Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

MRIS Receives RESO’s First RETS 1.8 Certification

MRIS

“The RETS 1.8 Certification verifies that MRIS complies with the open standard for accessing and exchanging real estate transaction information with other organizations supportive of the RETS 1.8 Standard. MRIS originally created a unique method of updating new listing information via RETS, which is a piece of the contribution MRIS has made to the launch of the new certification. “

To be honest I’ve stopped following a lot of what RESO is doing. Seems like they are picking up some steam now. And I believe we (W&R Studios) are going to be stepping up our involvement as well.

Redfin nails it with “Redfin Home Dashboard”

Redfin:

“At Redfin, our goal is to make the entire home-buying and selling process easier, from the day you start dreaming about owning the cute Craftsman on the corner, to the day you step inside your new home for the first time. We’ve transformed how you find homes for sale online, stay on top of new homes hitting the market, schedule home tours with agents, plan a weekend of open house visits, and take care of all the paperwork and tasks involved in the escrow process when you buy a home.”

OnMarket-dashboard

Coverage aside, one of the knocks I hear against Redfin is their conversion rate. People love the site. When I ask my industry friends which real estate portals they use personally Redfin is always at the top of their lists. But getting those site visitors to convert to using a Redfin agent has always been a challenge.

This new Home Dashboard is another attempt at improving that conversion, since it only available to clients who use Redfin agents. And I love it. The design is great plus it adds a nice cherry on top of a great value proposition for the Seller, check this out…

“The dashboard adds to the digital marketing program that Redfin provides for everyone who sells their home with us, including premium placement of their listing on Redfin.com (that doubles the amount of traffic the home receives from potential buyers), targeted emails and advertisements to homebuyers who are searching for homes in the area and free professional photography for listing photos. This additional exposure has been proven to sell homes faster, and for more money, according to a recent Redfin analysis. With the Redfin Home Dashboard, Redfin clients will be able to see the results of these activities in real time.”

Double the amount of traffic, free professional photos, 1.5% listing fee (not your typical 3%), and I can track all this in real-time. Imagine the television commercials these guys will put out once they go public.

Redfin is the dark horse and has the potential of being the true disruptor in this race.

MRED sticks with dynaConnections

MRED:

“Our mission is to provide the very best MLS to our customers,” said Jeff Gregory, Chairman of the Board for MRED. “We have succeeded thanks in large part to dynaConnections, whose staff has been relentless in delivering an MLS solution that is unsurpassed in the industry. In fact, connectMLS has been the top-rated MLS system in the country for two years running according to the WAV Group MLS Technology Survey. Their customer service and responsiveness to our staff is top-notch. We are thrilled to continue this great relationship with Tim Ford and his staff.”

Some say its easy to get high ratings when you only have one or two customers, but being an MLS vendor (on any level) isn’t easy. A wins a win. Congrats to Tim Ford and his team.

THE MLS/CLAW sign direct licensing agreement with Trulia

BH-sign-CropTrulia:

“The direct agreement with The MLS™/CLAW demonstrates the value MLS/Trulia partnerships can deliver to solve challenges around data distribution and display, helping brokers build their brand and support the success of their agents,” said Alon Chaver, Vice President Industry Services at Trulia. “By working with The MLS™/CLAW’s forward thinking leadership, Trulia can now provide The MLS™/CLAW members the freshest listings displays, increasing the volume and quality of leads they generate, and improving conversion rates to power the growth of their businesses and their brands.”

Nice win (for both sides). Annie is a tough cookie. For Alon and his team to turn these guys around is truly (pardon the almost pun) impressive.

This further cements my view that Trulia “gets it”, and is far more the industry friendly portal. For starters they have had a team focused on this longer, they are willing to make compromises to get better data, (where Zillow is not) and Alon’s team has shown a certain finesse getting these deals done.

Perhaps now that Zillow and Trulia are part of the same team maybe these types of deals will open some eyes at Zillow.

TAR says no to HAR

shoot in footAndrea V. Brambila for Inman News

Texas Realtors won’t provide member info to competing statewide Realtor site, HAR.com

“Last week, in a 23-to-16 vote, TAR’s executive board rejected a motion from HAR that would have had TAR send HAR a data feed, updated daily, of TAR’s membership roster, complete with names and contact information. In the motion HAR said it would have paid any costs associated with providing the feed and promised not to use the list to solicit TAR members to join HAR or its MLS.”

HAR is asking for membership information, not listing data. And they’ll pay all implementation costs. Seems like a no-brainer. Especially cause…

“Nationally, HAR.com was the 19th most visited real estate site in June with 1.32 million unique visitors in June, according to comScore. By contrast, comScore does not track TexasRealEstate.com’s traffic because the site doesn’t meet a threshold of around 50,000 unique visitors per month.”

emphasis mine.

“TAR suggested that, instead of a data feed, TAR could offer HAR a widget that would pull in profile information from TexasRealEstate.com when consumers search for Realtors on HAR.com. The information would appear in framed results, giving TexasRealEstate.com a traffic boost. TAR has not yet developed the suggested widget.”

LOL, “a widget”. The guys at Zillow and Trulia are laughing there asses off right now.

Robin Williams – RIP

robin-williams

“O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.”

–Walt Whitman

Booth Duty

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Cole Hahn Zero Grand. #want

Zillow is looking for a Senior Manager, Regional Partner Relations (Broker)

Just got word that Zillow is looking to expand their broker sales team.

Senior Manager, Regional Partner Relations (Broker)

Primary Responsibilities:

Acquire new Broker advertising partnerships and upsell existing partners to consistently meet and exceed the quarterly sales targets.
Attend real estate conferences, tradeshows, and broker company headquarters to lead presentations and persuasive training sessions on Zillow tools, with the intent to increase broker partnership, revenue and the adoption of Zillow tools.
Travel “down route” at least twice a month. We do business in person whenever possible or practical as personal relationships are vital to our success. We prefer in person meetings whenever possible. Be highly visible to our partners and potential partners through individual appointments, group meetings, and real estate tradeshows.
Serve as a brand ambassador for Zillow, representing the best interests of the company, its advertisers, and industry partners, while simultaneously increasing goodwill and brand awareness of Zillow tools and services
Major customers are developed through personal relationships. We strive to do business in person or on the phone if we cannot be present in person. Email can be efficient and a necessary tool however we strive not to use email to conduct business when we have a more personal option available.
Performs any other duties related to the Industry Relations Department as directed by the Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer, when schedule and workload permit.

You can check out the full job description and apply here.

How did you hear about us?

When someone signs up for Cloud CMA we have wizard they walk thru, which helps them get set up (photo, logo, etc.) August of last year we added a question, “How Did You Hear About Us?” It had a drop down menu with the a few choices. Of the customers who bothered to make a selection here’s the breakdown:

Your MLS 33%
Another Agent 24%
My Broker 14%
Other 12%
Google 6%
Email 3%
RETechnology 3%
REALTOR Mag. Ad 3% – We run a small ad in the classified section
Live Event 2%

One of these stats really stood out to me….

Agent: 24%
I’ve always wanted to do a “Have a friend sign up and get a free ____” marketing campaign. I haven’t pursued this idea because I thought that agents were too competitive. This result is showing me that they do talk about tools they love.

As a SAAS (Software As A Service) company this is great news. Its kind of a “network effect”. And so far I haven’t done anything to promote agents to get their friends to sign up. So far…

How did you hear about us?

[UPDATE: I should mention these are on Direct Subscriber to Cloud CMA, meaning they are paying for Cloud CMA with a credit card, not part of a site or broker license.]

They made it!

Huge congrats out to Sami and Meredith Inkinen. They have successfully rowed from San Francisco Monterey to Honolulu!

During that time Trulia, the company Sami co-founded, was sold to Zillow for 3.5 billion.

You can see some great pics and there final blog post here.

Here’s what I’d imagine was the first words out of Sami’s mouth (besides “Someone get me a Snickers Bar hard boiled egg!”).

Sami makes it

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