Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

CRMLS Expands MLS Front-End Choice With Cloud MLX

CRMLS Expands MLS Front-End Choice With Cloud MLX

“We’re excited to offer our users another choice, another platform, and more decision-making power,” said CRMLS CEO Art Carter. “Now, every CRMLS user has another quality option to choose from when searching for and sharing MLS listings.”

Differentiating features of Cloud MLX include a smart search bar that auto-completes results as the user types, the ability to create uniquely-shaped map areas, and an agent-to-agent instant messaging service. The platform is also notable for its clean, easy-to-use user interface.

“Imagine searching the MLS the same way you search Google,” stated Greg Robertson, co-founder of W+R Studios. “Now it’s possible with alternative front-ends like Cloud MLX, and we’re proud CRMLS has selected our tool as an offering to their users.”

It’s been a couple years since we launched Cloud MLX. Dan and I felt at the time if there was going to be a new category (MLS front end of choice) that W+R Studios should go all in. But I felt we might have been a bit early.

Then, last year, we won the most innovative technology award from Inman News. Katie and I started building momentum 2017, launching 7 MLS Providers, representing 93,000 agent under site license with Cloud MLX . These MLS providers saw the potential early on, so a big shout out to them as well.

Realcomp, FMLS, Trident, NNRMLS, BAREIS, SFAR and NTREIS.

And now today, CRMLS, representing over 80,000 members, have signed on to give their members more choices in MLS software.

We are beyond thrilled and want to thank Art, Adrese, Sarah, Rob, and the rest of the CRMLS team for all their support and confidence. We will have more to share later as the MLS landscape continues to evolve.

Inman News also has a few other details regarding the launch, you check out that here: Cloud MLX interface now free for agents of nation’s largest MLS

Things are starting to get interesting.

MLSListings adds MLS-Touch

MLSListings Inc. and Prospects Software Join Forces to Bring MLS-Touch App to Northern California Real Estate ProfessionalsMulti-year agreement offers unique and custom mobile functions to MLSListings professionals

“We heard from many brokers and agents that mobile apps for real estate are good, but an app with expanded functionality would be great. Charles Drouin and the MLS-Touch team understands that and they have used the input of thousands of brokers and agents from California to Montreal to build their model. They are committed to working with associations and MLSs to create a custom experience. We are proud to offer convenient features to support the more than 15,000 real estate professionals who trust us with their business,” said James Harrison, RCE, CAE, President and CEO of MLSListings Inc.

Félicitations to Charles and his team. Their persistence is inspiring. I’m big believer in giving agents more choices when it comes to the tools they use the most, like the MLS. This “front-end of choice” movement is gaining steam.

Adwerx Raises $4.3 Million

Adwerx Raises $4.3 Million in New Funding Round

““Adwerx Enterprise is gaining significant traction in real estate as firms begin to add digital marketing to their stack of technology offerings for agents,” said Jed Carlson, CEO of Adwerx. “The additional capital will allow us to accelerate the Adwerx Enterprise growth into the real estate market and beyond.”

Adwerx ranks 173rd on Inc’s 500 fastest growing companies in the U.S. with growth of 2,443 percent. The company has provided digital advertising for over 50,000 real estate professionals and other small businesses and has recently expanded its Adwerx Enterprise program in real estate, securing deals with Chicago-based @properties, leading national firm RE/MAX, LLC, and others.”

Impressive.

Boston Logic buys Propertybase

Teke Wiggin for Inman News:
Boston Logic buys Propertybase, with more acquisitions in sight

“Boston Logic CEO David Friedman declined to disclose terms of the deal, other than to say that Propertybase will retain all of its employees.

Boston Logic became Providence Equity’s “platform for acquisition” of real estate software after the private equity firm, which has $50 billion in capital under management, made an undisclosed investment in Boston Logic last year. Drawing on Providence Equity’s deep pockets, it’s looking to build real estate tech portfolios through acquisitions — a goal shared by some other well-heeled firms like Zillow Group.

“We are looking at a lot of opportunities out there,” Friedman said. “Price does not scare us away.”

Boston Logic was attracted to Propertybase because of its global reach and effective use of the Salesforce platform.”

Consolidation is happening everywhere. On a side note David Friedman was my very first guest on my Listing Bits podcast. You can listen to it here.

Remine inks deal with NTREIS

NTREIS signs license with Remine to bring Big Data to North Texas

““Remine complements our existing MLS systems by adding a beautiful visualization of all our data,” said John Holley, CEO of NTREIS. “An incredible feature is their ability to reconnect with past clients, and see their propensity to sell. And then even if you’ve lost their contact info, Remine can update it.”

Leo Pareja, CEO of Remine, said “Remine will be deeply integrated with the existing front end system to create a seamless experience. We’ve designed Remine to meet the unique needs of real estate professionals; we look forward to delivering our core functionality to the community in North Texas.”

Remine has been getting a lot of buzz lately. They are hitting the ground running with many deals signed and more in the pipeline.

I think it would be fair to qualify them in the “alternative front end” or “next gen front end” category. The twist with Remine seems to be predictive data analytics and a lot of data visualization. Although I haven’t seen the product and their website is scant on any product shots or video. Unfortunately the website does include the hokey copy, “Remine was built for agents, by agents…”, which kinda made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. ; )

Remine and others are filling a vacuum left by traditional MLS vendors. They promise a modern UI and UX with a bunch of other bells and whistles. The challenge will be adoption. Will any of them change agent behavior enough to draw traffic/usage away from their “main” MLS system?

Time will tell. In my opinion we are at just at the beginning of a new cycle in MLS technology.

Revenue and profit

The recent announcement that Zillow is going to pay $108 Million for dotloop got me riled up. Then Dan forwarded me this article from Jason Fried, co-founder of Basecamp. So good, and keeps everything in perspective.

How much are we worth? I don’t know and I don’t care.

“Startups these days are bantered about as if they were in a fantasy football bracket. Did you hear Lyft raised another $150 million at a $2.5 billion valuation? But Uber got tossed another $2.8 billion at a $41.2 billion valuation! Then there are the companies barely off the ground getting VC backing with 25x valuations, despite having no product or business model.

Entrepreneurs by nature are competitive. But fundraising has become the sport in place of the nuts and bolts of building a sustainable business.

MRED adds Cloud Streams as a free member benefit

It’s Mostly Cloudy at MRED

“”Cloud Streams caught my eye from the moment I first saw it,” said MRED President/Chief Executive Officer Rebecca Jensen. “Delivering the freshest information in the most consumer friendly way to prospective purchasers is critical to service the public today. W &R Studios has hit another home run with this latest product.”

My thanks to Rebecca, Lynn and the rest of the MRED team for making this happen.

The death of “peoplework” – Zillow acquires dotloop.

SellingOutSignA few thoughts after the smoke has cleared on the announcement that dotloop will be acquired by Zillow.

Why did Zillow buy dotloop?

I thought the aquistion was odd and said so in a tweet. But the simple answer is Zillow needs to charge more money for what it offers. The industry will collectively shit their pants with conspiracy theories but its all still hooey.

Spencer Rascoff’s response to my tweet summed it up.

How much did Zillow pay for dotloop?

We will find out soon enough (Zillow is a public company) but I would look to Zillow’s previous acquisition of RentJuice for some guidance. RentJuice was a “rental relationship management service for landlords, property managers and rental brokers that helps them market their inventory and client relationships.” Sounds a bit familiar doesn’t it? The acquisition was pre-IPO for Zillow and was for 40 million cash. $40 million seems very high and Zillow now has paper money. But I’m sure Austin will be able to buy a lot more v-neck sweaters t-shirts. BTW, RentJuice’s CEO, David Vivero, left Zillow just 13 months later.

What’s is dotloop’s future?

A lot of their customers are not happy with the deal. I heard one person quip–“Peoplework” is dead (a reference to dotloop’s much marketed mantra of “people work not paperwork”.) Despite many agents making tons of money working with Zillow it still garners a high degree of FUD factor from agents. Facebook has been blowing up with mostly negative comments, and 3 of 4 comments on dotloop’s own blog post announcing the acquisition were negative. Dotloop will have to do a lot of damage control with their agent and enterprise customers. Also my guess is that dotloop’s CEO, Austin Allison, will leave about 12 – 18 months after the acquisition is complete (Austin isn’t going to be a 4th banana).

What to expect next?
A lot of spin control as I previously mentioned. Also, if I were anyone at Instanet Solutions, Ziplogix, Reesio, or any other transaction platform that competes with dotloop I would be launching landing pages courting disgruntled dotloop agents now, with the messaging “Dotloop agents get XXXX free for XX days”, or “Dotloop agents can trust us with their business”.

Interesting times….

RE/MAX partners with Homes.com for wide reaching “Tech Next” initiative.

Looks like this is a big win for Homes.com! Here are some highlights:

Homes Media Solutions will design and power a new remax.com site. To be launched sometime in 2016. At its core the new site will be designed to generate more referral-free leads. Homes.com is owned by Dominion Enterprises.

RE/MAX’s company owned regions (COR) will also get a brand new lead management solution/CRM, a re-designed Homes Connect, also powered by Homes Media Solutions. Part of the new Homes Connect platform gives every COR RE/MAX agent a mobile friendly single page agent website. Non-company owned regions can also participate.

So it looks like for COR Homes.com will power both the front end and back end.

Congrats to Andy Woolley and his team for making this happen. Since first signing a deal with RE/MAX, as part of eNeighborhoods(before they were acquired by Dominion Enterprises), they have kept the relationship and deals alive for over 10 years.

NTREIS launches Cloud Streams

NTREIS LAUNCHES W&R STUDIOS’ COLLABORATION AND LISTING ALERT TOOL, CLOUD STREAMS.

“The team at W&R Studios has created something truly special – an easy way for agents to alert and stay in touch with their buyers when searching for a home.” stated NTREIS, CEO, John Holley. “Having the ability to automatically send text alerts for property matches is something our members, and their clients, have been waiting for.” Concluded Mr. Holley.

With the addition of NTREIS, now over 125,000 members have access to Cloud Streams as a free MLS benefit.”

My thanks to John and Cindy for help making this happen. And also to Frank for giving us some great (and much needed) feedback early on about Cloud Streams.

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