Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Tom Ferry partners with Contactually for the “Tom Ferry CRM”

Via Inman News…

Real estate coach Tom Ferry launches ‘The Hub,’ a CRM and tech suite

“Ferry’s new set of products is called The Hub. The suite includes the new CRM, a referral network informed by an algorithm, video role plays to practice different situations in real estate and tools for business planning and activity tracking.

The main innovation of Ferry’s CRM — appropriate for his role as chief real estate coach — is that it allows real estate coaches to log on and see a version of the CRM with personal client information stripped away to track how their real estate agent clients are doing.

That anonymized view allows coaches to directly see what their agents are doing instead of relying on what agents tell them.

Besides that, the Tom Ferry CRM shares most of its features with Contactually’s other CRMs.

“We’ve been providing the system, the tech part of it. Now what this does is marry that with the coaching side of things,” Contactually CEO Zvi Band told Inman.”

Really, really smart. By blending what Tom Ferry does so well with what Contactually does so well they have created a truly unique experience/product.

The issue that companies like RE/MAX and Keller Williams are going to face is that real estate software is getting better. And franchisors are going to have to compete with solutions like this. With adoption of franchisor provided technology hovering between 8%-10%, and 3rd party software getting better, I don’t care if you call yourself a “technology company” or not, adoption is going to be tough battle.

Congrats to Tom Ferry and big congrats to Zvi and the amazing team at Contactually. Love the innovative thinking behind this effort.

BOOST – The MLS Staff Summit

W+R Studios is hosting the “BOOST-MLS Staff Summit“. Join the crew at W+R Studios for 2 days of intensive Cloud Agent Suite learning, networking, and training on how to Boost your MLS career. We’ll take care of room and board so get your ticket and yourself to Huntington Beach and we’ll handle the rest!

This event isn’t for CEO or leadership, but for those in the trenches working with agents in the training and support departments of the MLS providers.

Boost is hosted by W+R Studios, the creative team behind Cloud CMA and we believe in working hard and having fun. ????

All that’s required is to buy a ticket. Room and board are on us! Plus we promise to keep you entertained.

Tickets are very limited. To order tickets or find out more information please click the link below:

BOOST- MLS STAFF SUMMIT

ShowingTime

My thanks to ShowingTime for sponsoring Vendor Alley. ShowingTime is the Showing Management and MarketStats technology provider for 900,000 real estate agents in more than 250 MLSs.

MLSs, listing offices and agents that use ShowingTime make it easy for agent to schedule showings. Their MarketStats product hailed as “The best in the country in showing statistics”, by Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist for the National Association of REALTORS(R).

Recently they added a new sales executive, Maria Burud. Maria joined the company as their Senior Vice President of Sales. Previously Maria worked at ADP, Infinium Software and Placeware. You can read more about Maria here. Welcome to the industry Maria!

Thanks again to Michael and Scott for your sponsorship.

Zillow gets a broker license and buys a mortgage company

From Inman News…

Zillow gets broker’s license in Arizona, but has ‘no plans’ to represent homebuyers and sellers

Zillow is getting a broker’s license in Arizona, but it has no plans to begin hiring real estate agents anytime soon, and it will continue to rely on other brokerages to represent it as it wades further into homebuying and selling transactions, according to Errol Samuelson, the chief industry development officer at Zillow Group.

Samuelson made the comments in an interview with Inman on Monday, regarding Zillow’s just-announced acquisition of Mortgage Lenders of America, a mortgage lender that will help Zillow expand beyond its initial informational and home search purposes and provide home searchers with more services to convert them into homebuyers, directly on Zillow’s popular namesake website.

I wasn’t sure if there was going to be a massive freakout over this piece of news or not. You never know with Zillow. But so far it looks like a nothing sandwich.

From the two articles on Inman News I only see a total of 7 comments, one of them from the above article and 6 on another article focusing on the mortgage company acquisition.

Maybe they didn’t need to replace Jay Thompson?

Underdog?

High praise from Mr. Brad Inman on our new Cloud Investor Connect feature in Cloud CMA.

In real estate’s tech platform race, I’m betting on an underdog as brokerages square off against Zillow and Redfin, small startup W+R Studios’ Cloud CMA could be the viral hit like this summer’s Shiggy dance

But I got my eye on a third potential and fledgling platform coming out of nowhere by two likeable entrepreneurs who have been building real estate software for 25 years. Greg Robertson and Dan Woolley dub their company W+R Studios. Its signature product is Cloud CMA, which does comparative market analysis for agents to deliver to home sellers.

It’s software does 260,000 CMAs a month.

Here is the hook that could propel their company. The southern California firm added a new instant offer feature to their product last month, so when presenting the CMA the agent can also point the home seller to an instant offer alternative from investors and iBuyers.

It is being tested in Los Angeles with signs that it might be a breakaway product — maybe even a platform.

You can imagine most agents in the country using the software someday with all of the big Wall Street iBuyers and local investors participating on the Cloud CMA platform. It sports an easy to deploy API for investors and a friendlier-than-Mr. Rogers user experience.

Nice way to start a week. Dan and I want to thank Brad for his kind words (no pressure!). And also Art Carter and CRMLS for serving as our first “sandbox” of sorts. Plus our other MLS partners that have helped Cloud CMA to grow in to one of real estate’s most popular products.

So far our tests in Southern California for the past two weeks have gone better than expected. Agents love the experience, and are giving us great feedback. I’m happy to share some of our results, just contact me directly.

Kevin Hughes joins BoxMLS as new CEO

BoxMLS Press Release

“Today, BoxMLS, a real estate technology company providing search and collaboration tools, announced the appointment of Kevin Hughes as Chief Executive Officer. He will assume responsibilities immediately and will succeed Brad Davis, who will continue as Chief Technology Officer.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this team of talented professionals,” said Hughes. “BoxMLS is truly taking the industry in a positive direction.” Chief Operating Officer and board chairman Jason Fayollat described Hughes as “a bold, battle-tested industry expert who will lead our charge into the national real estate technology landscape.”

It should also be noted that Kevin’s brother, Eric Hoglund, had previously joined BoxMLS back in December of last year. Can you say PRESTIGE WORLDWIDE!?

Congrats to Kevin and BoxMLS.

Zillow responds, calls Upstream “protectionist”

The shit is hitting the fan with the DOJ/FTC comments

Andrea Brambila, writing for Inman News

Zillow Strikes Back, Bashing Upstream and CAR in public regulator comments

“Zillow noted there are various barriers to listing data access that the company deemed “protectionist.”

“Some large brokerages refuse to provide all their listings to Zillow. If sellers understood that their fiduciaries were restricting data from appearing on the largest real estate site in the U.S., they would likely be upset. Initiatives like Upstream make the potential for such behavior more feasible and commonplace,” the company said.”

I agree. No matter the responses from Upstream, it’s always been about control of listing data. When Craig Cheatham, announced at the CMLS Conference in 2013 that “You’ve got 10 days!”, the sentiment wasn’t “You have 10 days, before we eliminate the need for double entry!”. It was, “You have 10 days before we start yanking our data!”

Mark Lesswing out at NAR

Letter from Bob Goldberg sent out today….

With the creation of our Strategic Business Innovation and Technology (SBIT) team, it became increasingly clear to me that NAR’s need for a Chief Technology Officer and the advanced skill level that Mark Lesswing provided was no longer required, so we have eliminated that position as of today. Making reductions in the workforce is never easy, and I trust that you will join me in acknowledging the great contributions Mark made to NAR over the past 17 years and in wishing him great success in the next chapter of his career.

Mark is an incredibly talented guy with an enormous curiosity and really one of the nicest people I’ve met in the industry. I always enjoy seeing what the guys at CRT are working on. I have a CRT Labs sticker on the MacBook Pro I’m writing on now.

These transitions are tough, but sometimes the best thing too. Good luck to Mark on his continuing adventures.

Get off my lawn!!

When I see Gary Keller on stage trying to school Brad Inman, or brokers yelling at new companies complaining about their business models, you can deduce only one thing. They are scared shitless. They ought to be. The new entrants don’t give two shits about the old guard.

You think the hyperbole and lies are at an all-time high? I couldn’t agree with you more. Why? Well, I think it starts from the top. But hey, the economy, right?

But, I digress.

You are seeing this everywhere. Zillow vs. Opendoor. Corelogic vs. Remine. Traditional brokers vs. Compass, and anyone else who got a check from a V.C. The times they are a changing.

Arguing over percentage points, or throwing a bunch of props around on stage, is not going to change things. Things are going get bloody. Guarantee it.

My advice to the old guard, get over yourself. You gotta to find new ways to win. So quit complaining and get to work. I mean, how bad could it be?

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