Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Nationstar rising…

Interesting analysis about Nationstar, RED’s new owner.

Nationstar moves one step closer to total mortgage market domination
Jacob Gaffney, HousingWire.com

“Nationstar is moving one step closer to total mortgage market domination.

During the call, Bray discussed at length the acqusition of digital real estate marketplace Real Estate Digital, expected to close in the next quarter. RED is a fee-based real estate services company that provides online marketing, data, transaction management and digital media solutions.

“We intend to utilize RED’s capabilities to build HomeSearch 2.0, which will include search functionality and industry-leading residential real estate data,” he said. “This data will allow consumers, realtors and investors to research properties and more importantly, transact in a number of ways.”

In the end, Nationstar expects to provide end-to-end real estate and mortgage services with exceptional customer service, which will deliver “a customer for life,” Bray said.

In other words, total mortgage domination.

Search, sell, list, buy, title — you name it and Nationstar is going to provide it through its HomeSearch.com platform.

“Our macro goal is to capture a fee component of as many U.S. real estate transactions as possible,” Bray said.

Sounds like Zillow 3.0

And at another point in the call he adds this gem:

“We see an opportunity to leverage our heritage as a non-agency servicer to provide financial solutions to the developing market that could include portions of the nearly 68 million under-banked consumers and 72 million millenials in the United States. We are currently evaluating non-agency and expanded purchase mortgage strategies.”

That’s loads of money waiting to be had and Bray is convinced his company has an honest shot at a big portion of it.

And from what I know about Nationstar, he very well might be right.

I’m not too versed on banker speak, what does “non-agency and expanded purchase mortgage strategies mean”? I hope it doesn’t mean, what I think it means.

Thanks for the heads up @tcar

Errol Samuelson leaves for Zillow

Holy shit, things just got real.  If you haven’t heard the news Errol Samuelson, former President of REALTOR.com and chief strategy officer for MOVE, Inc. just announced he left to join Zillow as their Chief Industry Development Officer.  Details are sketchy but here’s what I’ve been able to dig up.

1.  It was a total blindside.  Not even Errol’s closest friends knew.
2.  This represents a tectonic shift in the industry.  Unlike like the other poaching that Zillow and Trulia have been doing this represents a whole other level.  Brilliant move by Zillow.
3.  I don’t think it was just about money.  But I’ll save that analysis for another post.

From a larger sense I think that Zillow was losing ground to Trulia. To me Trulia was winning the “industry friendly” game.  Zillow didn’t seem to care, hell I don’t think I know anyone that thinks Bemis got a fair shot.  That has cost them.  Seems that industry relations does matter and Zillow is coming back around to understand that.

But the more interesting narrative I think is this, what does Errol know, that we don’t know?  This kind of move doesn’t happen without something else lurking out there.  And that’s the real story.

 

Developing….

 

UPDATE:

Move, Inc. Announces Curt Beardsley Has Been Promoted To Executive Vice President Of Industry Development; Errol Samuelson Resigns

“Zillow! Zillow!!! Zillow!!!”

Gulp!

MetroList Services sends a convoy of REALTORS to NAR Expo in San Francisco.

“‘Cause we got a little ‘ole convoy
Rockin’ through the night
Yeah, we got a little ‘ole convoy
Ain’t she a beautiful sight
C’mon and join our Convoy
Ain’t nothin’ gonna get in our way
We gonna roll this truckin’ convoy
‘Cross the USA
Convoy
Convoy”
-Convoy- C.W. McCall

MetroList Services is the largest MLS provider, geographically, in the state of California. This year they organized a bus tour where they brought over 650 MetroList members to the NAR Expo in San Francisco. How did they do it? Well Rubber Ducky they organized themselves a convoy!

I can’t think of any other MLS provider that has come close to bringing this many of their members to a national (or state) event. You gotta hand it to Dave Howe and Bill Miller for making this happen. NAR should give these guys some sort of medal or something.

Check out this video they put together highlighting the trip:

Listing Syndication Cage Match…not really

Matt Cohen has a great (if not wonkish) post about the ListHub / NAMLS kerfufel. With input from Luke Glass, from ListHub and Kipp Cooper from North Alabama MLS (NAMLS) Matt does a good job of getting down to the nitty gritty of things. Good read for anyone wanting a better understanding of the situation.

Methods of Real Estate Listing Syndication: Point – Counterpoint

After reading the post I came away with feeling that the issues that NAMLS has don’t really warrant creating something new from scratch. While Kipp has some genuine concerns I would think to work within the system, instead of outside, would be a better tactic. My guess is that he has some brokers/agent that have never understood how ListHub works, and that lack of understanding leads to fear.

That being said you have to look at this as a wakeup call for ListHub. Luke calls the 4 main concerns about ListHub “myths”. Telling someone they are wrong is not a good way to start a conversation.

Nextdoor, a social network for neighborhoods, raises 60 million.

I’ve written about Nextdoor before. No revenue yet, but these guys now have 90 million in the bank and Zillow’s co-founder Rich Barton on their board. I like the idea here, connecting online with your neighbors. Seems a little counter intuitive (why not just say hello instead?). But with everyone as busy as they are it seems that making a connection online is great way to start a relationship (online neighboring?). Here’s a quote from their CEO Nirav Tolia.

“And Mr. Tolia says Nextdoor is adding members at a healthy clip and believes it can fill the information void left by the erosion of local newspaper readership and local television viewing. The company is also attracting classified ads, robust discussions on its message boards about everything from crime to local businesses and services, and becoming a forum for neighbors to meet one another.”

Russ ask’s “Can you live without the MLS?”

c_v10i21_coverGreat and timely article about the value of the MLS, featuring our very own Russ Bergeron! It speaks mostly to syndication and “pocket listings” but is very relevant to the recent discussions regarding the role of MLS providers. I think this quote from Russ is very succinct…

“‘While many agents appreciate the rules of the MLS, many do not necessarily believe any group should be legislating how a broker serves a client. And Bergeron agrees. “MRED has no interest in controlling the business model of any broker. Our job is to ensure that there is compliance with our rules,’ he says.”

Clareity publishes Realty Alliance’s rant list.

Craig Cheatham
Craig Cheatham
Gregg Larson has compiled the list of “MLS practices that are likely to create/increase conflict between MLSs and participant firms” that Craig Cheatham, CEO of The Realty Alliance, rushed through on stage last week at CMLS’ annual conference in Boise, ID.

Eliminating MLS and Broker Conflict

The Realty Alliance and some other large brokers and franchises have invested money in R&D on a project that could dramatically affect MLS and several vendors that were in the room know the details of this project but are under NDA so they are not talking about it. And no, technology is not a hurdle.

Eight11 launches full-service agency for MLS companies.

eight-eleven-logoLooks like Tracy Weir has been busy. After leaving Inman News she started a company called Eight11, which does consulting. On the Eight11 blog she has also been doing a great job of reviewing products in the real estate space. Tracy is now focusing her efforts on helping MLS providers with their own product offerings.

She plans on meeting with MLS providers at the CMLS 2013 in Boise this week. I asked her what she sees as opportunities and she replied:

Help launch and market products for technology companies and MLSs. For technology companies, that means positioning, messaging, outreach and full-service marketing communications. For MLSs, that means helping to adequately promote a new product (or repositioning or relaunching an existing product) and then doing all the things we do for technology clients for an MLS’s membership. The goal is to help products that are sold by technology companies get adopted by agents, so if MLSs happen to be in the mix, we can be like an extension of the MLS marketing team to strategize AND get stuff done.

Full service marketing communications: That means putting together all the high level stuff (like a strategic plan, creative ideation, branding, positioning, messaging) and then actually DOING the stuff, like website design, programming, SEO and content, social media campaigns; content marketing; email campaigns; print materials; print and digital advertising; event planning, production and communications; and all the other bric a brac people use to market themselves.

If Eight11 can help sell more products to agents through MLS providers, then we all win.

Blood, sweat and tears. FBS, LPS and Matrix battle it out.

128517-004-9C29193AOn paper, a subscription business is very easy. You have new subscribers, existing subscribers and cancelled subscribers. Easy, right? The trick is to acquire as many new subscribers as you can (without breaking the bank) and keep them for as long as possible. But the enemy of any subscription business is churn. And this is at the heart of the battle of MLS vendors today.

I see several trends emerging. A lot of these numbers are based on my observations and “back of the envelope” math. So feel free to tell me I’m full of shit in the comments.

1. Churn baby, churn. It looks like, in regards to churn, FBS is winning. Said another way, FBS is keeping more of their existing customers while gaining additional customers. This is very difficult and something they should be very proud of.

2. Shift happens. CoreLogic is fighting to keep it’s non-Matrix MLS system customers. Same thing is happening to Rapattoni and Solid Earth. Both are in rebuilding stages and are fighting to keep customers happy while they re-tool. FBS and LPS are attacking these opportunities and winning.

3. More shift. Due to the above reasons, when the dust settles, I think the top 3 MLS vendors (in regard to subscribers) are now, CoreLogic, LPS and FBS.

4. In-House MLS systems. Denver, Naples, and Knoxville are all converting to traditional MLS vendors. This is what you call a trend.

5. LPS lands a big one, Sandicor. This is more a threat to CoreLogic than anyone else. Big MLS providers were solely CoreLogic’s domain. But FBS and now LPS have proven they can play with the big boys.

6. Matrix is still the gorilla. And CoreLogic bundling strategy is still tough to beat. They won’t give us without a fight. But I’m already hearing grumbles about relying too much from one vendor.

So that’s the playing field from my point of view. Let’s try and keep in friendly.

Sponsored By Paragon Connect