Cloud CMA integrates data from Yelp
Read about it on Lightning | Twice
For full details check out the listing on the Vendor Alley Jobs Board!
The Notorious R.O.B. on Real Entrepreneurship…
“The slackoisie mentality, where one thinks that one is entitled to business success, that VC’s are lined up to hand them money for some random idea or another, that being an entrepreneur is getting wined and dined and partying at A-list nightclubs with rockstars, is pure unadulterated idiocy. May some of them get the chance to learn what real entrepreneurship is like.”
Gregg Larson and team put on another great event. Here are a few photos from the the event.
Dave Rifkin wins first place in the Corvette Races!
Brad Tertell
Amy Geddes
Art and Troy
From more please visit my Flickr feed.
Enjoy!
gr
Stanley, Sting and Scottsdale…
I was having few drinks last night with some Lobby Bar All-Stars (who will remain nameless) and someone mentioned a bit a movie trivia:
It was from the classic, 2001: A Space Odyessy by director Stanley Kubrick. Do you remember what the name they gave the computer?
HAL
I'm sorry I can't do that Dave...
Do you know how they came up with the name HAL? Pretty clever it turns out.
They simply took the name IBM and shifted each letter one space: So IBM became HAL
Okay, so what does this have to do with real estate?
Let shift the letters of another famous acroymn: RPR
You know what you come out with?
SOS
Dale Ross speaks at Clareity’s MLS Executive Workshop today in Scottsdale. It will be interesting to hear what kind of message he sends.
[Thanks HG!]
That’s exactly what Lake County MLS member (wishes to remain anonymous) states in an email addressed to other Lake County MLS members. See a full reprint of her e-mail below:
“Subject: UNHAPPY WITH CALREDD – LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD!
Dear Fellow LCAOR MEMBERS,
On March 11th at 9:00am the Board of Directors will meet to make yet another decision on the Calredd MLS system. If you have been pulling your hair out over CALREDD then you need to be present to represent yourself!
A survey was done last month and a staggering 58% of the members said the system was below inadequate, this survey was only available for one and half days and approx. 100 of you responded, imagine if it had been available for a week! So, if you thought you were alone, you are not! We need our Board of Directors to serve the membership and the membership has spoken loud and clear.
At the BOD meeting in February, it was agreed upon that due to the results of the survey a letter would be sent to CALREDD and CAR giving them an ultimatum to have certain tools functioning by March 10th . As a result of this letter a letter was sent out yesterday from CAR stating that some of these issues would be taken care of by the end of March. Calredd has NOT met the deadline of the ultimatum and how much longer will these deadlines be stretched out while we bear the brunt? Why are we bearing the brunt ? Why are we being pushed into using a system that is not ready to be launched?
As you have experienced there are numerous issues with CALREDD, their tech team recently sent me a 14 page PDF and the LACOR CALREED TEAM also have pages and pages of issues. The Calredd system was never ready to be launched when it was and consequently we have all experienced many hours anguishing over the system with embarrassing moments in front of clients. So. how long will it take for Calredd to be a system ready for use? Some say 12 months some question the software but how long do you want to wait until you have a system that you can use effectively and efficiently?
The alternative choices discussed at the BOD meeting in February if Calredd did not meat the ultimatum deadline was that LCAOR would give it’s membership the option to go back to Paragon until such time as CALREDD was ready or that we would finally join BAERIS.
As you remember Calredd was sold to us as a cutting edge, state of the art system which we all know it currently is NOT. It was also sold to us as a Statewide MLS system. How important is a statewide system to you in your business? The best system for us to be apart of would be Norcal or BAERIS if we wanted to go statewide and LACOR has always tried to hold on to it’s independence so why Calredd?
Another important factor that you may not be aware of is that LCAOR is not paying MLS dues for the Calredd system so why are the members still paying dues? I emailed the board members last week and asked them this question and only one member responded to me. I did find out however that we are still paying for Paragon! If we are paying for Paragon then why can’t we use it instead of doing the beta testing for Calredd? The biggest problem I was told was that we would have to upload to two systems – this seemed minor in consideration to the numerous complications involved with using Calredd. If you were given the choice to best run your business which system would you choose?
If Calredd wants to sell us it’s product then they need to sell us a competitive product that is ready to be launched, all bugs and all issues resolved because this is BUSINESS, we are consumers and we are paying customers! We have been dealt a bad bill of goods and the truth is that this system is not ready which is why 58% of the membership said it was inadequate.
If you feel angry because you’re are in this situation every time you have to navigate a system Fresno dumped after three weeks; if you feel gypped because you are forced into running your business using a system that was never ready to be launched; if you feel short changed because you are paying for Paragon but you can’t use it and if you are concerned that your BOD is not looking out for you then you need to be at this board meeting to make sure the right decision is made for you and for your business. Not for Calredd and not for CAR but for you! “
calREDD chairman Mike Silvas is president and co-owner of Morgan Lane Real Estate.
Full story via Press Democrat:
Morgan Lane Real Estate in Napa files bankruptcy
March Events
Something new. On the first of every month I’ll be posting industry events going on that month.
MARCH EVENTS -[UPDATED]
Feb 28 – March 3 RE/MAX International Convention – Orlando, FL
March 1 -3 CMLS Board of Directors Meeting - Scottsdale, AZ
March 3-5 Clareity’s MLS Executive Workshop – Scottsdale, AZ
March 6th “The Silver Lining to Your Listing Presentation”- Cloud CMA presentation at the Pacific West Assn. of Realtors 10AM to 11AM -Anaheim, CA
March 9-11 LeadingRE Conference 2010 -Las Vegas
March 9th Rain Camp – Denver, CO
March 23-25 Spring 2010 RESO/RETS Conference – Chicago, IL
March 25-26 RETECH South – Atlanta, GA
March 30-31 HAR’s Real Estate Information Symposium (REIS)
If you would like your event posted let me know at
vendor dot alley at gmail dot com
Vendor Alley Jobs Board Update
Many thanks to the folks at Inman News for posting an article about our new Vendor Alley Jobs Board.
You can read the full article here:
A Smarter Solution – Real Estate Job Hunting 101
Thanks Katie!
MOVE puts on the white hat.
Recently I wrote a post about “What’s MOVE’s next move?”. The following week Curt Beardsley, a VP at MOVE, did a lot of demos to news and industry people about what they’ve been working on. My business partner Dan Woolley and I were lucky enough to get a demo.
Curt Beardsley, VP of Product Marketing -MOVE.COM
Dan and I have known Curt for quite a long time. In a nutshell Curt’s first company, True North Technology created the first web-based MLS system. Yup, that’s right he invented the internet based MLS system, take that Al Gore!! They were bought by GTE Enterprise Solutions, creators of T-III, which is where he met a guy named Errol Samuelson. Errol now is the president of Realtor.com.
Anyway we were lucky enough to get a demo of new tool for real estate professionals they call, “Find“.
The first thing I have to say about Find is that its freaking awesome! The way it blends public records data, MLS data, on the fly heat mapping, and pychographic data just blows your mind. But MOVE figured out that the key to understand this data is centered around the way you search. You might even say that you need to make sure you can “FIND” what you are looking for! I’ve seen other sites/products that try to pull off the natural language searching and most have failed. Find nails it.
Find is intuitive, fast and as a software developer inspiring.
But the technology is only half the story. It’s up in about 40 MLS providers around the country and it’s free to REALTORS. The only catch is MOVE would like MLS providers to provide their sold data to MOVE.com to implement the solution.
And what does MOVE what to do with this sold data? Sell it to direct marketers? No. Use it to build AVMs? Nope. Slice and dice the data and create derivative products for the mortgage industry? Not even close.
Here’s what they want to do:
Improve the consumer search experience on Realtor.com.
That’s it! In a nutshell, make the National Association of REALTORS flagship site, Realtor.com, (already #1) even better. I’m surprised that more people aren’t writing about this.
In the past the industry has been pretty vocal about what it doesn’t like about Realtor.com. I’m sure that there will still be a lot of Realtor.com “haters” out there, but with all the hype around MLS data it’s refreshing to see a company who is focused on improving their service and creating new tools that give real estate professionals back the edge. And that’s definitely something I agree with.
