Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

CoreLogic promotes Chris Bennett to General Manager of CoreLogic MLS Solutions.

This is great news. Chris is well respected and this also gives him control of the Realist product line.  Nice to see Chris getting this type of responsibility and acknowledgment, by all accounts he is one of the good guys.  Plus he’s got a lot of talent on his team, Rich Paulson, and Chip McVoy are more than capable of making things happen.  It was interesting to read that Dennis Brzezicki has taken over Chris’ old role.  I didn’t know that Dennis had much experience on the MLS system side of things  Good for him too.

The only one I didn’t read about was Jonathan Green?  Seems consipicously absent of any mention in this release.

[UPDATE:10/27/10 at 2:20PM PT]  Kim McLean of Marketlinx Corelogic confirms Jon is focusing on their MLS data licensing program (InfoNet) and on the rollout of our next generation Realist system.

[Via WAV Group ]

Editor’s Note- I could not find this release on any of the CoreLogic’s sites.

Organizational Changes at CoreLogic MarketLinx

Since the successful launch of CoreLogic this past June, we have spent considerable time reorganizing our MLS product groups to improve our efficiency and better

serve our customers.  We began this process in July by combining our Realist and MarketLinx account management teams under the leadership of Chris Bennett, a change that has paved the way for further enhancements to our company operations.

We are pleased to announce that Chris Bennett has been named General Manager of CoreLogic MLS Solutions, which is comprised of our MLS system products and related services, as well as our Realist product line.  Many of you already know Chris Bennett well–he joined the team in 2002 and has been instrumental in fostering many client relationships and achieving CoreLogics #1 market share in the highly competitive MLS system business.

With a career in MLS sales and account management spanning more than 30 years, Dennis Brzezicki will use his tremendous experience to fill Chris shoes as Vice President of Sales for CoreLogic MLS Solutions.  Dennis joined the company in 2003 and became the National Director of Sales for Realist in 2008.

Rich Paulson and Chip McAvoy will also report to Chris in his new role.  Rich leads the MLS Product Management team, and Chip leads the development of our Document/Transaction Manager, MLS Data Co-op, and Partner InfoNet product lines.

We are confident these organizational changes will yield significant benefits for CoreLogic and its customers, and are very enthusiastic about everything we have planned for 2011.  Please join us in welcoming Chris and Dennis in their new roles!

The upcoming “COVE d’état”…

Things are getting interesting on the RESO front.  There was lots of chatter from the RESO community at the CMLS conference earlier this month.  Most of it centered around the COVE group and their frustration with any real progress since it announced it’s list of standardized MLS data fields.

Now it appears that members of the COVE group are running for seats on the RESO board effectively implementing a “COVE d’état”.

Or maybe not.  Word is the NAR would like nothing more than more involvement, especially from the MLS provider community which represents over 40% of the listings nationwide, to help them in their efforts.  So I predict a smooth transition as these new COVE board appointments are elected.

I just hope that these COVE participants understand it’s never been about data standards, its about implementation.

Goomzee inks deal with newly formed CRMLS.

Congrats to Mike Sparr and team on their latest deal.  First one I heard about being done with CRMLS. Nice!

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GOOMZEE SIGNS CALIFORNIA REGIONAL MLS AND REACHES APPROXIMATELY TEN PERCENT OF AMERICAS REALTORS

Missoula, Montana – October 18th, 2010 – Goomzee Corporation, a leading provider of mobile technology solutions that connects buyers and sellers, announced today it has agreed with the California Regional MLS (CRMLS) to provide its product, Realty Connect, to their customers to allow Southern California homebuyers to receive real estate listing information on their cell phone.

With the contract signing of California Regional MLS, representing nearly 33,000 Southern California REALTORS, Goomzee’s MLS footprint in the United States now exceeds 120,000 MLS subscribers or approximately ten percent (10%) of America’s REALTORS.

Goomzee’s Realty Connect® helps connect buyers and sellers using text messaging and integrates with MLS data systems.  Agents place signs or ads regarding a property for sale that prompts potential buyers to send a text message with a unique property ID code. Within seconds the buyer receives a text message response containing property information and pricing.  The buyer then has the option to receive and view photos of the listing immediately on their phone.  At the same time, the agent is notified of the buyer’s inquiry.  Automated tools and responders then help the agent cultivate those leads and begin to establish a relationship with the buyer.

“We continually seek out the best technology tools and providers for our customers and are pleased to offer Goomzee’s industry-leading text-message advertising and call capture tool.  More home buyers are relying on technology for information when buying a home, and CRMLS recognizes the need to empower the real estate sales professional with useful technology to reach today’s buyer, especially on their mobile phones,” explains Art Carter, CEO of CRMLS.

Goomzee’s CEO, Mike Sparr, commented “reaching approximately 10 percent of America’s REALTORs in today’s economy is a monumental task, and achievement, and I’m very proud of everybody at Goomzee.  We could not have reached this milestone without the trust and support of leading MLS organizations like CRMLS.  We’re very excited to introduce our mobile technology to real estate professionals throughout Southern California and continue delivering high value to agents, sellers and buyers as we expand our US real estate market footprint.”

Goomzee and CRMLS aim to launch Realty Connect in Southern California by year’s end.

About California Regional MLS
The mission of the Pomona, Calif.-based CRMLS is to deliver, through local member associations, the most affordable, reliable, and convenient listing technology service available, and to provide products and services that support REALTORS® in maximizing use of property data to achieve business goals.  To learn more contact us at http://www.imrmls.com/ or call us at (909) 859-2040

About Goomzee
Goomzee empowers real estate agents to connect with today’s mobile real estate consumers using cell phone technology and helps convert more leads into sales.  The company’s product offerings include Realty Connect, a text-message advertising and call capture tool and Realty Mobile, a mobile MLS and branded mobile IDX solution. Goomzee’s products seamlessly integrate with MLS property listing databases to provide accurate, relevant information for the real estate professional and their clients, preventing extra work for the agent while fostering potential buyer and client relationships. To learn more, visit us online at http://www.goomzee.com or contact us toll free at (877) 324-1796.

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Rapattoni continues NetMagic expansion.

To say that Rapattoni dominates the AMS business in this industry is an understatement. Since announcing NetMagic back in May of last year Rapattoni continues it’s domination without any clear competition in sight. Has everyone else just given up?

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Gloucester/Salem Counties Board of REALTORS® Goes Live with Rapattoni NetMagic

SIMI VALLEY, Calif., October 13, 2010 – Rapattoni Corporation (Rapattoni) announced today that the Gloucester/Salem Counties Board of REALTORS® (GSCBR), located in Mantua, New Jersey, has gone live with Rapattoni NetMagic. GSCBR has been an association management software customer of Rapattoni for ten years, and it made the decision this year to transition to the company’s new internet-based product, Rapattoni NetMagic.
Rapattoni NetMagic is now being installed throughout the country and features the most robust information management tools available on the market today. The software has real-time synchronicity with the National Association of REALTORS® central database and allows the association staff to easily complete membership and accounts receivable tasks. Rapattoni NetMagic also provides an association’s members with the ability to login to the software and pay their dues, as well as register for classes, online.

Maria Whittingham, chief executive officer of GSCBR, said, “We are now up and running on Rapattoni NetMagic and we love the flexibility it gives us in managing our membership.” GSCBR serves over 1,400 members across the Gloucester and Salem counties in New Jersey.

Nick Rapattoni, president of Rapattoni, said, “We are very excited to add GSCBR to our quickly expanding roster of customers, and we know that they will enjoy all of the advantages that NetMagic offers.”

About Rapattoni NetMagic
Rapattoni NetMagic combines Rapattoni’s extensive real estate industry knowledge with the latest technologies to give associations the most powerful, flexible, and intuitive productivity suite available for managing association needs. Rapattoni NetMagic features real-time connectivity with the National Association of REALTORS® NRDS central database, and it enables association staff to effectively track, manage, and communicate with members.

About Rapattoni
Rapattoni Corporation has been serving the real estate industry under the same name and management for 40 years. The company provides an array of integrated products and services for real estate associations and MLS organizations, including an internet-based MLS, association management software, and key-less Rapattoni Secure Logon with SSO identity portals for online security and convenience. Rapattoni’s MLS products are serving approximately 300,000 users nationally and its association management customers represent more than 85% of the nation’s REALTORS®. Rapattoni’s headquarters are in Simi Valley, California.

For more information, contact Rapattoni’s Public Relations department at (800) 722-7338 or visit the Rapattoni website at http://www.rapattoni.com/.

Dan Woolley meet….Dan Woolley!

This Tweet by Dan caused a bit of confusion today.

Here’s the full story.

Earlier today Dan and I were in the world headquarter of W&R Studios working and Dan got a phone call from a number he didn’t recognize. He picked up the phone and said, “Hi this Dan.” the voice on the other end of the phone said, “Dan Woolley? HI it’s me, Dan Woolley”

“Huh?”

What happened next is a pretty funny story. But, it may be a bit confusing.

Turns out the Dan Woolley on the phone you have already heard about. His story was widely circulated in the press. He is a film maker who was down in Haiti to shoot a film on poverty. While he was there the earthquake happen and his was buried alive in rumble for over 60 hours. He took refuge in an elevator shaft and used a “first aid” app on his iPhone to survive!

Anyway he has written a book about the experience called “Unshaken”. And his publishers asked him if he could secure a url with his name www.DanWoolley.com. He went to buy the url but it was already taken and registered privately. He has tried to contact the owner but got no response.

So when doing a search on Google he found that the only other “Dan Woolley” of any prominence was the Dan Woolley we all know and love (the creator of Dwellicious and Cloud CMA).

Confused yet?

So he asked Dan if he owned the url. Turns out Dan did not. Which was a shame because I could imagine a deal where Dan sold him the url but in every TV interview he did to promote his book he would have to wear a Dwellicious T-Shirt!

Man I love me these interwebs!!

See below for a video on the “other” Dan Woolley book.

Saul Klein speaks! My interview about the recent Yardi acquisition of Point2

I’m a big fan of Saul so I was hoping in my post about Yardi acquiring Point2 he would add something to the comment thread. I got better than that, he agreed to an informal interview.

One thing that struck me was how he talked about Yardi being a “software company”, not a “media company”. To me that was a direct reference to Dominion Enterprises and how they “dropped the ball” after they acquired companies like Advanced Access.

See below for the full interview:

Saul Klein
Saul Klein

VA:  Thanks for reaching out.  I assume you read my last post.  Anything you want to add or correct?
 
SK: Thanks Greg. The acquisition of Point2 by Yardi  will result in Point2 being able to offer more value to all of our Point2 customers…agents, brokers, MLSs, and Associations. As many may note there are apparent potential synergies and yes, lots of potential cross marketing opportunities as well. I know this is what all acquiring companies say when consolidations or acquisitions of this nature occur, but the timing is different, the market place is different, and the players are different..
 
A major consideration for anyone trying to figure out “what this all means” is the fact that, Yardi is a software company (as opposed to a media company). Point2, is also  a software company. So what you have is a  software company purchased by a software company and a resulting management team with some of the deepest and longest communication channels and relationships in the industry.
 
VA:  How big a factor was your syndication business to Yardi?
 
SK: It was a an important factor to be sure if you consider that part of the value proposition of a Point2 web site solution is syndication of listing information to, it can be argued, the largest syndication network in the real estate industry. And, it was certainly not the only factor.
 
Syndication and the ability to provide syndication services is getting interesting thanks to Move and its acquisition of Listhub. There is conversation in some circles that it may not be in the industries best interest for all syndication of MLS data to be controlled by Move. That may be one of the reasons our acquisition seems noteworthy to many. We have been and will continue to be an alternative to Listhub. Both acquisitions did nothing to change that. Some MLSs use Point2, some use Listhub, and some use both.
 
Yardi, through its acquisition of Point2, now has the ability to transform listing data received from many sources and distribute it to a broad, established and growing distribution network. It has significant market penetration on the listing side as well as on the syndication partner side. The data feeds received from MLS and distributed to web portals  and other destinations plus the technological capability to take data “from many” and distribute “to many” in a timely manner will continue to be a huge value to our customers. Think about this…Point2 can convert an MLS in less than two days. I have not talked to anyone who can do it faster at this point. And, we are working on “close to real time” syndication. Point2 continues to provide syndication assets at no cost to MLSs. Syndication will continue to evolve and grow.
 
VA: What can we expect to see now from Point2?
 
SK: Innovation. Syndication and our product offerings will continue to evolve. At Point2, we will continue to strive for the creation of an “eco-system of innovation” around the data and work to include our partner MLSs and Syndication Portals in the conversation. Look for our products to have more capability and choice and more in the future.
 
VA:  You have a strong and loyal agent business.  How will that be affected?
 
SK:   All of our customers will  have more choice, and an overall better product experience. We will be adding new training components as well.
 
VA:  Sounds like you guys are excited.  How has this process affected you personally.

SK: As you know, I have been around “the web and real estate“ since the first days of “the web and real estate.“ For me, this is right opportunity at the right time in my life with the right company and the right people at the top, with the right motivations, and equally as important, the capacity to execute. I am thrilled.

C.A.R. Expo Recap

I wanted to share a few thoughts and observations about the C.A.R. Expo held at the Anaheim Convention Center last week. The event was fantastic. Good attendance and, at least from my experience, real estate agents were buying.

I barely had time to recover from CMLS 2010 in Chicago when we rolled in and set up our booth on Tuesday. There was a lot of “haven’t seen you in a long time” sarcasm from a lot of the vendors.

Opening day they billed as “Tech Tuesday” and the show floor was open from 5PM to 8PM. Of the 70 orders we took during the show we did over 10 on Tuesday so I was a nice start.

Simon Baker

We then proceeded to crash a party at the House of Blues where we tried to cop as many free drink tickets as we could munster. Then we ended up having dinner with the well-traveled Simon Baker and John Hart from ListGlobally, which bills itself as “a new and innovative global marketing tool for agents and developers” (think global syndication service). We went out for drinks with them the next night since I discovered that Australians are the only ones that can keep up with me. : )

Now back to the show….

Although I’ve seen the C.A.R. shows have lots more exhibitors the overall attendance was good. The Orange County Register had an article about the show you can read here, 1 and includes lots of photos.

I saw some interesting booths and products. One of the clever things I saw was at the Discover MLS booth. They were using a special display overlay device on an iMac to demo their MLS product. I took out my iPhone and shot this quick video.

I went to the MLS committee meeting hoping to catch the calREDD update. But had to leave early since the other topics took up a lot of time. But it doesn’t sound like I missed much. From what I was told Art Carter‘s update was less than 5 minutes.

Oh what a difference a year makes!

MetroList Services launches MetroListPro Websites-powered by iHomefinder

I was having a brief discussion with Alon Chaver, CEO of iHomefinder, at CMLS about how things were going with MetroList Services. MetroList Services (Sacramento, CA) as you all know is ably run by Tom Beede and his excellent lieutenants, Bill Miller and Dave “The hardest working guy in the MLS business” Howe.

I knew that iHomefinder was working with MetroList on providing websites to their members on a rev share deal. From our discussion it sounds like iHomefinder and MetroList are both pleased, scratch that, VERY pleased with the results.

Can this happen with your hometown MLS? The short answer is…maybe. MetroList Services, in my opinion, does the best job of any MLS in the country when it comes to communicating with their members. And it pays off.

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MetroList® Launches MetroListPro Websites
Powered By iHomefinder, MetroListPro Delivers Powerful and Professional “Instant-On” IDX Website

Sacramento, CA (September 28, 2010) – MetroList Services, Inc. is pleased to announce the release of the MetroListPro Website program. This highly innovative new program offers MetroList® Subscribers and Participants professional and customizable “Instant-On” IDX websites, with the latest Interactive Mapping Search, WordPress blogs and mobile capabilities, all at an extremely affordable price.
The new suite of MetroListPro Websites enables MetroList users to present their real estate buyers and sellers with the most accurate and up-to-date listings content. Keeping buyers and sellers informed daily about changes in the ever-changing market allows consumers to make better decisions based on correct listing information.

“MetroList continues to be an innovator in bringing premium new products and programs to help our Participants and Subscribers deliver the best value and service to their clients,” said Tom Beede, CEO of MetroList. “By collaborating with iHomefinder, the MetroListPro software provider, we are able to leverage their premium IDX products and state of the art MLS licensing and compliance technology, enabling our users to securely present the most accurate and timely listings information to their real estate clients.”

As an added benefit, MetroListPro Websites are available at substantial discount off the monthly rate, no annual contract, no setup fee and the most accurate listing content available.
“iHomefinder is dedicated to providing solid value to real estate professionals, while delivering operational efficiencies and compliance savings to our MLS partners,” said Alon Chaver, CEO of iHomefinder. “This unique opportunity to collaborate with MetroList is unprecedented in the industry. We are delivering unparalleled value to MetroList® users by working together to offer powerful IDX websites that display the best and freshest listings information to consumers.”
MetroList and iHomefinder worked together to create streamlined processes for offering the MetroListPro Websites online. From developing efficient MLS licensing and simple provisioning processes online, to integrating IDX compliance into the very DNA of the MetroListPro Websites that further enhance the security of listing content, MetroList will always ensure the highest level of data integrity.

“We know that MetroList Participants are going to love their elegant and powerful MetroListPro Websites, and trust they will greatly appreciate the new ability to inexpensively license such great tools and deliver outstanding listings content to their customers,” added Chaver.

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About MetroList Services, Inc.
MetroList Services Inc. is the largest multiple listing service in Northern California headquartered in Sacramento, the state’s capital. Formed in 1985 by the Sacramento Association of REALTORS®, the Placer County Association of REALTORS® and the El Dorado County Association of REALTORS®, MetroList’s ownership group has grown to include the Lodi Association of REALTORS® and the Yolo County Association of REALTORS®, and California Real Estate Brokers, Inc. MetroList acts as a seamless real estate information network serving more than 20,000 real estate professionals in seven counties: Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced and Yolo.

About iHomefinder, Inc.
iHomefinder Inc. is a leading national provider of hosted online property search technology, serving thousands of real estate brokerages and real estate professionals in every major U.S. market. Using the Internet Data eXchange (IDX) standard, iHomefinder displays timely and accurate MLS content in full compliance with the local rules of over 160 MLS’s. iHomefinder also provides MLS licensing, compliance, and technology services to hundreds of web design and online marketing companies, as well as brokerages, technology vendors, and MLSs. Privately held and headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1997, iHomefinder maintains collaborative relationships with hundreds of innovative companies serving the real estate industry.

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CMLS Fun

I’ll be doing a full recap later in the week but wanted to post something quick.

First off “Best Booth”. I broke it down to two catergories, since some companies had more room to work with.

Best Booth (Hallway) of CMLS goes to….

dynaConnections!

dynaConnections CMLS Booth

These guys were a triple threat. Great booth, great reps, and great swag!

Check out the clever swag. Coffee mugs with a mustache drawn on!

dynaConnections Swag

Swag action shot!

Swag Demo Shot!

If these guys pay as much attention to their MLS system as they to to their marketing then sign me up!

Next up is Best Booth display in a limited space. And the winner is….

ShowingTime!

These guys always do a pro job. Some booth had the same components but ShowingTime did a great job of pulling it all together.

ShowingTime Booth

Then there’s also the “Not Even Trying” Booth Award:

And the winner loser is….

Name Withheld

You can check out more images of CMLS 2010 on the new Vendor Alley Flickr Photostream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vendoralley/

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