Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Beaches MLS sues JTHS, Miami AOR, Teresa Kinney and staff members for unauthorized MLS access.

This is getting crazy even by South Florida MLS politics standards. The first thing you want to do is read Andrea Brambila’s article on Inman News:

Turf squabble fails to derail Florida association merger
Miami Association of Realtors to grow to nearly 40,000 members

“RAPB has decided to no longer share listing data with MIAMI, cutting off their collective 51,000 members from each other’s listing information. Both Hall and Kinney declined to comment on that decision at this time, saying they would be distributing press releases about it in the near future.

MIAMI and JTHS have been sharing data for years and will continue to do so, Kinney said. JTHS will keep its own MLS system after the merger “for as long as they want,” she said.

“One of the things you don’t want to do with members is mess with their MLS,” she added.”

I’ll say.

Now it appears Beaches MLS asked for and got a temporary restraining order. I’m not clear on how far the order goes but this doesn’t look to be resolved any time soon.

Seems they have proof that and seeking to find more that Miami AOR have gained “unauthorized access” to Beaches MLS listing data.

You can’t make this shit up.

And if you haven’t had your fill of crazy South Florida MLS stories, here’s another whopper.

It’s got MLS manipulation, extortion, police arresting (and that person resisting) at a penthouse and two real estate agents named Jill. Enjoy.

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News Corp spent $7 million dollars last quarter suing Zillow

News Corp (NWSA) Earnings Report: Q4 2015 Conference Call Transcript

“That said, listing volume has improved in June and July. Reported segment results include $81 million in revenues and an EBITDA loss of $15 million from Move, which includes $5 million of stock-based compensation and $7 million in legal fees for litigation against Zillow.”

That’s about $2.3M dollar per month. That’s insane. And this is being going on a long time. The real issue here is at the center of all this legal carpet bombing are a couple of regular guys (who have done a lot to better this industry by the way) who just switched gigs.

#DropTheLawsuits

CMLS announces registration now open for RESO Data Dictionary Webinar

Registration is Open for Two Important Education Initiatives: RESO Data Dictionary Webinar and CMLX1 Webinars

“MLSs owned and operated by REALTOR® associations need to be Data Dictionary compliant by the end of the year. Are you ready?

To help prepare you and your team, we’re working with RESO on a Data Dictionary webinar series.

The next two sessions are designed to prepare MLS data experts and technologists for what comes next, but all are welcome to join.”

Let’s do this!

IRES powers new public facing website in Colorado.

IRES MLS and CREN MLS Partner For Public Listing Display on ColoProperty.com®

“We are thrilled to assist brokers, buyers and sellers by displaying southwestern Colorado listings on our very popular public listing site, ColoProperty.com®”, said Lauren Hansen, IRES CEO. “As the number one lead generator for Northern Colorado listings, we will aim for similar success with the newly added Southwest Colorado listings”, Hansen added.”

New Trulia ads get meta

Loving the new Trulia ads! They are by far my favorites of any of the current portal ads running.

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.

CRMLS wins “Most Innovative MLS” award from Inman Inman. Celeste Starchild from ListHub also honored.

Congrats to Art Carter and the rest of the CRMLS team for winning this year’s Inman 2015 Innovator Award winner for “Most innovative MLS”. Inman news cited “has been clawing away at getting local MLS organizations to participate in its shareable database of listings, which will expedite innovation.” I think what made the difference for CRMLS was the well crafted messaging, videos and social media around their #ItsMyBiz campaign.

Also happy to see Celeste Starchild being recognized as one of the “four women who have shown leadership in the constant pursuit of innovation. Susan Daimler from Zillow, Chelsea Goyer from Redfin, and Dottie Herman from Douglas Elliman Real Estate. I’d like to see this list kept going and expanded next year, there are many others deserving to be recognized.

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.

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