Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Signal by 1000watt – Be there!

Have you bought your tickets to 1000watt’s Signal conference yet? I’ll be there. I went last year too, when it was held at Gilley’s in Dallas, TX. Great content, great people. This year’s Signal conference will be held June 2-4 in Denver, CO. I think for any MLS organization that wants to fire up a creative spark, or to do some professional development for their marketing and training departments, it would be money well spent.

I also hear they are also going to add a special breakout session for MLS. I’ll report more on that as we get closer to the conference.

In the meantime, they are holding a live webinar tomorrow that’s an exclusive preview of the event, hosted by Brian Boero, Marc Davison, and Jessica Swesey. They will walk through:

  • What this year’s program is designed to do (and why it matters now)
  • A look at the speaker lineup and the talks they’re most excited about
  • The hotels they recommend (and why proximity matters)
  • How to make the most of your time in Denver

That’s live tomorrow, March 6th, 12PM PT. Register for the webinar here. Buy tickets to the event here.

Maine Listings get new identity

Maine Listings Unveils New Brand Identity and Strategy to Reinforce Real Estate Data Leadership

“At Maine Listings, we’re not just moving with the industry. We’re committed to redefining what customer-centricity looks like, as our commitment to customer success is our north star,” said Denise Libby, CEO of Maine Listings.

“This new brand look reflects who we are today: humble and friendly, yet proud and sophisticated. It’s a visual symbol of how we blend rural beauty and hometown values with modern technology, always putting people first,” she added.”

You can see it in its natural habitat on their website.

Stop and look at the thing

Some Friday fun. If you want to get a peek in to what I find inspiring here you go.

Hotel Shower Design

Since a lot of my readers are frequent travelers I think venting here a bit on some of the frustrations of traveling will be well received. I want to focus on a pet peeve of mine, hotel personal hygiene gels. I’m talking about Shampoo, Conditioner, and Body Wash.

For about the last 10 years I’ve been afflicted with the ICSS disease. Meaning, “I Can’t See Shit”. I’m able to see far away but I need readers to read anything with small text. Which is fine most of the time, I have my progressive lenses on my glasses so I’m able to adapt. But one place I don’t wear my glasses is the shower. And in the shower I’m confronted with this.

Can you guess which one is Shampoo and which is Body Wash? It’s bad enough the text is too small for me to read, but the contrast and color choice between the bottle and text is so bad it makes it even more unreadable. See below of a closer look.

Someone should be fired. And don’t get me started with those teeny tiny bottles, the text is too small on those too! So what is a frequent traveler to do? Enter my trusty Sharpie.

To the ownership of the Courtyard by Marriott and their next hotel guest in room number 211, you’re welcome.

Doing the right thing

FTC Sues Adobe, The Legal Question, The Value of Doing Right

“More generally, what bothers me about this case is the moral component; I assume this entire purchase flow has been A/B tested to death, and that the current configuration makes the most money, at least across whatever timeline is being considered. However, did anyone at Adobe stop and consider why that might be? Is there any answer other than, some number of users won’t be careful enough and will buy the wrong plan, and then get hit with a large fee, which will either drive revenue on its own or convince the user to begrudgingly not cancel, driving more revenue going forward? Even leaving aside the long-term hit to the brand’s reputation, what about doing the right thing?”

Ben Thompson, Stratechery

Stratechery is probably my favorite newsletter/podcast. And I love the Dithering podcast he does with Apple nerd John Gruber. Worth the money. Ben Thompson is a business strategist and his “aggregation theory” has multiple ramifications in real estate. John Gruber’s blog Daring Fireball was a big inspiration when I started Vendor Alley.

This article struck me in a couple ways. You should go read it. I think one of the main things that made Cloud CMA so successful was the ability for customers to “self-serve”, meaning they didn’t have to book a demo with a sales person to see pricing and order the product directly. Basically, customers could just go to the website, put a credit card in and boom start using Cloud CMA right away. Cheers to Dan Woolley for making this complicated process seem so easy. So I can say that I have been a part of the design process of close of 100 different landing pages in regard to pricing. So I know all the ways and the “dark patterns” that some companies used to trick their customers in to signing up without really knowing what they are signing up for. This also Includes hiding/burying the cancel button. In fact when Dan and I started W+R Studios one of our main tenets was we were going to make it easy for agents to cancel their subscription. We needed that trust so if we came up with a new product they would be willing to try us again.

We weren’t always perfect, it can be a tough balance, but I can say that it is something we were very conscious of, doing the right thing.

So that got me thinking. We have all been struggling with #NARsettlement. Transparency, commissions, concessions, buyers agreements, touring agreements, etc. I think largely centered around how close to the status quo can we keep things?

So if you are a real estate broker/agent and you are entering in to a business relationship with a homebuyer, what would be the right thing to do in regard to disclosure? Can we all work backwards from that?

Addresses in Japan

Japanese addresses: No street names. Block numbers.

“Mailing addresses in Japan, after naming the province and city, are a series of three numbers: district number, block number, building number. That’s how the building is found. No street names.”

Derek Sivers

I thought the nerdy readers of Vendor Alley would love this.

Stuart White, CEO of Realtracs, on why the MLS will continue

A couple of things from Stuart’s opinion post on Inman News I thought were interesting.

“The network effect has provided a dependable listing and buying network — creating a singular destination where an area’s buyers and listings are in the same place. The network effect has always been more important to consumers (and professionals) than publishing compensation and will continue to benefit consumers (and professionals) after the settlement. “

Stuart White

We don’t really think about how much the network effect matters in our business. We are just so used to it.

“MLSs must continue to make platforms easier to use. Designing an accessible and intuitive interface with user-friendly features allows seamless navigation, as both real estate professionals and consumers will be seeking enhanced productivity and efficiency. By making their products more accessible, MLSs reinforce their role as indispensable tools and empower users to achieve their goals with ease.”

Stuart White

Making MLS system easier to use has been a thing since I started in the business in 1992. I believe the industry has done a good job with point solutions based on features of MLS systems, but coming up with a new take on a MLS system itself is something I think about a lot.

Trackxi adds integration with Earnnest

Trackxi partners with Earnnest

“This partnership underscores our commitment to innovation and excellence in simplifying earnest money deposits for real estate professionals and buyers. We’re crafting a new benchmark for simple, efficient transactions, with an unwavering focus on convenience.” 

– Russell Smith, President & COO, Earnnest

Great to see. Two of my favorite apps! Congrats Vijay and Russell!

Delight

This is an example of what it means when your product “delights” your customers. h/t: Pomp

This is a teenager

You gotta check this site out. Just start scrolling when you get to the site. Love this blending of storytelling, data analysis. I would love to see this type of data visualization be used when we talk about housing.

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