Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

CoStar Group and other PE firms looking at CoreLogic takeover

CoStar Group, private equity firms vying to acquire CoreLogic: sources

“CoStar Group Inc CSGP.O and a private equity consortium led by Warburg Pincus and GTCR are among the bidders seeking to acquire U.S. property data and analytics company CoreLogic Inc CLGX.N, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.


The interest in CoreLogic comes after investment firms Cannae Holdings Inc CNNE.N and Senator Investment Group LP made a $7 billion offer for the company and launched a campaign to take over its board of directors.”

Yikes! Looks like Foley may have ripped open a wormhole in the commercial-residential time-space continuum. You have to believe CoStar, who already owns Apartments.com, is looking for more escape routes from the much talked about impending commercial real estate apocalypse.

Deal to acquire CoreLogic gets sweeter

CoreLogic Target Of Takeover Effort, Gets New, Bigger Offer

???? Developing…

CoreLogic rejects takeover bid

CoreLogic rejects takeover bid, calls it an “opportunistic proposal”

“In a statement, Irvine, Calif.-based CoreLogic today said its board of directors has “unanimously concluded that the unsolicited proposal significantly undervalues the company, raises serious regulatory concerns, and is not in the best interests of its shareholders.”
Chairman Folino said that his company is open to “all viable paths to increasing shareholder value,” and is willing to meet with Cannae and Senator. However, given what he described as CoreLogic’s “strong momentum, increasing margins and accelerating growth,” the company could deliver more value on its own.

He also noted that the proposal failed to address “the serious regulatory concerns” raised by significant overlaps between CoreLogic and the network of companies associated with Cannae’s chairman, including Black Knight and Fidelity National. Cannae is led by Bill Foley, the chairman of Black Knight, a data and analytics company that directly competes with CoreLogic.”

Looks like its gonna be a fight.

An investor group led by Bill Foley set to acquire CoreLogic

Cannae Holdings and Senator Investment Group Submit Proposal to Acquire CoreLogic

“We have followed the Company closely and have spent the last nine months performing extensive “outside-in” due diligence. Despite its strong market position as a provider of data and analytics for the real estate and mortgage industries, we believe the Company will not achieve its full potential under its current strategic plan. We therefore believe the proposed transaction is in the best interests of all the Company’s stakeholders.
Cannae and its affiliates in the proposed transaction are led by William P. Foley II (Bill Foley), a preeminent operator and investor with an established track record of successful acquisitions and value creation. Under Bill Foley’s leadership, we would seek to reignite growth at CoreLogic, increase operating efficiency, and improve overall allocation of scarce capital resources. Bill Foley has extensive experience transforming similar businesses and is uniquely positioned to strengthen the Company’s customer, financial, and employee relationships.

Holy Shit!

Of course, you know Bill Foley is also the chairman of Black Knight too. So in this scenario Matrix and Paragon would be under one roof.

And the deal is likely to happen…

“Please understand, however, as demonstrated by our sizable investment in the Company, that we are committed to this transaction. Senator has conducted a thorough study of the Company’s governance documents and the remedies available to all shareholders and is prepared to exercise our rights, including by calling a special meeting and soliciting proxies, for the benefit of the Company’s shareholders should that be necessary.”

Many people (and by people, I mean investors) believe that the current COVID crisis will accelerate rapid transformation in real estate. Bill Foley is a Grandmaster in chess at seizing crisis and making opportunity.

Beyond the COVID crisis itself, this is the biggest news in the MLS business this year (so far).

New Realist includes API for broker use

Leads, Love and Loyalty: Property-Centric Websites Consumers Can’t Resist

“Realist® is a property intelligence platform used by more than 860,000 professionals across the U.S., offering a holistic mix of proprietary, public record, listing and other property data for 99.9 percent of U.S. parcels. Realist offers the kind of in-depth property data consumers love—and it’s now available to use on broker websites for the very first time.

That’s right. CoreLogic® has just released an all-new version of Realist that includes an API for broker use. Now, brokers can easily obtain rich property data for their locale and publish it on their website. By giving consumers full property details for every home in their market, broker websites will rise in the search rankings and attract qualified web traffic. It’s a fantastic, low-cost way to create leads, brand stickiness and consumer loyalty.”

Hearing good things about the new Realist.

ShowingTime adds the option to schedule virtual showings.

Conducting Virtual Showings with ShowingTime

The spread of COVID-19 has affected almost every aspect of our lives. Communities have shown themselves to be resilient, however, and so too have real estate professionals. Responding to the challenge imposed by the pandemic to continue to serve their clients in a safe, responsible manner, agents have incorporated streaming video technology to offer showings while adhering to social distancing best practices.

I’m a little late to some of this news but I’m just loving how a lot of vendors are stepping up their game during this crisis. ShowingTime in particular. Adding a way to schedule virtual showings is a no-brainer. Plus the showing data they are tracking and publishing is fascinating.

Flexmls has a way for agents to schedule Virtual Open Houses. Remine has announced a soon to be launched feature to create a Live Open House via their mobile app.

MLS organizations like Stellar MLS are putting together handy guides to help their members show the different options they have in their Matrix MLS systems along with best practices.

Black Knight is also launching live streaming options as well.

I’m sure I’m missing a few other solutions here but it’s great to see the old proverb of necessity is the mother of invention come to life in the real estate space.

New Realist launches touting upgraded modern tech stack and “Sell Score”

Corelogic: Launches Next-Gen Realist

“Powered by a combination of proprietary, public record, and multiple listing data, the new Realist adds several functions to its extensive feature set, including a new ‘Sell Score’ that uses CoreLogic analytics to determine the relative likelihood that a property will be listed for sale in the next six months. Real estate agents can use the Sell Score to identify and market to owners who are more motivated to sell their home. Realist covers 99.9% of all U.S. property records across more than 3,100 counties, with access to over 500 million historical transactions and tax payment history for 145 million proper”

There are lots of products out there now that “predict” the likelihood a property will be “listed to sell in the next X months”. It would be interesting to compare the same neighborhood with each product and see if there are any differences in predictions. Is it science, luck or a combination of both? Other factors to evaluate each product would be UI/UX, complementary feature sets, and of course, data.

Some of these solutions and products like Revaluate, use AI to look for life events that cause people to move such as “the 8 Ds”: Death, Divorce, Diapers, Diamonds, Diplomas, Discrentrionary Income and The Daily Grind, and Dumpsters rather than/along with MLS data.

But the biggest advantage I see with Realist is MLS integration (within Matrix accounts). The adoption struggle is real.

The counter to all this technology is simply the hard-working agent focused on their farm.

As the old saying goes, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

Restb.ai joins CoreLogic Alliance Network

I’m a big fan of Restb.ai. The work they have done on image recognition is amazing. I interviewed Dominik Pogorzelski, Restb.ai’s VP of Product and Operations on my Listing Bits podcast.

The use of image recognition for compliance in a listing input isn’t new. MRED did it first. I saw Chris Haran, CTO of MRED, demo this awhile back. It’s a great use case for this type of tech. But, the applications for image recognition in real estate are endless. Excited to see where this goes.

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Full Press Release Below:

— Computer Vision Solution Provider Restb.ai Joins CoreLogic Alliance Network —

CoreLogic Adds AI Photo Inspection to Listing Compliance Solution

IRVINE, Calif., Nov. 6, 2019—CoreLogic® (NYSE: CLGX), a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, today announced that Restb.ai™ has joined the CoreLogic Alliance Network and will integrate its AI image recognition technology with CoreLogic Listing Data Checker, the foremost data quality assurance and compliance solution for multiple listing organizations. The Alliance Network is an assembly of recommended third-party applications that are deeply integrated with CoreLogic Real Estate Solutions (RES).

The industry’s leading computer vision solution, Restb.ai uses artificial intelligence to automatically scan, identify and classify images containing a range of privacy and policy violations. Under the agreement,Restb.ai technology will be fully integrated with Listing Data Checker and offered as an optional photo compliance module that saves time and effort and can detect violations that humans miss.

“In the past, real estate listing photos had to be manually reviewed by staff for compliance with multiple listing rules,” said Amy Gorce, principal of Business Development for CoreLogic RES. “Listing Data Checker clients can now use AI-powered image recognition technology to automatically detect photos containing prohibited content, including people, license plates, yard signs, phone numbers, email addresses and more. It’s the ambitious, logical next step for our class-leading compliance solutions.”

“Images are an integral part of the listing and until now, image compliance has been an expensive human cost” said Dominik Pogorzelski, VP of Product for Restb.ai.  “We’re excited to work with CoreLogic to bring our AI technology to Listing Data Checker creating a complete listing compliance service and reducing the time and cost to get listings online and working for members and clients”.

“We’re very pleased to add Restb.ai to the Alliance Network,” said Chris Bennett, executive for CoreLogic RES. “CoreLogic is working with several leaders in the AI space to enhance the speed and accuracy of our solutions. AI is an important part of our strategy for real estate, and this is just the beginning.”

For more information, visit www.restb.ai.

About CoreLogic

CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX), the leading provider of property insights and solutions, promotes a healthy housing market and thriving communities. Through its enhanced property data solutions, services and technologies, CoreLogic enables real estate professionals, financial institutions, insurance carriers, government agencies and other housing market participants to help millions of people find, acquire and protect their homes. For more information, please visit www.corelogic.com.

CORELOGIC and the CoreLogic logo are trademarks of CoreLogic, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

Trestle Web API goes Platinum

CORELOGIC TRESTLE WEB API EARNS RESO PLATINUM CERTIFICATION

“Reaching the Platinum Web API standard is an important milestone for Trestle,” said Amy Gorce, principal of business development for CoreLogic Real Estate Solutions. “Platinum certification verifies that Trestle implements 100 percent of the RESO Web API functionality, providing maximum flexibility and interoperability. This achievement supports the efforts of clients and real estate technology providers to create a new class of solutions with on-demand access to the most up-to-date listing information available.”

We have had some limited interaction with CoreLogic’s Trestle group and I’ve been impressed with their responsiveness. I know the team wants to create something that will work in “the real world”.

I’m looking forward to RESO’s Fall Conference in a couple of weeks. I’m still not clear on how vendors, like W+R Studios, can help the effort. It seems that there is a lot of work to be done before vendors can start successfully using the new Web API. And I’m not sure where’s the bottleneck. Right now, I don’t see it being vendors.

CoreLogic – Real Estate

Not quite sure when this site (CoreLogic – Real Estate) was updated. My guess is was pretty recent, but I think they did a really great job. The site is nothing too flashy (no pun intended). It’s super simple to navigate and does a great job of showing all the different ways to work with CoreLogic. Great job!

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