Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

MRIS Receives RESO’s First RETS 1.8 Certification

MRIS

“The RETS 1.8 Certification verifies that MRIS complies with the open standard for accessing and exchanging real estate transaction information with other organizations supportive of the RETS 1.8 Standard. MRIS originally created a unique method of updating new listing information via RETS, which is a piece of the contribution MRIS has made to the launch of the new certification. “

To be honest I’ve stopped following a lot of what RESO is doing. Seems like they are picking up some steam now. And I believe we (W&R Studios) are going to be stepping up our involvement as well.

Redfin nails it with “Redfin Home Dashboard”

Redfin:

“At Redfin, our goal is to make the entire home-buying and selling process easier, from the day you start dreaming about owning the cute Craftsman on the corner, to the day you step inside your new home for the first time. We’ve transformed how you find homes for sale online, stay on top of new homes hitting the market, schedule home tours with agents, plan a weekend of open house visits, and take care of all the paperwork and tasks involved in the escrow process when you buy a home.”

OnMarket-dashboard

Coverage aside, one of the knocks I hear against Redfin is their conversion rate. People love the site. When I ask my industry friends which real estate portals they use personally Redfin is always at the top of their lists. But getting those site visitors to convert to using a Redfin agent has always been a challenge.

This new Home Dashboard is another attempt at improving that conversion, since it only available to clients who use Redfin agents. And I love it. The design is great plus it adds a nice cherry on top of a great value proposition for the Seller, check this out…

“The dashboard adds to the digital marketing program that Redfin provides for everyone who sells their home with us, including premium placement of their listing on Redfin.com (that doubles the amount of traffic the home receives from potential buyers), targeted emails and advertisements to homebuyers who are searching for homes in the area and free professional photography for listing photos. This additional exposure has been proven to sell homes faster, and for more money, according to a recent Redfin analysis. With the Redfin Home Dashboard, Redfin clients will be able to see the results of these activities in real time.”

Double the amount of traffic, free professional photos, 1.5% listing fee (not your typical 3%), and I can track all this in real-time. Imagine the television commercials these guys will put out once they go public.

Redfin is the dark horse and has the potential of being the true disruptor in this race.

MRED sticks with dynaConnections

MRED:

“Our mission is to provide the very best MLS to our customers,” said Jeff Gregory, Chairman of the Board for MRED. “We have succeeded thanks in large part to dynaConnections, whose staff has been relentless in delivering an MLS solution that is unsurpassed in the industry. In fact, connectMLS has been the top-rated MLS system in the country for two years running according to the WAV Group MLS Technology Survey. Their customer service and responsiveness to our staff is top-notch. We are thrilled to continue this great relationship with Tim Ford and his staff.”

Some say its easy to get high ratings when you only have one or two customers, but being an MLS vendor (on any level) isn’t easy. A wins a win. Congrats to Tim Ford and his team.

THE MLS/CLAW sign direct licensing agreement with Trulia

BH-sign-CropTrulia:

“The direct agreement with The MLS™/CLAW demonstrates the value MLS/Trulia partnerships can deliver to solve challenges around data distribution and display, helping brokers build their brand and support the success of their agents,” said Alon Chaver, Vice President Industry Services at Trulia. “By working with The MLS™/CLAW’s forward thinking leadership, Trulia can now provide The MLS™/CLAW members the freshest listings displays, increasing the volume and quality of leads they generate, and improving conversion rates to power the growth of their businesses and their brands.”

Nice win (for both sides). Annie is a tough cookie. For Alon and his team to turn these guys around is truly (pardon the almost pun) impressive.

This further cements my view that Trulia “gets it”, and is far more the industry friendly portal. For starters they have had a team focused on this longer, they are willing to make compromises to get better data, (where Zillow is not) and Alon’s team has shown a certain finesse getting these deals done.

Perhaps now that Zillow and Trulia are part of the same team maybe these types of deals will open some eyes at Zillow.

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