effective anti-scraping tools," said Rami Essaid, co-founder and CEO of Distil Networks. "Scrapers use bots to grab online real estate content, like property listings, and then create derivative products such as lead gen programs and appraisal data." The study reveals the perceptions of MLS and IDX executives regarding web scraping and how each member of the MLS data supply chain can align to protect the integrity of real estate industry data. The Findings MLS Executives - One hundred MLS executives responded to the survey, representing over half a million MLS members, brokers, and agents. 99 percent of MLS executives say compliance with rules protecting misuse of MLS data is important and 95 percent agree that IDX sites should be subject to rules specifically mandating anti-scraping protections. 98 percent of respondents want a set of standardized tests to facilitate anti-scraping compliance reviews, yet no test currently exists. 94 percent of MLS executives indicate a vendor's information security practices and sophistication of anti-scraping technology are important to them when selecting a technology vendor. IDX/VOW Vendors - 14 vendors representing over 400,000 websites were surveyed. IDX and VOW vendors operate on behalf of the MLS to serve agent sites and other websites that display and syndicate MLS listing data. Prior to this study, 43 percent of IDX/VOW vendors surveyed were not aware of how pervasive bots and scraping were across the entire industry. 62 percent rated compliance with MLS rules as the most important factor in having IDX/VOW vendors implement an anti-scraping solution. Only 17 percent of IDX/VOW vendors are using a commercial service to protect against scraping. Some are using services with limited protection, especially against sophisticated web scraping bots. "Most IDX/VOW vendors are using reactive monitoring mechanisms and other outdated methods to stop scrapers, which are not effective against today's nefarious actors. For those attempting to implement proactive tools to combat scraping, almost all indicated they were using old IP-address-based methods, like rate limiting, CAPTCHAs, web application firewalls and IP blocking services. On their own, these methods are not effective," said Matt Cohen for Clareity Consulting. "Based on the near unanimous support for rule changes and a standard for testing compliance, combined with advances in affordable anti-scraper services available, there is a path forward for the industry to solve the scraping problem once and for all." Resources To download a copy of the full report, visit: 2015 Study: State of Web Scraping Data Theft Across Real Estate Websites & MLS Data To view a recent webinar, titled "Ensuring Real Estate Website Listing Data Security," visit: http://bit.ly/1Lu4ucQ For more information and case studies: http://resources.distilnetworks.com/h/c/175726-real-estate About Distil Networks Distil Networks, the global leader in bot detection and mitigation, is the first easy and accurate way to identify and police malicious website traffic, blocking 99.9% of bad bots without impacting legitimate users. Distil protects against web scraping, brute force attacks, competitive data mining, account hijacking, unauthorized vulnerability scans, spam, man-in-the-middle attacks and click fraud. Slash the high tax that bots place on your internal teams and web infrastructure by outsourcing the problem to the team with a maniacal focus on blocking malicious bots. For more information on Distil Networks, visit us at http://www.distilnetworks.com or follow @DISTIL on twitter. About Clareity Consulting Clareity Consulting provides management and information technology consulting for the real estate and related industries. Clients include software and service providers, Multiple Listing Services (MLS), real estate associations, franchises, and brokers. Specialties include strategic and business planning, system selection, compliance and risk audits, software product planning and review, and public speaking. More information: http://clareity.com
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Listingbook Unveils Custom Offering for Its Top Agents
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Listingbook Delivers a "Better than Zillow" Platform to 500,000 Agents
Greensboro, N.C. – July 8, 2015 – After four years and a six millions dollar investment in its commitment to deliver the best search experience that an agent can provide their clients, Listingbook has recently deployed its new platform in the San Diego MLS market. The addition of San Diego County's MLS Sandicor marks the 35th deployment of the new Listingbook system, covering over 500,000 real estate agents nationally. Listingbook was designed for real estate agents to give consumers the most up-to-date and comprehensive search experience allowing them to "search like an agent", while enabling the agent to view the consumers search activity and easily collaborate with them. The new Listingbook platform enhances the consumer experience with an array of new features that help buyers and sellers make more informed decisions. "This is not window dressing," says Randall Kaplan, CEO of Listingbook, the real estate industry's proven lead nurturing and client servicing platform. "Yes, we significantly improved the Listingbook experience for agents and consumers, and through iteration and innovation we've embedded many powerful new features to keep Listingbook at the forefront of search, unlike anything one can get on public search sites, like Zillow or realtor.com," he added. Kaplan notes the new Listingbook brings dozens of new features and innovations, including a new robust agent-branded mobile app, allowing clients to connect and collaborate with their agents no matter where they are, new embedded social share features, as well as a breadth of data sources that provide detailed local Community Information, School Information, Points of Interest and Public Records, such as property tax data. "By adding richer and deeper information, agents can give consumers the most powerful, up-to-date and complete search by connecting clients to the best data available, which comes directly from the MLS," Kaplan explains. "Agents and their clients will tell you it's better than Zillow," he added. The robust search capabilities of Listingbook allow consumers to search by City, County, Zip, School Zones, Neighborhoods, Subdivisions and more. New advanced features allow consumers to "draw" a search area on a map, plotting all the homes listed for sale within the boundaries drawn. Just like an agent, buyers can search multiple areas, or create more custom searches, selecting from the most comprehensive list of advance search options. "Public search portals dumb-down their searches to serve the lowest common denominator," explains Kaplan. "We serve the serious agent, active producers who work with smart consumers who want to search like an agent," he added. The new Listingbook allows consumers to augment search results to include Map Overlays of area boundaries, school information and local data, such as Points of Interest. Its new Front Page has been enhanced to show a "Local Market Conditions Analyzer," keeping consumers updated in real time about what is happening in their area. Listingbook also has made significant improvements for agents, adding new social and mobile features, striving to maintain its reputation among its top agent users as consistently their most prized marketing tool. "Listingbook is my 'go to' system when I get a new client," said San Diego REALTOR® Bobbi Rogers with Realty Executives Advantage. "I let them in on inside information that they can use directly from the search engine that is normally only for Realtors. They have their fingers on the market and they like that. My sold clients continue to use it even after they move. It lets them keep an eye on the market and know that they got a good deal. Also, if they want to check out other areas, they do not have to have me change the searches for them since they have the ability to do that for themselves," Rogers adds. Other innovations for agents in the new Listingbook include a social share and mass import features, which make it easier than ever for agents to share their Listingbook web and mobile apps and mass import their contacts into Listingbook; a Home Services Tab, allowing agents to add preferred local service providers and where clients can find local discounts and deals; improved automated seller reports, expanded custom flyer options and an enhanced online Help Center and Video Training. About Listingbook Listingbook LLC is the real estate industry's proven lead nurturing and client servicing platform that allows consumers to "search like an agent." Over 180,000 real estate agents have a Listingbook account. Because buyers and sellers register for Listingbook, their agent gives them access to the most current, accurate and complete data, directly from the MLS. Listingbook also provides consumers additional data resources, including community, school and public records information. Agents can instantly collaborate online with their clients and view their clients' search activities. For more information about Listingbook, based in Greensboro, NC, call 336-722-3456, go to www.Listingbook.com or Facebook.
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Companies

realtor.com®
Realtor.com® pioneered the world of digital real estate 20 years ago, and today through its website and mobile apps is a trusted source for the information, tools and professional expertise that help people move confidently through every step of their home journey. Using proprietary data science and machine learning technology, realtor.com® pairs buyers and sellers with local agents in their market, helping take the guesswork out of buying and selling a home. Find property info from the most comprehensive source of home data online at realtor.com.
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Webinars

Video: Your Clients Are Cheating on You – Learn How to Keep Them from Going Astray
Our Summer Webinar Series keeps marching on (see our previous event here). On Wednesday, we teamed up with Listingbook to learn about a tool that can keep clients loyal--all while offering better data than any consumer search portal! If you missed the webinar, don't worry. We recorded it for you. See the video below to catch up on what you missed:
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