“We’re thrilled to partner with RentBase and extend its rental management services to our many agents and brokers,” said Annie Ives, CEO of The MLS™/CLAW. “Rentals have become increasingly important in today’s market, but there is a lack of efficiency and transparency in the rental market. RentBase will help our agents overcome these barriers by managing and nurturing all their rental data and transactions, and converting renter leads to home sales.”
Another tool/solution I written about a lot is ways for agents to expand their business away from just homes for purchase to rental and property management. I think today’s real estate agent should be focused on “housing” not just one sliver of that pie.
There are many good tools in this space. I missed this press release from last month. RentBase caught my eye about a year ago. They are basically a CRM for rental leads and some other features. Noaam Blum is just the kind of founder I like, someone who built something that scratched his own itch. Check ’em out.
“Restb.ai AI services will be fully integrated into FMLS’s CoreLogic Matrix™ platform and CoreLogic OneHome™ client collaboration portal. Recently recognized as an Inman Innovator, Restb.ai’s generative AI will automatically extract data insights from property photos to streamline the listing input process. Using this same technology, once integrated, homebuyers can upload a photo in OneHome and search for listings with desired features, introducing a new dimension in property search.”
Two things I don’t think can happen fast enough for listing data are floorpans and image tagging. Both have challenges to implement. I feel like I’ve been writing and advocating for both for a few years now. And happy to see this type of progress on both efforts.
While the article talks about many of the use cases for image tagging I don’t think we know what the killer application of this tech will be yet. Sure ADA compliance is a good thing and yeah image match sound promising. But I still think there is something more here that will only be discovered by playing around with it and now because of this partnership it seems that they finally have the chance.
“Now, with Mortgage and Title vendors on the platform, communication with all parties involved is located in one central place, reducing the potential for duplicate data entry and increasing efficiency. The new release of Client Portal also includes document storage, file sharing, centralized communication and collaboration, as well as the ability to add and edit roadmap steps. This powerful combination of features promises to help real estate teams streamline and automate their workflows like never before, saving time and reducing the potential for errors.”
Okay, I admit it, I watch a lot of reality real estate television shows. Part of me hoping to see some agent using Cloud CMA on their computer screen or handing out one of our reports. But alas so far no million-dollar agent is on video using Cloud CMA. ☹️
But I have seen Sisu. Not surprisingly since a lot of these million-dollar agents run huge teams. Sisu provides a well-designed product that acts as “your real estate team operating system”, along with some great coaching options.
“We realized early on that when we would secure media placements for clients, we needed a tool to promote those articles that featured their products and services quickly, for an extended period of time as a sales tool,” said Audie Chamberlain, founder of Lion & Orb, in a statement. “With +AdStudio, we have really connected those dots, making digital advertising easy, cost-effective, and efficient to execute.”
Super smart. I think a lot of companies don’t know what to do once they get some publicity. Sure you can share on your personal and company social media but this takes it to a new level. And that’s just one of many use cases. I know that Audie has been working on this for a while. I’m super happy to see this launch. Congrats to Audio and the team at Lion & Orb.
“Today Chris Bennett and Amy Gorce announced the launch of PRESTA Team, a new company that will leverage their combined 60+ years of industry experience to provide consulting and advisory services in the real estate space. Throughout their careers, Chris and Amy have accumulated valuable insight into many aspects of organized real estate and aim to assist MLSs, Brokers, and Proptech companies strategically navigate through times of unprecedented competition and change.
PRESTA is an acronym, “Premier Real Estate Solutions and Technology Advisors“. There was certainly a hole left by ClareityConsulting when CoreLogic acquired them back in 2017. T3Sixty have been quick to try and fill the vacuum as well as WAV Group. I respect both Chris and Amy and know the industry will be a better place with their insights. I’m sure they are both nervous and excited about their new adventure and I can’t help but feel a little bit jealous of starting something new.
My best wishes to Chris and Amy, looking forward to seeing you both soon!
“Cambridge, ON and Dallas, TX – July 7, 2021 – Lone Wolf Technologies (“Lone Wolf”) and Minnesota Realtors® are pleased to announce a new agreement that brings real estate’s leading transaction management solutions, Lone Wolf Transactions (zipForm Edition) and Lone Wolf Transactions (TransactionDesk Edition), to the association’s 22,000 members as member benefits in 2022. The new agreement starts in September 2021.
“We’re happy to partner with Lone Wolf in providing digital form and transaction management tools to our members,” said Chris Gellar, CEO of Minnesota Realtors®. “These solutions put functionality and freedom of choice in our members’ hands and lets them spend more time servicing the needs of their clients.”
This is following a recent announcement that the California Association of REALTORS and the Texas Association of REALTORS (LOI) have also chosen to provide Lone Wolf’s Transaction Management Solutions as a free member benefit.
2021 RESO Executive Board: Chair: Rebecca Jensen, President and CEO, Midwest Real Estate Data, LLC (MRED) – re-elected Vice-Chair: Michael Wurzer, President and CEO, FBS, Creators of Flexmls – re-elected Secretary: Katie Smithson, Director of Enterprise Services, W+R Studios, a Lone Wolf Company – elected Treasurer: Richard Renton, CEO, Triad MLS – re-elected
Representing Technology Companies, Developers, Partners & Consultants with Revenue Over $25 Million: Scott Woodard, CEO, ShowingTime – elected Lucie Fortier, Executive Leader, Product Management, CoreLogic – appointed Turan Tekin, Director, MLS and Industry Development, Zillow Group – appointed
Representing Multiple Listing Services and REALTOR® Associations with Less Than 50,000 Subscribers: John Breault, Vice President of MLS and Member Services, Rhode Island Association of REALTORS® & State-Wide MLS, Inc. – elected Chris Carrillo, CEO, Metro MLS (Incumbent) – elected
Representing Class D, Real Estate Brokerages, Brokers, Agents & Appraisers: Bill Fowler, Senior Director of Industry Relations, Compass – elected Dan Troup, Director of Data Strategy & Operations, RE/MAX & Seventy3, LLC (Incumbent) – elected
RESO Board Advisors: Bob Evans – VP Industry Relations, Move.com Liz Tewksbury – Director of MLS Operations, Homesnap
Congratulations Katie Smithson and the rest of the RESO officers and directors. ????
With NWLAR, there are 15 diverse REALTOR Association Shareholders in the NTREIS family. The regional MLS contracts with vendors for services and wholesales to the Shareholders who provide direct services to their membership.
John Holley, CEO of NTREIS added, “Our decentralized model is attractive to Associations that wish to provide a high level of REALTOR services to their membership but have another entity to do the heavy lifting of the technology and data services of a multiple listing service.”
Makes sense. Fits NTREIS’ model, plus NWLAR members get to take advantage of NTREIS deep member services. These cross-state consolidations are becoming more common.
“In his nearly nine years with NNRMLS, Pickard has proven himself to be a leader. He’s played a crucial role in strategic planning, executive decision-making, data analysis, budgeting, negotiating, contracting, recruiting, project management, business development, policy, public speaking, marketing, and communications. Pickard is a driving force behind the implementation of the NNRMLS strategic vision, empowering team members and contractors, coordinating solutions with vendors and stakeholders, and fostering strong relationships with NNRMLS’ Shareholders to deliver world-class MLS services to our members.”
George Pickard
This isn’t the first time NNRMLS has promoted from within, Shelley Specchio (now CEO of MIBOR) was also promoted when Merri Jo Cowen left for the top spot at Stellar MLS (formerly My Florida Regional MLS).
Great gig for George. As mentioned above NNRMLS is known for being a creator of leaders in the industry.
“W+R Studios, whose flagship product is comparative market analysis software Cloud CMA, fielded the survey “2020 Survey of Best Practices for CMAs and Listing Presentations” online from May 18 to May 31. The company sent the survey to its 298,520 Cloud CMA agent and broker subscribers, of which 3,325 completed the survey. Survey respondents hail from 46 states nationwide.
“Any agent creating a comparative market analysis wonders whether they are ‘doing it right’ or is curious about what other agents include or don’t include in their CMA. This survey gives agents an inside peek at the best practices of what goes into creating a winning CMA,” said Frances Wiseman, director of marketing for W+R Studios, in a statement.”
I was also surprised that most agents were not including Zestimates in their CMAs. Less so about iBuyer offers, since the number of iBuyer markets is still limited.
“A powerful data component that is affirmed by the report is that agents interrogate all listing statuses in their CMA. Active listings are important to understand what is available to buyers today, but pricing is particularly influenced by pending, sold, expired, and withdrawn listings. The CMA may be one of the reasons why homes are selling so much faster (lower days on market) than ever before. It is hard for a listing to hide when the listing price is too high. Surprisingly, the report indicates that the properties included in a CMA range from 5 to 11. Agents focus on the Days on Market Comparison more than 61% of the time, making it one of the most vital calculations in the CMA report.”
Yup, Days on Market (DOM) is a huge deal for agents. Which I know is a battle at most MLS organizations.
Check out the full results here. If you are at an MLS organization this would be a perfect thing to share, since a lot of agents wonder whether they are doing a CMA “right”.
I would love to hear any suggestions to make the report better for next year. Are there any questions you want to ask? Let me know.
