Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

CurbCall gets acquired

REAL ESTATE TECH FIRM CURBCALL ACQUIREDCurbCall Refocuses to Revolutionize Real Estate Lead Routing

Stephanie Sullivan, a long-time serial entrepreneur in the mobile high tech and real estate space, acquired CurbCall from founder and CEO Seth Siegler. With Sullivan serving as co-founder and CEO and Siegler remaining on as co-founder and CTO, the company is expanding product capabilities to be able to offer real estate brokerages and agents a real-time lead routing system that is significantly faster and less costly than the leading offerings.

“As former head of my own real estate brokerage, I am intimately aware of the problems with the way real estate leads are currently routed,” said Sullivan. “Leads are often delivered hours or even a whole day after they come in, with little to no vetting despite claims to the contrary, and providers charge a high cost per lead or even a percentage of the transaction. Inspired by the Uber model, I saw that we could use technology to connect buyers and agents instantly.”

I’ve always been intrigued by CurbCall. It will be interesting if this new team will help increase traction with larger brokerages.

Looking for a new gig?

Member Services Associate
MLS of Hilton Head Island, Inc.

“The Member Services Associate is a critical team player and important part of our ability to provide top level services and support to potential and existing members in the call center as well as interact socially during events, training, and day to day operations. A key to success for this staff position is to be positive attitude, accuracy, and dedication to providing a high level of customer service. “

See this position and more on the Vendor Alley Job Board!

Looking for a new gig?

W&R Studios is looking for a Project Manager

Project Manager

“W&R Studios is seeking a Project Manager to play a key role in a growing, agile product development team. This person will work with designers, developers, senior management and the marketing department on existing and new web and mobile apps for the real estate industry. The primary goal of this person will be to ensure continuous progress and momentum towards shipping new products, features, and fixes for our subscribers. This position will be based out of either our Huntington Beach, California headquarters (preferred) or Boulder, Colorado office.”

Come help us make awesome software.

Ten-X (formerly Auction.com) promotes Rick Sharga to CMO

Rick ShargaFrom HousingWire.com

Ten-X promotes Rick Sharga to chief marketing officerRespected industry veteran to lead marketing efforts for rebranded Auction.com

“In this role, Sharga will utilize his “unique blend” of real estate, technology and consumer marketing experience to lead corporate marketing, branding and corporate communications for Ten-X, the company said in a press release.

Sharga is a well-respected voice in the housing industry, and frequently appears on HousingWire, both as a source of perspective and as a contributor.

In his new role, Sharga will oversee corporate marketing and communications for the rebranded Auction.com.”

Congrats Rick!

Martin

MLK

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr 1929- 1968

Greater San Diego Association of REALTORS AOR sues SANDICOR

Andrea Brambila from Inman NewsRealtor association sues its own MLS, accusing anti-trust violations

“GSDAR also objected to a data-share agreement between Sandicor and CRMLS, also announced Thursday. In the complaint, GSDAR’s attorneys claimed agreement “threatens to destroy and devalue Sandicor’s most valuable asset: its database.”

CRMLS CEO Art Carter told Inman that was not a fair statement.

“The value of the database in CRMLS’s opinion is derived by how many eyeballs can be placed upon that data and from our standpoint a datashare increases the value of the database, not decreases,” he said.

He confirmed that CRMLS and Sandicor have been in merger talks since November 2012, with the most recent meeting taking place this week.

“From CRMLS’s standpoint the enthusiasm in the room seemed to indicate to us that there was a lot of support from their brokerage community in having a merger occur,” Carter said.”

Sounds like GSDAR has be sipping some “cray cray” juice from South Florida.

MLS execs and vendors make Swanepoel Power 200 list of “the most powerful people in residential real estate”.

The Power List of 2016 SP200

“What makes the SP200 unique is that we have integrated in one list (Power 200) all the different types of leaders in the real estate industry, even though they succeed and/or serve in different sectors of our industry. Some have entrepreneurial power or financial strength, some hold high office and have positional power, while others have political clout and some have personal power. We also provide 8 additional lists showcasing the top 20 leaders in each of their respective fields.”

It was great to see so many MLS execs and vendors make the list. I apologize if I missed anyone.

Bob Hale
Dale Ross
David Charron
Chris Bennett
Rich Lull
Errol Samuelson
Paul Levine
Art Carter
Teresa King Kinney
Marty Frame
Jim Harrison
Victor Lund & Marilyn
Merri Jo Cowen
Gregg Larson
Brian Boero & Marc Davison
Rebecca Jensen
Kathy Condon
Michael Wurzer
Denee Evans
Morgan Carey
Mitchell Skinner #200 (yay Mitch!)

Also a personal thank you to Stefan for including me on the list again this year. I’m up 3 notches this year (#196), which means I should be at number one in 65 years. : )

I also thought it was pretty classy to include an “In Memoriam” section which mentioned Andy Rapattoni.

Matrix users top 500,000

Matrix By CoreLogic Exceeds Half a Million Users

““This is a truly momentous milestone,” said Chris Bennett, general manager of Real Estate Solutions for CoreLogic. “Historically, the MLS industry has been fractured by many competing vendors, with no one system able to emerge as the dominant standard. Matrix has changed that.”

The 500,000 figure does not include accounts where Matrix operates in parallel with another multiple listing platform, nor does it include clients in the Matrix implementation queue, which represents more than 100,000 additional users.”

If I had to pick one of the smartest acquisitions in the modern MLS industry CoreLogic buying Tarasoft would have to be one of the top 3. Think about it. Where would CoreLogic be without it? A huge congratulations to Chris Bennett and his team, its easy to see why Chris is receiving many accolades, including being listed on Swanepoel’s POWER 200 of “The Most Powerful People in Residential Real Estate 2016”

MRIS and TREND to combine data feed

MRIS and TREND Announce Combined Real Estate Content Feed

“Last fall, MRIS and TREND announced their intention to consolidate their MLSs to create the next era of MLS that will preserve compensation and cooperation, promote the expansion of an orderly and efficient marketplace and provide brokerage firms greater control of and access to their listing content. MRIS and TREND are starting now to find concrete ways to serve the combined brokerage community. The first product to be delivered will be a new feed with listing content from both MLSs.”

Another blow to the narrative that MLS providers aren’t serving or listening to the needs of their (big) brokers members.

“When brokerages operate across multiple marketplaces, they must aggregate information from multiple data feeds, apply the appropriate display rules for each MLS, and pay redundant technology costs, all in order to have a unified IDX search on their own websites or improve brokerage operations,” said Sandra Troccoli, Director of Information Technology & Website Services for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices (BHHS) Homesale Realty. “This is a new opportunity that will reduce technology costs and cumbersome management of duplicate feeds. It highlights the importance of MLS consolidation from a technology standpoint.”

Moves like this and CRMLS and MLSListings’ previous announcement are showing that MLS providers can come up with ways to address the concerns of big brokers. But big brokers must make MLS providers part of the solution.

News Corp promotes Celeste Starchild.

From Inman News, Celeste Starchild promoted to SVP of professional software at Move

“In her expanded role, she helps drive Move’s family of professional software offerings ranging from lead generation and response tools to CRM and transaction management,” said Move in a statement, adding that Starchild will continue to serve as ListHub’s general manager.”

Looks like she also keep her current responsibilities at ListHub as well.

Congrats to Celeste!

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