“We’re honored to be nominated for this prestigious award,” said Chris Bennett, general manager of real estate solutions for CoreLogic. “Helping multiple listing organizations achieve RESO certification was the catalyst for developing Trestle, but the vision has become so much more. For multiple listing organizations, Trestle provides data standardization, distribution control, contract management, and fee processing. We’re already in discussions with several third parties who want to deliver their content via the Trestle marketplace and API. For brokers, Trestle offers a single source for all their listing data, as well as access to unique CoreLogic property content that the big portals don’t have. For technology providers, Trestle provides access to a national data source and the opportunity for greater innovation. The idea is to make working with real estate data easier than it’s ever been.”
Congrats to CoreLogic on this nomination. I still think adding some sort of permissioning default would make it a homerun.
Mike Wurzer, CEO of FBSMike Wurzer must be rolling his eyes every time he reads Inman News lately. Its 2016 and the industry has finally caught up with him and his company, FBS. Back in May of 2012 (yes you read that correctly, 4 years ago) FBS announced its Spark Platform, which includes the Spark API. Which gave software developers two great things, an easy way to get MLS data and permission to sell their products to any of their flexmls customers. The Spark API allowed us to get Cloud CMA up in running in “long tail” MLS markets that we may not have served due to size or some other challenge.
Now, along with AMP, two others have joined the fray. Zillow and CoreLogic. Zillow with its Retsly Connect initiative and CoreLogic with its Trestle initiative. So since a big component of these initiatives is to target software developers to make cool stuff, and I happen to run a software company that makes cool stuff I thought I would give a quick run down of the pros and cons of each.
AMP PROS:
Owned by NAR. RPRs effort to provide a back-end database to MLS providers has announced they have MLS providers representing over 200,000 agents interested in AMP. That’s a lot of agents, and as a software company I like the size of that market. CONS:
Owned by NAR. Nobody that I know have has seen any API documentation, and it still isn’t clear how the revenue model would work for 3rd party software developers integrating with AMP.
Zillow’s Retsly Connect PROS:
Owned by Zillow. Sexy technology, we used their Public Records API in Cloud Streams and were impressed. Retsly Connect looks equally cool, and lots of bells and whistles I think MLS providers would like (which is why I think Bob Hale signed up). CONS:
Owned by Zillow. They have a chicken and egg problem. They currently have only 6 MLS providers signed up (and I think a third of them are in Canada). So, they are going to need to get some sort of traction for developers to write for the platform, but also need more coverage to entice developers to do so.
CoreLogic’s Trestle PROS:
Big company. Knows data. They have over 300 MLS databases. Some of them the largest MLS providers in the country. That a HUGE market potential. If the Spark API provided the “long tail” MLS markets, CoreLogic would provide the freaking Elephant. CONS:
Big company. Not launching until Q3 of this year. No API info, no revenue model announced.
For the record our plans at W+R Studios is to be platform agnostic and make our products work on any platform our customers want. But, I still want to give
a couple words of advice:
1. Try and stay away from an App Store model. I’ve been a big proponent of an “Agent App Store” in the past but it has been very brutal to get agents to change their purchasing behavior. Maybe in the post “front end of choice” world things might change, but that’s a big if.
2. Your initiative must include data access rights AND permission to sell. Make it an opt-out for MLS providers. One without the other will not scale. If I build something fast and it takes 6 months to get approval from your MLS committee to sell it, then these initiatives are essentially worthless.
In the end competition is a good thing. I think the next few years are going to be very exciting times for real estate technology. Sometimes all it takes is just a spark.
“Chris Bennett, general manager of real estate solutions at CoreLogic, commented that “The industry’s progress with RESO standardization was the perfect invitation to re-imagine the best possible solution, one that delivers both MLS content and CoreLogic property and analytic information content to support the industry’s expanding needs.”
Bennett also noted that “Because CoreLogic already aggregates and normalizes data for more than 300 MLS platforms, we have the scale and capacity to rapidly deploy Trestle, whether an MLS is on a CoreLogic platform or uses another vendor’s system or is even a homegrown solution.”
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.
CoreLogic held their User Group Summit in Huntington Beach this year. So we hosted a party for user group summmit attendees at the W&R Studios World Headquarters on Main Street, just a few blocks from their conference hotel. The theme of the party was “Handcrafted Cocktails”. We had two hipster bartenders, great food and a DJ playing nothing but vinyl all night. It was a HUGE success. My thanks to Frances Brittle, W&R Studios’ Director of Marketing, and her team for making this such a special night. Also a big thanks to Kim McLean, Rich Paulson, and Chris Bennett for their generosity.
“This data is a gold!”
“We’ll package this up and sell it to Wall Street and make a fortune!”
“Just give us your data and you won’t have to pay a thing!”
“Big data! Big data! Big data!”
I’ve heard various versions of the above statements made many many times in this industry. But in all those years there doesn’t seem to be much to back it up.
She highlights RPR and CoreLogic’s InfoNet. CoreLogic does put out some real numbers, they say that their revenue share split exceeded 1 million dollars last year. Which is decent, but not really living up to the hype.
And then there’s this gem.
“In May, NAR’s board of directors voted to dip into reserves to boost spending on RPR to $21.9 million a year for the next three years, partially in order to support the release of RPR mobile apps. Between 2009 and 2014, NAR spent a total $98.9 million on RPR, an amount that is projected to rise to $120.8 million by the end of 2015 and $142.7 million by the end of 2016.
In the four years since its launch, RPR has struggled to make money, generating a total of $586,270 in revenue from data analytics as of December 2013.”
Funny how you never see that info on the “Realtors Property Resource CEO Update”.
“During his career, McAvoy has held positions in both development and management for real estate software firms, where he has been instrumental in delivering solutions for agents, brokers and other real estate professionals. He has product experience with MLS Platforms, agent and broker websites, customer relationship management (CRM) applications, data sharing, document and transaction management, and more.”
Nice get for Black Knight. You have to wonder whether Ben Graboske has his eyes on anyone else?
I had also heard that John Koch, who did a lot of CoreLogic’s RETS and data work has left the company. Not to a competitor, but to open a Brewery in Montana. Sounds like it was a tough decision. ; )
Ben Graboske has left CoreLogic and now at Black Knight as their CTO. Ben had previously been CTO of MOVE, Inc. , and First American RES. Besides having great taste is software Ben is well liked in the industry. So I’ll spare him all the Monty Python jokes.
