Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Dave Linger replaces Margaret Kelly as CEO of RE/MAX Holdings

RE/MAX Holdings Announces CEO Transition, Replaces Margaret Kelly with Board Chairman Dave Liniger

“Liniger said, “We owe Margaret our deepest gratitude for the contributions she has made over the last three decades. Her leadership during her tenure as CEO allowed us to emerge from the recent financial crisis as a stronger company and led us through an initial public offering. Due to Margaret’s management, our business is performing exceptionally well and we’re positioned to take advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead.”

Whoa! This is interesting a lot of levels. As many of you know Dave Linger went through some major health issues is the past few years. I remember being at the T3 Summit in Las Vegas earlier this year. In an interview with Swanepoel, Dave recounted part of his recent health scare, along with some other great stories. He got a standing ovation at the end. Dave is the real deal and a true bad ass. So I gotta believe this means his health is back. Good news for him, not so much for his competitors.

Nice scoop for RIS Media on this story. Although it seems like the nice bow they put on Margaret’s departure is a bit too perfect.

FBS fights screen scrapers to protect MLS data

Flexmls IDX: First to Gain Security Against Screen Scrapers

“In 2013, Clareity Consulting Chief Technologist, Matt Cohen wrote a blog that laid out the need for an industry-wide solution with important criteria for evaluating solutions available. In the end, he announced Distil Networks met that very specific criteria and endorsed them as a preferred partner for industry professionals seeking protection from screen scraping.

Here at FBS, we’re focused on delivering the very best product supported by world class service. Naturally, providing the highest level of security is part of that equation. To this end, we’re proud to be the first MLS provider to implement Distil’s powerful product as an extra security layer protecting Flexmls IDX websites.”

What I like about this is the industry collaboration aspect. Matt at Clareity has been banging the security drum for awhile now. Nice to see an MLS vendor is listening and take the lead on this. Gives me hope that more best practices will be implemented. Great win for Distil as well.

You are not late

Kevin Kelly- You Are Not Late

“So, the truth: Right now, today, in 2014 is the best time to start something on the internet. There has never been a better time in the whole history of the world to invent something. There has never been a better time with more opportunities, more openings, lower barriers, higher benefit/risk ratios, better returns, greater upside, than now. Right now, this minute. This is the time that folks in the future will look back at and say, “Oh to have been alive and well back then!”

Zillow and Trulia are old news. Go out there and make something new!

via @danwoolley

Industry relations….

NAR just sent out this message to its membership.

“NAR: We stand with those who respect our Realtor® members
NAR is joining a lawsuit filed by MOVE Inc., against Zillow and new Zillow Chief Industry Development Officer Errol Samuelson. In addition to NAR and MOVE, the plaintiffs include RealSelect, Inc., Top Producer Systems Company, and Realtors® Information Network, Inc.

NAR’s relationship with MOVE and realtor.com® is based on a mutual respect for Realtors® and their efforts to bring online home buying and selling resources to consumers, and the defendants named in the lawsuit have not demonstrated that same respect.”

If Zillow’s intentions of hiring Errol and now Curt was to improve industry relations it sounds like the plan may have backfired. Time will tell.

Brothers

Dan and Andy Woolley
Dan and Andy Woolley

I owe so much to both these guys. The industry is lucky to have such talent. #NARANNUAL

The ground is shifting below us.

24-Science-NZealand_486271eI was thinking how fitting that NAR’s conference and expo is being held in San Francisco this week. Not only a hub for technology and innovation but San Francisco is a place where the ground literally shakes from time to time. And things in real estate are getting shaken up.

The combined market cap of Zillow and Trulia is about 3 billion dollars.

The Really Alliance has all but declared war on MLS providers (or not).

A few MLS providers have stopped syndicating listing thru ListHub (more on the way?).

and nobody likes their MLS system (who knew??).

Is there anything solid that we can hold on to? What’s a poor vendor or MLS provider to do in such a unbalanced world? What’s the “new normal”?

I don’t have the answers but, I’m optimistic about the future, and San Francisco is as good a place to start to look for answers as anywhere. My search begins tomorrow. See you there.

Lead Ambiguity

One of the favorite vendor pastimes is trying to solve “the big problems” in online real estate today. This happens in hallway conversations, lobby bars, or big plush chairs in hotel lobbies. One of the biggest topics is the fact that most agents don’t respond to leads. Who cares if your site has tons of traffic, if the leads it generates don’t get responded to? And if you are selling products to agents that claim to generate leads then you have a bigger problem. Retention.

Typically the conversation ends in a head shake, a swirl of the adult beverage you’ve been sipping on, and the muttering…

“Stupid agents”.

I got a call from Dave Howe from MetroList Services in Sacramento. Dave has been in the MLS business longer than most. He’s seen vendors come and go through his market for many, many, years. I fondly call him the “hardest working man in the MLS business”. Anyway Dave wanted to chat and said to me, “You know I’ve come to realize, it’s more important to brand a lead “trusted” to an agent, than it is to brand a listing “trusted” to a consumer”. In a Yogi Bearish type of way Dave was on to something.

But how do you brand a lead “trusted”, or maybe a better word is “legitimate”? Most lead notification comes via email, and you can’t really brand a subject line.

After a bit of back and forth what we came to was that the problem really wasn’t “stupid agents” not responding to leads, but the shear amount of other email filling their inboxes that causes the agent to be distracted. I’m not talking about the “mickey mouse” or “john doe” leads, there will always be those. What I’m more talking about is the desensitization agents get from the promotional email they get from vendors promising them leads/services. Sometimes they can be from the very vendor who they are paying to receive leads from trying to upsell them to a another package.

There have been several solutions to this problem, most of them center on the broker (i.e. Weichert) taking over the lead follow up process and doling out the leads to paying/qualified agents. But the problem still remains for a vast amount of agents wanting to sign up for these lead generation services directly. It’s a huge opportunity.

But it’s time to change the premise of the argument. We (vendors) are so compelled to upsell agents to the next column of products and services we forgot the rules of any long term relationship. We need to establish trust first, then deliver on what we promised. If we do that, the rest will follow.

The big problem in online real estate isn’t just the agents not responding to leads (or using your product), it’s stupid vendors who want to jump from first base to third base too quickly.

Saul’s Pearl Harbor story

December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor Day – 71 Years Ago Today.

“I am the custodian of a treasured family memento, a copy of the telegram my grandparents in Detroit sent to my dad and mom on December 8, 1941. It is faded and frayed, but still readable…”Are you OK.” In 1941, there was little long distance telephone capability, no e-mail, no text messaging or Facebook…no instant communication to ease the anxiety of families and friends who had loved ones in the Hawaiian Islands that day.”

Worth the read.

thx John.

There’s a New MLS Vendor In Town.

Annie Ives, CEO TheMLS/CLAW
17 years ago, TheMLS/CLAW was just an empty office space and had less than 1,700 members. These members sold some of the most coveted real estate in California: Beverly Hills/Los Angeles. Two local brokers were heading an effort, called CLS, to start their own MLS company and had hired all The MLS/CLAW staff.

Then Annie Ives walked in to the building.

The rest, as they say, is history. CLS failed, and TheMLS/CLAW grew back to over 12,000 members. Since then TheMLS/CLAW has built their own MLS system dubbed, THEMLSPRO®, and taken an almost fanatical approach to customer service. Annie is fond of saying “We’ve been successful because we know that we are running a software company and a service organization, and that both are of equal importance,”

Annie isn’t afraid of a challenge either. When the Palm Springs Association of REALTORS (900+ members) decided to look for a new MLS provider Annie knew she could provide the level of customer service that the members of Palm Springs association would demand. Some would think the obvious choice would be CRMLS, the ever growing (70,000 members) MLS provider born from the failed California state-wide MLS effort calREDD. Some might think that, but they would be wrong.

In the end, the Palm Springs Association signed the agreement with TheMLS/CLAW. Which makes two things very clear.

Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight in Beverly Hills and the MLS game in California is far from over.

The MLS system landscape and the MLS Vendor of the future.

A few thoughts about what I’ve been hearing and observing about the state of MLS systems and vendors

Flash’s dead, baby.

I’ve written about the problems and issues of some MLS vendors MLS platforms be written in Flash. and now this, Adobe announced they will no longer continue to develop a Flash version for mobile devices. So to me the debate ends here, MLS vendors who’s new versions rely upon Flash have two choices. Develop a separate HTML5 or equivalent version of their MLS system or create separate “native” versions of their MLS systems that run on mobile devices (iPhone, Droid, iPad, etc.). Either prospects are not great, but….

I’ve seen Discover MLS’ offering and now recently got a sneak peak at LPS’s REinsight new MLS system and was impressed (both are built using Flash). They not only look great, from a UI perspective, but there is some real innovation going on. One of things that struck me about LPS’s REinsight was the blending of the LPS public records data along with MLS data. This is great for creating all inclusive CMAs and other reports. Plus from a map search perspective you can see an MLS listing and also click on the property next to it (that might not be in the MLS database) and up pop public records data, which is super cool. One database, no need to exit out of the MLS system and log in to a separate app, the data is all on the same map/listing view.

I haven’t yet seen CoreLogic’s Fusion product (also developed in Flash) but I have to imagine an MLS system integrated with RealList data would be a hit. CoreLogic does have some hurdles, Tempo, doesn’t work on any browser except Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. And now Fusion won’t run on an iPad. Not anyone’s fault, who could have predicted the iPad’s popularity. But some MLS Vendors, like Solid Earth, appear to be heading to an “iPad first” strategy.

One argument I hear a lot from these MLS Vendors is that according to their analytics less than 2% of MLS subscribers are using iPad to access their current MLS systems. This is just whistling through the graveyard in my opinion.

The Octagon

The issues I talk about above really make for some interesting thoughts about the competitive landscape of MLS Vendors. I see a few scenarios.

Innovation. MLS Vendors who have MLS systems that run on multiple devices, won’t have to develop or mange multiple code bases. These MLS Vendors are free to leverage their develop resources towards other innovations instead of solving cross compatibility issues. A huge advantage as I see it.

Less choice. With the recent acquisition of Tarasoft by CoreLogic lowered the choices in MLS systems vendors. And with CoreLogic still dominating the public records side (has anyone really canceled their RealList contract as RPR has suggested?) are they getting “to big to fail”? Put in another way, do MLS Providers want to have a single vendor control so much of their mission critical applications and data?

It seems the value proposition for other smaller (alternative?) MLS Vendors are starting to get more attractive.

1. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
2. More innovation
3. More personal service.

Sounds good to me.

New Business Models

The reality is that its hard being a pimp. MLS system sales have always had a long sales cycle and with the down real estate market not many large/medium MLS Providers are in a hurry to go thru a conversion. So some MLS vendors are opting to start new business models. FBS comes to mind. MLS Providers are also branching out. Metrolist’s Marketplace comes to mind.

Focus is also becoming a big factor. I noticed this in two areas recently.

1. LPS sold their broker and agents division (now R.E.D. Real Estate Digital)
2. CoreLogic recently sold their Membership Director product back to MMSI.

Welcome to the 3rd Party

I also see a big boon for 3rd Party Software developers in the future (hooray!) Managed and standardized databases and APIs are all in the near future. The aforementioned Marketplace is a perfect example of a new distribution model for real estate specific web apps to be sold. If MLS Providers and Vendors can successfully change the behavior of MLS members to look to buy these apps through a portal, and that portal is easily accessible through their MLS system, 3rd Party software companies stand to benefit immensely. Talk about “non-dues revenue”!

You are witnessing the rebirth of MLS Vendors

I see in 2012 MLS Vendors hammering out their strategy for the next NAR annual meeting Orlando. At that conference I think we are going to see a lot of new innovative stuff, not just from the product side but the re-invention of what it means to be an MLS Vendor going forward. I’m excited about the possibilities.

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