Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

MRED chooses REALM from LPS Real Estate Group

Nice win for LPS! Congrats to Prem, Shiraz and team!

Full Press Release Below:
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Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) Chooses Real Estate and Living Media (REALM) as its Online Advertising Service

Midwest MLS Giant Significantly Expands REALM Network Audience

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — (July 27, 2011) – The Real Estate and Living Media (REALM) Network, the online advertising service of the LPS Real Estate Group, announced today that Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) has chosen REALM to operate its entire online advertising footprint, reaching both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumers (B2C) audiences. Through this agreement, REALM will now be delivering highly targeted advertising to both real estate consumers and professionals across the entire spectrum of MRED online channels, including its MLS system and consumer-facing website.

“MRED is one of the largest MLSs in the country and is, without a doubt, the leader in providing real estate data to the Midwest market,” said Shiraz Vartanian, REALM’s general manager. “For REALM, this relationship represents a significant expansion of our network into the Chicagoland market for both B2B and B2C advertisers. On top of the large group of national advertisers who benefit from REALM’s highly targeted and motivated audience, we are also offering solutions for small and local businesses in the Chicago area looking to reach real estate consumers, including those who are moving, and real estate professionals.”

“Choosing REALM to operate our advertising footprint was unquestionably the right decision,” said MRED’s Chief Executive Officer, Russ Bergeron. “Advertising revenue allows us to continually improve the toolset we offer our members without their having to bear additional expense. As a division of the LPS Real Estate Group, the level of industry expertise REALM brings to the table is simply unmatched. We couldn’t be more excited about the future of this relationship.”

With the addition of MRED to REALM’s already extensive nationwide publisher network, the REALM’s reach now extends to more than 10 million users in the real estate category. The REALM’s ability to deliver a variety of real estate segments and audiences, as well as the creation of customized advertising products, brings marketers a unique way of delivering their messages to real estate professionals and consumers at the most appropriate time and in the most opportune positions.

About Lender Processing Services
Lender Processing Services, Inc. (LPS) is a leading provider of integrated technology, services and loan performance data and analytics to the mortgage, consumer lending, capital markets and real estate industries. LPS offers solutions that span the mortgage continuum, including lead generation, origination, servicing, workflow automation, portfolio retention and default, augmented by the company’s award-winning customer support and professional services. Almost half of all U.S. mortgages by dollar volume are serviced using LPS’ Mortgage Servicing Package (MSP). For more information about LPS, visit www.lpsvcs.com.

About The LPS Real Estate Group
The LPS Real Estate Group, a division of LPS, has relationships with more than 300 MLS organizations, 250 broker companies, settlement services companies and more than 350,000 real estate professionals. The technology applications include innovative tools such as Paragon™; the reInsight™ collection; rDesk® Broker & Agent Suite of products; TransactionPoint®; DocCentral; the Real Estate & Living Media Network that generates revenue for its publishers; as well as a robust real estate property and tax database that includes 400 million residential and commercial property, ownership, sales, assessment and mortgage records. This represents detailed information on at least 92 percent of U.S. property ownership records in more than 2,000 counties with over 675,000 new ownership records added monthly. To learn more, visit www.lpsreg.com.

About MRED
Midwest Real Estate Data is a real estate data aggregator and distributor providing the largest multiple listing service by listing volume to almost 8,000 real estate offices and nearly 40,000 customers, including brokers, agents and appraisers. MRED has expanded well into the “collar” counties surrounding Chicagoland, and its property information encompasses northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin and northwest Indiana. (www.mredllc.com)

Has the lion made it over the hill?

One last thought before next week.

Remember back in 1993 when NAR President Bill Chee issued his famous rally cry that “there were hungry lions coming over the hill“? His speech foretold the impact of technonlogy and “non-industry competitors”. At the time everyone was afraid of Microsoft. A lot came out of that speech, you could argue that was the beginning of Realtor.com.

So flash forward to 2011 and Zillow just completed their IPO. Their market cap is 3 times of Move, Inc. (Realtor.com parent company) and combined with their Yahoo partnership they now trade spots for the most real estate traffic online.

The lion is here baby. He just came from down from Seattle, not Redmond.

"Zimba"

UPDATE: [Matt Carter’s recent article on Inman News “Third-party site rule the real estate roost” make my point even stronger.

Inman Anticipation…

Like many of you I’m heading up to San Francisco next week for the Data Summit and Real Estate Connect conference, both hosted by Inman News. So here’s a prelude to some of the things I’m looking forward to and thinking about:

I will be attending Inman’s Data Summit. The event will be hosted by Gahlord DeWald and Rob Hahn. I always enjoy getting together with Gahlord, he is a smart guy and I always learn something so it will be interesting to hear he perspective on the data issues plaguing the MLS/Real Estate Industry. Rob Hahn, aka “The Bard of the Long Form Post”, will be hosting too. Rob is always good at making me re-think my current assumptions or at least giving an interesting perspective.

Dan Woolley will be moderating the “Connect Tech” session once again this year and I’m sure he won’t disappoint. Traditionally a geek fest Dan always seems to bring together great minds for interesting conversation about XML and whatnot. The Connect Tech sessions are scheduled for Wednesday, July 27 and start at 8:30AM and end at 12:00PM.

This year Mike Wurzer takes a break from moderating The MLS Innovation Track (Brian Boero will ably take on the task) on Thursday July 28th, starting at 2:00PM. I’ll be on a panel entitled “Managing Your Distribution Channel and Vendor Relationships Profitably and Responsibly”. On the panel with me will be Curt Beardsley of Move, Inc. So please join me as I try not to look stupid sitting next to Curt.

I’m also a big fan of Brad Inman‘s Welcome Address. This year he will be speaking of “The Post-PC World”. But a lot of the hosting duties appear to be taken over by Chris Smith, Inman’s newly hired “Chief Evangelist”. I’ve seen Chris speak at an Agent Reboot Conference and just sat in on a webinar he hosted yesterday. Chris is the real deal, and a very talented speaker who really knows his stuff. The question remains can he go deeper to the the larger issues involving the real estate industry and not just do a presentation on “The Top 10…..”, I think he can, but as an “evangelist” does he even have to?

I’m also look forward to hearing from Joe Bebbia of Airbnb, which for some reason really fascinates me. It will be good to get Ron Conway’s perspective on things and I think David Pogue will be a good draw as well.

But the “Belle of the Ball” might just be Zillow. After a being valued at just about a Billion dollars these guys have to be pumped, and what a perfect conference to strut their stuff. But don’t think the other guys will be sitting still, word on the street is that there will be at least 1 big announcement next week ( I know, I’m a big tease).

Plus doesn’t it seem like there is a lot more parties this year? Almost every night there are one or two parties to go to. I sure hope my liver is ready.

Parties aside to me the next big issue, which we are already having to face, is the advent of these patent lawsuits. As an independent software developer I can tell you that its a big issue that I’m afraid is only going to get worse. It’s not just a real estate issue, this post by Craig Hockenberry spells it out best.

I arrive Sunday evening. I hope to catch up with everyone. And remember Vendor Alley’s first rule of conferences….Never, And I Mean Never, Go Big On The First Night!

See you there!!

The “Animated CMA”

The Great CMA Shootout!

A few weeks ago MetroList Services put on a series of events they called “The Great CMA Shoot Out!“.

Their board of directors had decided not to renew their site license with Mercado, from eNeighborhoods, and were also introducing a new option, Cloud CMA.

Full House!
The events covered over 2 and half weeks up and down the Central Valley of California. MetroList Services covers this area, which includes Sacramento. They are the largest MLS provider in California in terms of geography and despite this MetroList Services is the best MLS providers I’ve worked with when it comes to communication with their membership.

They got the word out via a banner on their MLS login screen, flyers, email communications and going out to their member associations promoting it.

Dave Howe and Bill Miller
I attended only one of the events, the largest, at the Sacramento Association of Realtors. At the start of we flipped a coin to determine who would present last at the first event and then traded off after that. At the end of both demos each participant (Mercado and Cloud CMA) would come up for a short summation.

Tom Beede surveys the action from the crowd
It was great. It reminded me of the days when I used to do this going head to head with my product “Lightning” against Moore Data‘s “Viewpoint” and later “Landmark“. It was an interesting dynamic since the guys from eNeighborhoods at the event, Rick Sherwood and Paul Dixon, were guys I had hired back while working at eN.

Shane McCarthy makes his case!
Shane McCarthy from W&R Studios demoed Cloud CMA (I was smart enough not to take this task). At the Sacramento event we won (based on number of sign ups after) handily. At other events we traded wins, most going to the product who demoed last. I’m not sure who ended up with the most signups at the end but I think it was about even. This was a huge win for Cloud CMA, since Mercado had been available to MetroList members for about 3 years.

Many thanks to Tom Beede, Bill Miller and Dave Howe for putting this together.

I’d like to see other MLS providers do this type of thing. The format is fun, and gives the chance for vendors to show their best and let their members decide which solution would be better for them.

Charles Warnock leaves Dominion Enterprises joins Ellie Mae

I worked with Charles back at eNeighborhoods. He is probably one of the best interactive marketing minds I have ever met. He also could write copy, great copy, faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. He had moved his family to Virginia and began working out of Dominion Enterprises’ head office in Norfolk. While there ee worked on marketing and business development for Homes.com and eNeighborhoods. Now it appears he is moving again, this time to the west coast (Bay Area). I hope that Ellie Mae can utilize his talents to the fullest, Charles is a rock star.

Curiously there seems to be a bit of a “brain drain” happening at Dominion Enterprises, since the departure of division president Peter Ill (although rumor has it Mr. Ill might be entering the space again but in the rentals market, apart from Dominion Enterprises). Craig Gill, EVP of Information Technology has also left along with the departure of Mike Couvillion who was VP of Technical Services and Web Development.

All this on the front of their new product launch, curiously named “Homes Connect” , where you can “Login Once! Access Everything!” – talk about a value proposition!

A billion reasons why I want Inman Next to succeed.

I was recently talking to another vendor who heads a large technology firm in real estate. We got around to talking about what the market opportunity is, with technology products, in real estate. He said mater of factually, “I’ve done the math, and it’s about a billon dollars a year”. [He referenced the technology spend numbers in a recent NAR member profile]

A billion dollars a year?

Just doing some quick math in my head, using 1M members for NAR. That works out to $1,000 dollar per year, per agent. Which breaks down to $85 per month, per agent. Which sounds plausible, hell maybe a little low!

A billion dollars. I sure like the sound of that!

I’ve been poking around Inman Next. I really like the vibe these guys are putting out. Chris Smith seems to be a great hire by Tim Smith (CEO of Inman News). The content is agent focussed, fresh, I like the use of video, the site is clean. I see a lot of potential.

I’m sure hoping they succeed. Reaching agents is a bitch. I need help. I want a big ‘ole piece of that billion dollar pie!

So anyone that can help me reach agents is going to get my money. Here’s a few ideas that may make that easier.

1. Prove it to me. I want real numbers of your reach. How many real estate agents get/access your stuff?
2. Leverage the web. An email with a link to my kick ass landing page can be wonderful and profitable to me. Plus it seems to make the most economic sense.
3. Help me, help you. It would be great if you could provide me assistance setting up a landing page, writing copy, maybe have a few landing page templates I could use, and some best practices to follow.
4. I want to be on stage. If you want be to buy a table at the back of your room or sponsor your event then give me 3 minutes on stage to make my elevator pitch directly to the attendees. Just having the conference speed read a list of sponsors isn’t doing much for me.
5. I want a partner. When I succeed, you succeed. So how about a little love (less cost) when I begin so I can gain some traction and, in turn, spend more money with you.
6. Target. How about sending all your conference attendees a special email with a list (links) of special offers from your sponsors post event.
7. Segment. My product doesn’t work everywhere so it would be great if you could segment your list by MLS provider. This would be easy, just add a MLS Name field when agents register for your site.
8. Make me a winner. If you have an ad placement, or email list serv that you know really performs well how about picking a vendor (maybe who is at a certain level of service) win that spot for a week (a month?).
9. Extend your reach. Maybe you can help organization like MLS providers and Associations monetize their member lists. You have great content, they need to get some messaging out to their members. How about a product that serves as a communication platform for MLS providers/Associations that is free to them because it’s ad supported?
10. Help me, help you part II. How can I, as a vendor, promote you? The more people visiting your site the better for me. Sometimes in my own marketing efforts I don’t convert them to paying customers. But if I turn them on to you then maybe we can get them the second time around.

A lot of that is stream of consciousness stuff. And I know many of you (RETechnology, AgentGenius, Inman News etc) provide some of what I’m asking.

Point is, the market is there, let’s go after it together.

Brad Bjelke (former EVP and General Counsel of Rapattoni) joins lawfirm (JDTP)

Brad Bjelke
Seems like yesterday that Brad Bjelke was named EVP of Rapattoni. But it looks like he has decided to take on a new challenge. Brad has joined the law firm of JDTP; Jackson|DeMarco|Tidus|Peckenpaugh (a you thought Rapattoni was hard to spell!)

According the the press release:
“Brad has extensive experience with real estate technology licensing, regionalization of MLS entities, real estate data sharing issues, software agreements, IDX policies, RETS compliance, the setup and maintenance of VOWs, website scraping, and the implementation of policies established by NAR and state associations.”

Looks like he has some real front line experience with all the legal mumbo-jumbo in real estate.

Full Press Release Below:
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Brad Bjelke Joins JDTP

IRVINE, CA – Jackson DeMarco Tidus Peckenpaugh is pleased to announce that Brad Bjelke has joined the Firm.
Brad is an experienced business attorney who is well known within the real estate industry. Brad concentrates his practice on the day-to-day issues affecting real estate associations, multiple listing services, and real estate software vendors throughout the United States. Prior to joining JDTP,
Brad served for over five years as the Executive Vice President and General Counsel for one of the largest real estate software companies. In that role, Brad worked closely with executive officers of MLSs and real estate associations, the National Association of Realtors®, and state real estate associations.
Brad has extensive experience with real estate technology licensing, regionalization of MLS entities, real estate data sharing issues, software agreements, IDX policies, RETS compliance, the setup and maintenance of VOWs, website scraping, and the implementation of policies established by NAR and state associations.
Brad can be reached directly by phone at 805.418.1927 and by email at bbjelke [at] jdtplaw [dot] com

[UPDATE: Brad served as EVP for 4 months. He was General Counsel prior to that time]

LPS powers REBNY

Seems LPS Real Estate Group is kicking ass signing up these MLS portals. Congrats!

Full Press Release Below:
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LPS Real Estate Group Powers Consumer-Facing Website
for the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY)

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — July 18, 2011 – LPS Real Estate Group, a division of Lender Processing Services (LPS), announced today that its MLS Portal was chosen by the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) to serve as the platform for its newly launched consumer-facing website, NY1Residential.com, a re-launch of REBNY’s existing New York City real estate listing website.
LPS Real Estate Group’s MLS Portal provides multiple listing services with a branded website that offers consumers direct access to comprehensive property listing content. This site includes an aerial-view map-searching feature with rooftop accuracy and parcel-line overlays. Additionally, search functions are tailored to regional and market specifications. The portal also enhances the listing information to include points of interest, school and neighborhood data, driving directions to each property and more. With the click of a button, viewers can generate real-time reports and snapshots of the real estate market in a selected area to analyze buying trends and compare property values.
“The goal is to provide a regional channel to drive more consumer traffic to our REBNY brokers, while making it easy for the public to find a home in New York City,” said Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York. “REBNY selected LPS Real Estate Group because of their outstanding member benefits, knowledge and product.”
“These consumer portals do not compete with REBNY’S members’ websites, but ensure that consumer traffic is sent back to the brokers and agents,” said John Hensley, chief product officer, LPS Real Estate Group. “Statistics show that consumers who are allowed independent access to listings are better informed and more faithful to the real estate professional who helps them with their sale or purchase.”
More than 90 percent of consumers use the Internet as the first step in their real estate purchase. LPS’ MLS Portal provides that intermediate level between the national websites, where many consumers start their search, and the individual agent website, where consumers work one-on-one with an agent in their home-buying process.
“Surveys have shown that consumer-facing MLS websites gain increasingly higher search result placement than individual broker agent websites,” added Hensley.
Search for a home in New York City by visiting www.NY1Residential.com.
For more information contact Kevin Greene at 949.903.6138, email kevin.greene@lpsvcs.com or visit www.lpsreg.com.

About Lender Processing Services
Lender Processing Services, Inc. (LPS) is a leading provider of integrated technology and services to the mortgage and real estate industries. LPS offers solutions that span the mortgage continuum, including lead generation, origination, servicing, workflow automation (LPS Desktop®) portfolio retention and default, augmented by the company’s award-winning customer support and professional services. Approximately 50 percent of all U.S. mortgages by dollar volume are serviced using LPS’ Mortgage Servicing Package (MSP). LPS also offers proprietary mortgage and real estate data and analytics for the mortgage and capital markets industries. For more information about LPS, please visit www.lpsvcs.com.

About LPS Real Estate Group
The LPS Real Estate Group has relationships with more than 300 MLS organizations, 250 broker companies, settlement services companies, and more than 350,000 real estate professionals. The technology applications include innovative tools such as Paragon™; the reInsight® collection; reDataVault™; rDesk® Broker & Agent Suite of products; TransactionPoint®; DocCentral; the Real Estate & Living Media Network that generates revenue for its publishers; as well as a robust real estate property and tax database that includes 400 million residential and commercial property, ownership, sales, assessment and mortgage records. This represents detailed information on at least 92 percent of U.S. property ownership records in more than 2,000 counties with over 675,000 new ownership records added monthly. For more information, please visit www.lpsreg.com.

About the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY)
The Real Estate Board of New York is NYC’s leading real estate trade association with more than 12,000 members consisting of owners, builders, brokers, managers, banks, insurance companies, pension funds, real estate investment trusts, utilities, attorneys, architects, marketing professionals and many other individuals and institutions involved in New York realty. REBNY launched its public real estate listings website ResidentialNYC.com in 2007 and decided to re-launch the site with partner NY1 News in 2011 and call it NY1Residential.com. For more information, visit www.rebny.com.

LPS Real Estate Group:
Laura Buser, 949.681.4852
laura [dot] buser [at] lpsvcs.com

Move acquires SocialBios (formerly Peep.ly)

I’m starting to see a trend. Looks like a bigger companies are taking their social networking more seriously. Instead of just allowing visitors to share listings on Facebook or Twitter they are now buying “social” focused companies/products for full integration. With last week’s announcement of VHT acquiring Dwellicious and now Move, Inc. acquiring SocialBios we are starting to see the chess pieces move with social networks becoming a larger part of their overall strategy.

As for SocialBios I think the key here is implementation. They need to get it just right. Connecting people “naturally” through their social graph is a powerful idea but runs the risk of triggering privacy concerns.

Looking forward to what Ernie and his team adds to the Move, Inc mix.

Full Press Release Below:

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Move Acquires SocialBios, Award-Winning Social Search Platform

Real Estate Leader Invests in Social Platform and Talent to Realize Vision of Connecting Consumers, Properties and Real Estate Experts Through Their Social Networks

CAMBPELL, Calif., July 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Move, Inc. (Nasdaq: MOVE), the leader in online real estate, today announced its acquisition of SocialBios, an award-winning social search platform. SocialBios allows individuals and companies to create one social hub for their online profiles through interactive ‘About Us’ pages that simplify the discovery of shared connections on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Foursquare and Google without sacrificing their privacy.
The acquisition of SocialBios points to Move’s acceleration into the area of social and its integration into the real estate search experience throughout Move’s online real estate network. As a result, Move will leverage the SocialBios platform and talent to develop products that connect people with real estate professionals based on the commonalities of their on- and offline social networks.
“Real estate is inherently a social business. Today’s search experience is highly interactive and instant with the explosion of mobile in real estate. We’re uniquely positioned to lead our industry and connect people naturally through their social graph,” said Scott Boecker, chief product officer at Move, Inc. “This acquisition brings a new element of discovery and creativity to our online real estate marketplace as we evolve our web, mobile and social search experiences.”
SocialBios was a 2011 ‘Best Tech Startup’ winner at Inman Connect NYC, and was selected by a popular vote of real estate industry leaders as the new technology that would most benefit their industry. In the past six months, through the company’s social layering technology, SocialBios members and visitors have equated to more than two million potential connections.

As part of the acquisition, SocialBios founder Ernie Graham and co-founders Ira McMahon and Andrew Van Tassel have joined the product development team at Move, Inc. Graham, who will head up Move’s social product strategy and development team, will work with the Move’s franchise and broker customers to develop social graphing strategies that help them facilitate more connections between their agents and brokers with consumers.

“We’re very excited to join Move and the talented team that continually delivers great products and services based on the premise of connection,” said Ernie Graham, general manager for Move’s SocialBios platform. “By using the current SocialBios platform as a springboard and leveraging Move’s product and technology assets, we’ll take the concept of social capital discovery and create new ways to expedite higher quality connections between agents and consumers. We’re looking forward to the road ahead and transcending the traditional boundaries within our industry of how to drive better client-agent relationships.”

The SocialBios office and team of social experts will be based in Denver, Colorado. The SocialBios website, products and brand will remain in production and available to real estate professionals. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Real estate agents and brokers interested in claiming their SocialBios ID can go to http://socialbios.com or call Move’s support team at 800.878.4166.

About MOVE, Inc.
Move, Inc. (NASDAQ: MOVE) is the leader in online real estate with over 15.2 million monthly visitors(1) to its online network of websites. Move, Inc. operates: Move.com, a leading destination for information on new homes and rental listings, moving, home and garden and home finance; REALTOR.com®, the official website of the National Association of REALTORS®; MortgageMatch.com, Moving.com; SeniorHousingNet; ListHub; and TOP PRODUCER Systems. Move, Inc. is based in Campbell, California.

About Social Bios
Social Bios is the only online service that allows individuals and companies to aggregate all of their disparate social network profile and connection data for generating new business referrals. The Social Bios “About Us” page allows your website or Facebook fan page visitors to discover social capital with your agents or employees. The Social Bios beta was launched in January 2011 and won the Inman Connect NYC “Best New Startup” award. Social Bios is based in Denver, Colorado. For more information, go to www.SocialBios.com

Sponsored By Paragon Connect