Teresa King Kinney

Rumor has it the REALTOR Association of Greater Miami (RAMB) and the REALTOR Association of Miami-Dade County are merging.  And it looks like CEO Martha Bullman of Miami-Dade will be retiring.  Long time CEO, Teresa King Kinney, of RAMB will be leading the new effort.

Rumor also has it happening as soon as August 1st.

This could have huge consequences and might result in a domino effect for other South Florida associations.  Who could be next Fort Lauderdale, South Broward, and/or Palm Beach?

Time will tell.

No use crying over spilt milk.

We’ve been getting a lot of good comments, tons of traffic, and I’ve been also receiving a few e-mails too.  More and more information is coming out.

If you are interested check out: New CALMLS Business Proposal, the CALMLS Merger FAQ, and this handy dandy comparison NEW CALMLS Vs. OLD check list: CALMLS and MRMLS Joint Initiative Proposed.

It’s still not clear whether or not the C.A.R. board of directors has approved the “merger” and the $750,000 extension is cash (calREDD had already blown through 2.5M of the 3M they originally asked for) but I think we can assume it will be approved, nobody will lose their job (calREDD, as predicted threw their MLS Vendor under the bus) and new CALMLS is ready to roll.

So taking a fresh perspective what do we have here.  As I’ve mentioned before Art Carter has done an excellent job at MRMLS.  He was also instrumental in the formation of CARETS.   His organization is everything the old calREDD was not: professional leadership, a proven MLS Vendor, plus they are now open to multiple MLS systems, and most of all a proven data sharing platform CARETS.  So we should be willing to give this new CALMLS a shot.

I stand by my earlier prediction that Art will have a tough time signing up any MLS providers beyond Southern California but as I hinted before that doesn’t mean CARETS can’t flourish.  And what’s really wrong with that anyway?  Why the need for one statewide MLS system?  Why not just one statewide database?  eNeighborhoods essentially pulled this off for a brief time a few years back with MLS Alliance.

So let C.A.R. revise history all they want (we all know the Emperor has no clothes).  Sure the CALMLS board will be stacked (what board isn’t?).  But a one database solution is really compelling, and maybe, just maybe C.A.R. will finally come to the same conclusion.

Besides the whole calREDD drama was getting kind of well…boring.  Looking forward to seeing what CALMLS can pull off.  Onward and forward.

If you look up Fiasco in Wikipedia you get this result:

“In English the word fiasco means an absolute, abject or utterly humiliating failure”

Anyway you slice it calREDD was a true fiasco.  But you just know that the California Association of REALTORS (C.A.R.) is going to spin this whole mess in to “this was our plan all along.”  So put on your tin foil hats to protect yourselves from the C.A.R. reality distortion field.

Here’s some questions I’d like answered.

1.  Where’s the 3 million dollars?  I bet you its almost all been spent.  And how many agents did they get to sign up?  Maybe 1,000.  Do the math.

2.  Which begs another question.  How much more money are they going to ask for?   Remember the saying “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.”  Shame on you C.A.R. board of directors if you give these clowns any more money.

3.  Who responsible for this mess?  Is somebody going to get fired? They should. Or are they gonna to throw their vendor under the bus? My guess is these C.A.R. douche bags are so chicken-shit that their MLS vendor will get the blame and everyone else gets to keep their job.

4.  Who is going to control this new calREDD/MRMLS entity?  I’m curious how many seats does the 1,000 calREDD users equate to?  Waaaaaaay too many is my guess.

The man who would be king.

Art Carter aka "King Arthur"

In the King Arthur legend a young boy pulled a sword out of a stone and the village knew that he was the true king.  In our story Art Carter aka, “King Arthur” is going to have to pull a rabbit out of a hat to make this new combined entity (calREDD/MRMLS) a success.

I’ve seen Art do some magic before. He just has to make sure this time that the rabbit doesn’t eat all his “CARETS“.  If you get my meaning.

Prediction:

A good friend once told me that the only reason California is one state (instead of Northern Callifornia and Southern California) is water rights.  So here’s my prediction.

The “merger” will go down as expected, C.A.R. will spin some story to save face.  King Arthur will go after SoCalMLS, and possibly a few others in Southern California and have some success.  But the state-wide MLS train will stop there.  Beyond any existing contracts, no significant Northern California MLS providers will sign up for this new entity (maybe a few tiny associations looking for a subsidy).  One off-shoot is that CARETS may expand, which would be good for C.A.R. members. That’s it. Fin.

Now, if I close my eyes and don’t make a sound, I can hear Russ laughing all the way from Chicago.  : )

So good luck King Arthur.  And stay classy C.A.R., stay classy.

UPDATE:

Check out this FAQ.  It confirms calREDD has blown through 2.5M and wants 750K more.  Classic!

The bombardment of Fort Sumter

The red and blue badges at the 2010 National Association of REALTORS (NAR) Midyear Conference took on a different meaning for me this year.

Fort Sumter as many of you know was the place where the first shots were fired in the Civil War.  The Civil War I’m talking about was first written about by Rob Hahn, entitled “The coming Civil War in Real Estate.”

I believe that Rob’s predictions are coming true, and the first shots fired were here in D.C. The vibe from a lot of vendors that I spoke with was that they are feeding the beast (NAR) that might eventually bite them.

NAR, thru RPR and other entities either own or have a significant interest in a  data and analytics business, an association management business , not to mention a web portal (Realtor.com), a lock box company (Sentrilock), and a forms company (Zipforms).

In a nutshell just take a look at the exhibitor list to the conference and you basically have a list of NAR competitors.

With the deck so completely stacked against them why do vendors who have products that compete with NAR even bother to show up to NAR events?

NAR has also cranked up the pressure on their competitor/exhibitors too.  Tactics such as kicking vendors out of Suites if they don’t pony up more money (in the form of registrations and booth space), and enforcing a “no meeting” rule in Suites when official NAR business is being done.

These heavy handed tactics could end up doing more harm than good.  Other conferences could grow or new conferences could be created that cater more towards exhibitors wants and needs.

Things are changing so fast it’s hard to keep up!

UPDATE:  A lot of readers confused the headline.  I was actually talking about two separate stories.  One about SoCalMLS.  And another story about calREDD (that news still hasn’t broken, and does not involve SoCalMLS directly.  Sorry for the confusion.

W&R Studios is looking for an Outside Sales Representative for the Orange County/Southern California area.  Get on the ground floor with Greg and Dan!

Check out details on the Vendor Alley Jobs Board:

W&R Studios-Outside Sales Rep

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!

I’m happy to announce the creation of a new “jobs board” for the real estate industry! Since I get a fair amount of readers from all facets of the real estate industry I didn’t limit the jobs listed to just vendors.

The URL is http://Jobs.VendorAlley.com

My wish is for this to become a central hub for anyone involved in the real estate industry; whether a vendor, MLS, association, title company, franchisor, or real estate brokerage to find a job.

I’ve kept it pretty inexpensive. Only $29.95 to post a job for 30 days via PayPal. So far I’m starting with 4 categories:

Sales
Tech
MLS/Association staff
MLS/Association CEO

I consider this a version 1 release. I’ll be spiffing it up later. I would also love your feedback on making it better. Just e-mail me at vendor.alley at gmail dot com

Thanks!

Greg

Looks like First American in wake of the recent COVE meetings in Scottsdale have been offering a 40% revenue share deal to MLS Providers who sign with them exclusively .  15% for a non-exclusive deal.

This is in direct response to RPR policy of not sharing revenues derived from sale and use of MLS data.

The other interesting thing I’ve heard is RPR’s response.  Word is they plan to ignore MLS providers and go straight to brokers for permission.

Can anyone confirm??

Oh man this is getting verrrrrrry interesting!

At a recent 2010 Fidelity Title Kick-off  at the Hyatt in Westlake outgoing president of the Conejo Valley Association of Realtors, Connie Reed, of Aviara Real Estate, and Lisa Anglin of Fidelity Title performed a skit called “Life of a Realtor”.  And lucky for us the cameras were rolling!

Many thanks to Vendor Alley reader Niki for sharing this with us.