Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Pro Tip: eWebinar

I’ve been a big proponent of the use of video in business for a while now. At W+R Studios we practice what we preach. We have made big investments in people (we have a dedicated video producer) and gear to shoot great video for product training, marketing, and sometimes just for fun.

We have also done a lot of live webinars, mostly for training and marketing purposes.

I know many MLS organizations that provide both video tutorials and live training webinars. Brokers too.

The problem with live webinars is you are stuck always giving the same content. Same thing with sales demos. And sometimes the presenter is having a good day, sometimes not. Also, technical problems…. “can you hear me?”

Enter eWebinar. Check out the video below.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, THIS SERVICE/PRODUCT. You can record the perfect sales demo/onboarding session and promote it like a webinar, complete with real-time interactions (polls/links/CTAs). No flubs, no technical issues, and no time wasted on doing the same demo/training over and over again. Productivity through the roof!! This will at least double your trainer’s productivity.

After you understand the concept, you really question why you would do “live” webinars ever again.

Also, you might recognize the woman in the video, she’s Melissa Kwan, co-founder of Spacio. Homespotter acquired Spaci.io in early 2019. Melissa started this company because she wanted to scratch her own itch. She hated spending time doing the same presentation over and over again. She wanted all that time back. You can read about Melissa’s journey here.

Just like with Spacio Melissa and her team have done a great job on the design. The interface is super easy to use, you can customize the look and feel of the landing pages. It just works.

Here are a few links to show how people are using it.

Demo and training: Spacio’s new features for capturing qualified leads from any event

How To Properly & Quickly Capture Any Building Using DocuSketch™

7 Secrets to a Winning Virtual Listing Presentation

RateMyAgent Virtual Training

Now imagine recording the perfect onboarding session for Matrix, Flexmls, Paragon, or ShowingTime once. Then just post it. If anyone watching the video has questions they will immediately appear in your trainer/support person inbox and they can answer them live.

Do yourself a favor and sign up and make one video and put it out there. Or better yet, watch eWebinar’s own 15-minute eWebinar. You might never go back.

Click this link to find out more and sign up free for 30 days ======> eWebinar

Fear and why iBuyers Offers and Zestimates belong in your CMAs

Jay Thompson, writing on Inman News, Why iBuyers and Zestimates belong in your CMAs 

“Greg Robertson, W+R Studios co-founder, was attacked, called clueless, and challenged as to whether he had any industry experience (yes, almost three decades worth.) IBuyers, also highlighted in the headline, got one mention. Nothing else in the survey report was discussed. A few commenters waded into the fray showing understanding of why they at least look at Zestimates and sometimes mention them in listing presentations. The vast majority of commenters sounded off on the evils of Zillow and the Zestimate.”

I will say I am “clueless” about many, many things. My wife will tell you as much.

Sorry this post is a little long, but I think it touches on a lot of issues (not to mention a shameless plug for my company ????).

Jay, as you may know, is a former broker (The Phoenix Real Estate Guy) and worked at Zillow in Industry Relations for some time. His article is in response to an article published on Inman News about W+R Studios’ announcement of the results of their inaugural survey, 2020 Best Practices of CMAs and Listing Presentations.

Here’s more from Jay…

“No one, including Zillow, W+R Studios or me, is saying the Zestimate should be used as a comparable in your CMA. Of course it shouldn’t be, that’s not its intent or purpose. But to ignore it is to ignore something your clients are looking at and wondering about. Address it upfront, leave out your personal feelings about Zillow, and put any objections to rest early in the process. The listing presentation is the ideal time to address it with sellers, and the CMA is the perfect place to have it on record. “

Emphasis mine

Cloud CMA pioneered ways of including Zestimates to compare against actual sold prices from the MLS data as part of a Cloud CMA report. This has since been copied by other vendors. I was surprised by the amount of push-back we got when we introduced it. Many MLS organizations (after pushback from their members) made us turn the report page off by default, or in some cases, turned off altogether. But every time I sat down, one on one, with a broker or MLS executive and showed them how the report page worked, they understood, “wow this is great, agents are going to love it.”

This happens all the time. Many agents and brokers just hear/read “Zestimate” or “iBuyer” and begin to see red.

As we can see in the survey results and the comments on the article there is still a lot of fear out there. And as Mr. Hurbert once wrote, “fear, is the mind-killer”.

Flash forward to a little less than a year ago when W+R Studios introduced a way of including iBuyer Offers (with Opendoor) in Cloud CMA. We were met with the same type of fear and got a lot of push back and false claims.

“You’re going to put agents out of business!”
“Shame on you Cloud CMA!”

And those were the polite ones. I took these comments hard. We put many of our partner MLS organizations in a tough spot. They began to get calls from their members that “Cloud CMA was sending our CMAs to Opendoor!” (not true). The misinformation got so bad we had to create a document refuting some of the most outrages claims.

But we held firm because we knew, to paraphrase Jay, the listing presentation is an ideal time to address iBuyer Offers, and the CMA is a perfect place to have it on record.

Dan and I are always looking for new ways to innovate, and we are willing to take risks and keep our customers ahead of the curve. Even if these ideas seem crazy or counter-intuitive at the time.

The main thing that got us through the periods I wrote about above was, in the end, our customers (MLS organizations, brokers, and agents) trusted us.

In a recent “Friday Flash” blog post, titled “What are you saying” Brian Boero, CEO of 100watt wrote:

“Honestly, I am glad we have arrived at a point where there are no more red lines to transgress. I used to get revved up about this stuff too. Now, Zillow buys, owns and sells homes, Realtor.com charges referral fees, and yet good agents, teams and brokers continue to do their thing. “

Unlike Brian, I don’t think we are there yet. We still need to get over our fear of these new (old?) models, which as Rob Hahn and I discuss in recent Industry Relations podcast point out, keep turning more and more towards agent inclusion. We need to focus our energy on more positive things. We have a lot more to worry about than Zestimates and iBuyers.

I just hope the industry can take the advice of what a wise old hippie once said…

“You gotta let that shit go, man. Let it go.”

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.”

What is homeownership?

I think my friends in organized real estate have to start paying attention to how companies are evolving the definition of “homeownership”. Below is a video of a presentation given by Adena Hefets, CEO of Divvy Homes at an event held by Andreessen Horowitz.

“We believe the industry is very binary. You either rent a home, or dive in to the deep end and get a mortgage. There is no in-between.”

Adena Hefets, CEO of Divvy Homes

If you have been listening to my podcast Listing Bits you know I’ve been tracking Divvy Homes and Adena for a while now and am super intrigued.

The REALTOR of the future

Watch This Weird ’90s NAR Video of REALTORS® In the Future

“So how exactly did this wacky artifact come to fruition? According to Hathaway Hester, manager of the association archives, the theme of the 1990 town hall meeting was “The Broker’s Office in the Year 2000,” and the futuristic video served as an introduction to the proceedings. The entire thing was filmed and made available to members through NAR’s mail-order service, which was a precursor to today’s REALTOR® Store. It was advertised throughout 1990, then disappeared from the radar until it was digitized and posted online in 2008, the year of NAR’s centennial, Hester says. Over the years, the short video has caught the interest of external publications wanting to highlight the video’s amazing ’90s cheesiness.”

Oh man. This is so fun.

Also, think about this, if the movie Back To The Future was made today, Marty would be going back to the 90s. ????

All I want for Christmas is for NAR to fund RESO a million dollars next year

Now more than ever I feel that RESO has a lot of momentum of helping the industry crack the problem of standards. Many people have led to this stage. I credit Jeremy Crawford for really transforming RESO from a small group of dedicated members to a large industry powerhouse made of people from all roles of organized real estate to help push standards further.

I’ll also give credit to Art Carter and Rebecca Jensen. Both prodded (shamed?) a lot of us to be more involved.   Art was also key in the hiring of Sam DeBord. Sam brings a business acumen to the RESO leadership that I believe is a crucial step in helping make standards a reality.

At the time of his hiring, I wrote  the industry needs to “step up and give Sam and RESO our full support.”

That time is now. I’ve heard that NAR budget for RESO is less than $300K a year. That is shocking. When I think of the millions of dollars spent on RPR, AMP, and Upstream it boggles my mind. Less than $300K?

The arguments for standards in real estate data don’t need to be re-stated here, but to keep this momentum going, RESO needs proper funding. Membership dues and events can only do so much.

In the most recent episode of my podcast, Industry Relations, I recapped the biggest new events of the decade. One of them was the accession of Bob Goldberg to the role of CEO for the National Association of REALTORS. Bob has stated and has delivered on the promise of being more inclusive, wanting to be a partner to new technology companies, and therefore keep NAR members in the mix. I can’t help but think the role of standards fits perfectly into this message.

So on Christmas Eve and the second day of Hanukkah, all I want is for NAR to bring RESO funding to a level where they can do the work needed to bring standards to life.

Industry Relations Episode 41: 10 Defining Moments & Trends in the Last Decade of Real Estate

On January 1, 2010, organized real estate was still reeling from the recession. Dale Stinton was steering the ship at NAR. Zillow was seen as the enemy of the MLS. Real estate software was meh. Agent teams were rare. Nearly all brokerages took a split. Selling your house online seemed outrageous. And we still signed documents in pen.

On this episode of Industry Relations, Rob and Greg are looking back at the last 10 years in real estate. They discuss the passing NAR’s MLS Statement 8.0 Clear Cooperation Policy, debating the significance of the office exclusives loophole and how it might lead to government involvement. Our hosts also express their disappointment around the Newsday investigation in Long Island, Testing the Divide, challenging brokerage leadership to make a strong statement against the egregious racism it uncovered. 

Greg and Rob go on to share their top 10 defining moments and trends with the biggest impact on the industry over the last decade, describing how the rise of agent teams, 100% commission brokerages, the iBuyer model and consolidation have transformed organized real estate. Listen in for insight into how NAR’s decision to fund RPR and Upstream changed the way the MLS saw Zillow and explore how the space has evolved from 2010 through the end of 2019.

Editor’s Note: We did record an Episode 40 that was never aired. It was about Policy 8.0 but wasn’t ready before the vote. After the vote passed we decided it didn’t add to anything to the issue.

What’s Discussed: 

NAR’s passing of the MLS Statement 8.0 Clear Cooperation Policy

Rob & Greg’s take on the Newsday investigation in Long Island

How the loophole in 8.0 could lead to government involvement

The 10 defining trends/events in the last decade of real estate

  1. The end of poorly designed software
  2. The rise and domination of agent teams
  3. The transition in leadership at NAR
  4. Opendoor pioneering the iBuyer model
  5. Zillow’s acquisition of Trulia
  6. 100% commission brokerages
  7. Consolidation and the influx of capital
  8. The practice of buying agents/agent teams
  9. The mainstreaming of digital signatures
  10. NAR’s decision to fund RPR + Upstream

Connect with Rob and Greg:

Rob’s Website

Greg’s Website

Resources:

MLS Clear Cooperation Policy

Compass Pre-Litigation Letter to Bright MLS

Bright’s Response to Compass

Newsday Documentary: Testing the Divide

Rob’s Blog on the Newsday Piece

1000watt Article on Real Estate Software

The Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller with Dave Jenks and Jay Papasan

Ben Thompson Interview with Rich Barton

Our Sponsors:

Cloud MLX

The Red Dot

CRS expands with seven new MLS customers

CRS Data Expands Reach With Seven New MLS Customers

Serving more than 1,000 counties across all regions of the U.S., CRS Data’s MLS Tax Suite integrates seamlessly with any MLS system, offering accessibility across mobile devices.

“I most often hear our customers rave about our dedication to product upgrades and customer service,” said Matt Casey, CEO of CRS Data. “Our team has earned our reputation as the leading property data company by integrating the newest technologies, innovating across the property technology space and partnering with best-in-class vendors. Our MLS Tax Suite continues to deliver exactly what each of our partners need, zero upselling required.”

Seven new MLS Providers in less than 6 months. Nice job CRS!

When Software Eats Real Estate

Hug your kids.

Marilyn Wilson asks a great question

Marilyn Wilson on the WAV Group Blog…

Why are MLSs making it SO hard to innovate?

“We have made it REALLY hard for the smart 16 year old in her garage to build the next big thing for a brokerage. Frankly, even well-established tech companies have major challenges working with more than 600 organizations. Refer to my commonapp article for more on that topic.

Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a tech start-up. They have built something interesting. They find a broker that wants to try it out. The broker says go to the MLS and apply for a data license. They are not aware of the differences between an IDX, VOW or Back Office Feed. Most don’t even know what an IDX, VOW or Back Office feed IS! They don’t know that IDX feeds can include actives, actives, pendings and solds or just actives and solds. They have no clue what a non-disclosure state is, what that means and how it affects their product in those states. They don’t know what a “RESO” is or the benefits of using a feed that is RESO Data Dictionary compliant. They may know how to leverage API’s, but don’t know the difference between a RESO Web API and one offered by another group.

The start-up diligently follows the advice of the broker. They set out on a path to get a data feed.

Here’s what happens…or more accurately what DOESN’T happen, on most MLS websites. We make it REALLY difficult for someone new to the industry to figure out how to get that data feed the broker has asked the start-up to go after.”

This whole post is so damn good. Go read it now.

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