September 28, 2015 - Vendor Alley

MLS Roundup…

September 28th, 2015

Go read Matt and Gregg’s “MLS Roundup for Summer” now.

Here’s a taste…

“The Miami Association of Realtors (38K members) and Jupiter-Tequesta-Hobe Sound Association of Realtors (1.5K members) plan to merge, forming a new 40K member association and MLS. Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches, which is contiguous to Jupiter, was spurned in favor of Miami, and there was a bit of a local dust-up initiated by Palm Beaches. Hopefully at some point all of these organizations will start working together or just merge. If you think big organizations across a wide geography can’t make that work, consider the next two stories:”

Separate front end for Matrix? That’s old news says CoreLogic.

September 28th, 2015

I received an email from Lucie Fortier, Senior Director of Operations MLS Solutions, CoreLogic about their Matrix MLS system and it configurability ( I guess they been getting a few phone call lately for some reason).

” …I just wanted to confirm that Matrix has used a decoupled front end / back end architecture for more than a decade now. To achieve this flexibility, our engineers designed the system with an abstracted data connection layer that can utilize SQL, RETS, etc. Most any standard data source can be used with proper configuration. Since the early 2000s, MRIS has run Matrix against their own Oracle backend—the system was put together at the direction of, and in collaboration with, David Charron and his team. At MRIS, Matrix uses their Cornerstone relational database system as the sole repository of user-contributed information, including listings, offices, members, open houses… Anyway, this built-in capability of Matrix is not something we tout very often because most of our customers have had little interest in it. It’s just something we have always taken for granted…”

I had a conversation recently with some folks where we listed the top acquisitions in the real estate industry, and CoreLogic’s acquisition of Tarasoft and their Matrix MLS system has got to be number 1.

RealTime MLS, SFAR’s new MLS front end to help combat pocket listings

September 28th, 2015

The San Francisco Association of REALTORS (SFAR) is working on a new MLS front end system, dubbed RealTime MLS, to help combat pocket listings and increase agent to agent communication.

A video has been making the rounds featuring SFAR’s MLS Director, Jay Pepper-Martens, giving a presentation about the new front end system. The system focuses on active listings, has a Facebook feel, and hopes to offer an MLS alternative to “listing clubs” that have been up and running in the Bay Area. 11% of listing in SFAR are sold “Off MLS”.

I talked a bit with SFAR’s CEO Walt Baczkowski and he told me that while many MLS systems offer ways to mark listings as “coming soon” they really don’t facilitate agent to agent conversations which are key to pre-marketing. So he wants to give agents a legit way of pre market listings.

What I like about this approach is that Walt and his team aren’t trying to solve everything. They are focusing on a problem and trying to solve it. Which I think is a great approach, and something they can build on later.

You can view the video here.

BTW, I love the format of the video. It’s broken up in 3 parts. The presentation first. Then Jay answers questions from the audience given to him by a moderator and then end with a one of one conversation with an agent about the need for such a system.