Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Clareity MLS Executive Workshop highlights 2015

A few things I wanted to highlight about last week’s Clareity MLS Executive Workshop in Scottsdale, AZ last week. First off Gregg and his entire team did an amazing job. The content was fantastic and they managed to keep the conversation above the salacious syndication war between MOVE and Zillow Group narrative that has been floating around.

But, one of my takeaways about the Zillow Vs MOVE thing was how it effects other players, notably Homes.com. Seems like an opportunity for these guys. When I asked Andy Woolley, now Industry Relations at Homes.com. Andy was quick to point out that while they don’t, and won’t possibly ever have as much traffic as ZTR, they were focusing a lot on “quality”. Meaning the “quality” of leads coming through Homes.com. I was sent a screen shot of a ListHub report (from the Houston market) that seemed to prove that out.

Homes.com lead ratio

Yes, I know their total detail views is much smaller, but their lead ratio is crazy good.

HAR .08%
Zillow .06%
realtor.com .03%
Trulia .019%
Homes.com .97%

The other thing was the direct feed count. Check out this slide.

Direct Feed Count

Homes.com has 400 direct feeds from MLS providers. 400 freaking hundred. Zillow Group isn’t even close. Great lead ratio, huge direct feed count, you gotta wonder what that is worth to someone.

On another topic, was the release of the MLS Satisfaction survey. Here’s the results of the “End User Satisfaction.”

MLS Satisfaction Survey

Looking at MLS Vendors with more than 2 customers it appears that Black Knight and FBS still dominate the top two spots above their competition. Kudos to both of them.

Thanks again to Gregg, Matt and the rest of the Clareity team. We are always thrilled to participate. And I hope you enjoyed the Cloud Streams t-shirts. They look great!

Mark Allen joins realtor.com

thumb.phpGlad to hear Mark Allen has found a new gig! He along with Don Flynn were recently hired to join realtor.com’s industry relations team. Below is an excerpt from Russ Cofano’s Open letter to state and local real estate associations.

Move Announces New Executive Roles to Strengthen Association Relationships (Vis RISMedia)

“Don and Mark will work collaboratively across both the association and MLS industries with our MLS industry relations team, which includes vice presidents Rhett Damon, Shelley Fowler and Bob Greenspan and directors Susan Young and Kathleen Wayson. The entire team plans to attend the 2015 Joint AE Institute in March in Vancouver and we can’t wait to see you at that great event.”

“Industry Relations” seems to be the job title du jour. Realtor.com’s take is especially interesting. Lots of cooks in the kitchen. This focus on state and local associations and working “collaboratively” with MLS industry relations seems kind of odd. Not even sure what it means or how it will work – “Hey MLS CEO, the AE thinks you should be doing your job this way.”

Realtor.com is a listings portal right? They need listings. That means focusing on MLS providers and brokers. It’s not too complicated, or maybe I’m not smart enough to understand all this “strategery”.

Rupert Murdoch to keynote at Inman Connect NYC

Whoa….

Zillow’s Obi-Wan Kenobi moment

obiwan zillow

Something I started to think about over the weekend in regard to this move by Zillow (or so it seems) of deciding not to re-sign with ListHub. I guess because I’m a geek I tend to think of things as scenes in Star Wars. To me this move by Zillow reminded me when Obi-Wan and Vader dueled towards the end of Episode 4, “A New Hope” -The original Star Wars movie. In that scene Obi-Wan warned Vader, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.” When Obi-Wan saw that Luke and the rest were safe he closed his eyes and let Vader “strike him down”.

Obi had a plan. In Zillow’s case, they were prepared. The very same day they announced they were not re-signing with ListHub they also announced their Zillow Data Dashboard.

But what’s not clear is what’s MOVE’s plan? To me the scenario could play out that for a set period of time realtor.com will have a crapload of more listings than Zillow. This of course depends on if and when you think Zillow will be able to make up the delta of listings on their site by signing direct data agreements with MLS providers. Even if you assume they will make up the difference of listings, it still will take some time.

That time period is a HUGE opportunity for MOVE.

If I were MOVE (realtor.com) I would be getting ready to launch a huge marketing push, the day the ListHub agreement expires, to take advantage of a weak Zillow. The goal of this campaign would be to get in to consumers heads that Zillow does not have all the listings, but realtor.com does. Kind of a “Inventory Matters” campaign, rather than a “Accuracy Matters” campaign.

Maybe this is all underway, maybe not. Maybe they have another plan. But Zillow seems very confident, and that should be worrisome.

Realtor.com (and NAR’s) new ad

I like it. They are starting to dial in their new messaging.

I see two issues facing Realtor.com

Issue #1

Most consumers like to going to third party sites, like Expedia, Kayak, and such. They really don’t care about “accuracy” (neither of those sites have Southwest flight information as an example.) That’s why I’ve never thought Realtor.com beating the drum of “we have the most accurate data” ever resonated with consumers. But they keep double downing on it every year, and based on the rising traffic of Zillow and Trulia it hasn’t worked.

Consumers don’t want to go the Airline’s site because of a perception they can get a better deal elsewhere. And granted sometimes the experience is a lot better (UI and comparing other airlines fares for instance).

I know real estate isn’t like the travel industry, I’m not saying it is, I’m just saying consumers like to go to third party sites. It should be no surprise Zilow and Trulia are doing well.

Issue #2

I heard a story. One of the portals had done a few consumer surveys. And one of the reasons respondents didn’t want to go to Realtor.com was they didn’t want to be contacted by “REALTORS”. Ouch. This shows how naive consumers really are when it comes to real estate portals. But poses a big problem with your brand is “REALTOR” dot com. But the facts are, according to NAR surveys, close to 90% of buyers would use the same REALTOR again. So there’s a huge disconnect.

While I don’t think on its own “accuracy matters” is going to get the job done, marrying it with a positive spin on REALTORS is heading in the right direction.

CoStar and Realtor.com?

The Motley Fool:

“I recently wrote a Motley Fool article Why Investors Who Like Zillow Should Love CoStar Group, for investors interested in the fast growing real estate technology space. It was syndicated a few days before rumors and reports began circulating regarding Trulia, (NYSE: TRLA ) acquiring Move, (NASDAQ: MOVE ) , operator of Realtor.com.

My article concluded with an observation that CoStar Group (NASDAQ: CSGP ) — rather than Trulia — would be a great marriage. Here is a quick chart that shows at a glance why Move, looks like a bargain for the other major players in this space:”

Interesting analysis.

Glass and Starchild promoted at MOVE.

Move Promotes Glass To Lead Industry Platforms, Kane To Lead SaaS Business, And Starchild To Lead ListHub

“”Luke, Michael and Celeste have grown and improved Move’s business services with strong leadership, integrity, expertise and passion so we are delighted they will continue to lead and build our relationships with our partners and customers,” said Steve Berkowitz, Move’s chief executive officer and director. “Their promotions are examples of the depth of executive leadership within our company.”

Move Inc Luke GlassI couldn’t be more happier with these promotions. Luke is an excellent fit and will do a great job for MOVE and the industry. It’s also great to see MOVE recognize Celeste. Her promotion is well deserved. Both have a lot of work to do, but nothing worth while is ever easy.Move Inc Celeste Starchild

I’m not as familiar with Michael Kane. What did strike me is the number of products/companies MOVE has under its belt.

Realtor.com
Doorsteps®
HomeInsightSM
SocialBiosSM
Moving.com™
SeniorHousingNetSM
homefairSM
Relocation.com
ListHub™
TigerLead®,
Top Producer®
FiveStreetSM

Looks like Michael will be in charge of many of these, mostly on the agent/broker facing side. The list itself is pretty long. Seems like some branding thought should be put it to this menagerie.

My congrats to Luke and Celeste!

Audie Chamberlain leaving MOVE

AudieThe talent drain continues at MOVE. Audie Chamberlain, Director of Social Media Marketing for Realtor.com, is leaving and joining Partners Trust Real Estate Brokerage & Acquisitions. This just after Errol Samuelson and Curt Beardsley had recently left for Zillow. Although from what I know his departure is unrelated.

Audie has been at MOVE for close to 6 years and had been named twice to the Inman‘s list of most the “100 most influential people in real estate”. Before his stint at MOVE Audie was Digital Business Coordinator at Universal Music Group and he recently joined the board of directors for the L.A. Family Housing.

Audie has always been a great representative for realtor.com. I’ve always appreciated his industry perspective and of course his sense of humor. He’s, in the parlance of our late night banter, “legit”. It’s truly a shame to see him go, but I am glad he is staying in the industry. We’ve shared a lot of good times at conferences, I’m going to miss that.

His new gig is with Partners Trust. They have been making a lot of waves in the real estate industry here in SoCal. Partners Trust has also been named one of “Best Places To Work In Los Angeles”. So good for him.

Please join me in wishing him well on his new gig!

Why doesn’t MOVE just shut down ListHub?

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” – Sun Tzu

I had many great side conversations at last week’s Inman Connect in New York City. One of them imagines the premise that MOVE shutdowns ListHub.

Think about the consequences. It would basically cut off the largest source of listing data for Trulia and Zillow. At the same time Realtor.com would immediately become the largest single source of all listing data in the United States.

It also puts brokers back in the driver’s seat. For Trulia and Zillow to compete they would now have to do a full court press to brokers for data. Think about it, who would have the leverage in those conversations?

Brillant or batshit crazy?

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