February 12, 2021 - Vendor Alley

Scott Quinn let me know that an industry innovator recently passed, and I asked me if he wrote something, would I post it on Vendor Alley. It’s my honor Scott.

The MLS industry lost one of its early pioneers this week. Bob Offutt was an advertising sales rep who moved from Louisville KY to Greensboro, NC in 1969. Bob was amazed there was no homes magazine in Greensboro for the public to look at houses for sale. He quickly decided he would start a company to solve that problem and in 1971, he started Offutt Publishing. In short order, Bob was doing homes magazines in many east coast cities then started printing MLS books. His homes magazine and MLS book publishing company was growing rapidly and the company employed lots of folks working 3 shifts per day.

In 1979, the company delivered its first “on-line” MLS system which was based on IBM Series 1 computers. The company was very successful selling their new “on-line” MLS system which delivered the blazing speed of 300 baud on the famous TI 745 paper terminals.

In 1999 the company delivered one of the first internet-based MLS systems and had great success selling that system for many years. In 2006, Mr. Offutt sold his company to First American and enjoyed many great years of travel and retirement with his wife Lois and his family.

Bob was a fun-loving guy so as made famous by the old Budweiser commercial, let’s just say, Bob, we salute you, you were a “Real man of Genius”

To Bob Offutt, thanks for all your contributions to the MLS industry and may you RIP.
Scott Quinn

Well it seems Zillow’s recent move to acquire ShowingTime has motivated other vendors in to the space.

Trusted Real Estate Partner SentriLock Delivers SentriKey Showing ServiceTM, the Industry’s First Real Estate Experience Management Platform

More than a year ago, SentriLock and its volunteer board of directors, chaired by Bob Goldberg NAR CEO, observed the consolidation occurring in the showing service space. “Our board directed us to develop a solution to address the growing lack of choice in this technology sector, given the natural fit with our current lockbox business,” said Scott Fisher, Founder and CEO of SentriLock. “With recent industry acquisitions, this validates the decision that a trusted partner is needed more than ever to ensure REALTORS® have a choice in showing service solutions. We did this with great success in the lockbox space 18 years ago and look forward to extending this approach into showing services.”

This is a playbook SentriLock knows well. The “Trusted Real Estate Partner” vibe is a bit much though. I think we can all read between the lines.

And speaking of reading between the lines.

Homesnap Announces Development of Showing Management Tool

“Yesterday, news broke that Zillow has entered into an agreement to acquire ShowingTime. Real estate professionals use showing management tools every single day, and they trust that software with information about their clients.

First off, “Announces Development”? At least they are being honest it’s vaporware.

And then there’s this…

“At Homesnap, we believe that agents should have tools that protect that information and their client relationships. That is only possible when an independent vendor is providing that software — not a market participant like Zillow who is their competitor.”

An “independent vendor” owned by a public company worth over 35 Billion? Gimme a break. It seems apparent that HomeSnap vis-à-vis CoStar has gone all-in on using fear as their main marketing tactic. You do you do CoStar, you do you.

All this fear mongering reminds me of something I over heard.

“Agents raging on Facebook about the Zillow acquisition of ShowingTime are giving QAnon conspiracies theorists a run for their money.”

Then Morgan Carey of Real Estate Webmaster’s chimes in with, Build a showing time competitor? How hard can it be?

Pretty fucking hard Morgan. What Scott and Mike built isn’t easy, almost impossible.

Now I’m just waiting for Remine to issue their press release about some showings vaporware they are working on and the industry can collectively yell, “Bingo!”

Listen, I get it. During periods like this there is a ton of opportunity. That opportunity is going to turn in to competition, and that will yield better products. That’s capitalism. I love it.

But can we drop all the fronting? If you have done a better job solving the problem of handling real estate showings, let’s see it. Otherwise, shut up and get back to work.

RIP Bob Offut

Capitalism