Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Inside Trulia’s Boiler Room

The news just hit the wire. Trulia just took the term “interlopers” to a whole new level by opening a new inside sales office in the Denver Tech Center, in the same neighborhood as RE/MAX’s World Headquarters.

And they are hiring sales managers, sales reps, customer support, HR, their very own “boiler room”!

Dave Liniger, co-founder and Chairman of RE/MAX has been critical of sites like Trulia for being “the guy who shows up at a pot-luck dinner bringing only a fork.” And with a big move like this I thought it might be interesting to see what exactly Dave’s new neighbors will be doing just up the street.

Just how does Trulia’s sales team operate? Last week a post by Michael Arrington on TechCrunch blasted a new company for naming their new start-up, “SalesCrunch”. The founder of SalesCrunch is none other than the founding VP of Sales for Trulia, Sean Black. Small world.

On SaleCrunch’s site they have a section called “SalesSchool”.

Posted is a short video, named “how Trulia Scores and Process Leads” where Sean Black Interviews his former Trulia workmate Lead Generation Manager, Steve Rossi who talks about how Trulia sells products to agents.

It’s a must see for anyone in the business of selling to real estate professionals. Lots a good tips from someone in the front lines.

But then at about 1:10 in to the video Steve reveals something that I almost missed. Turns out Trulia mines the syndicated listing data, that powers their site, for valid prospects to sell their wares. Meaning agents who just sold a million dollar home get prioritized for a sales call to buy Trulia’s products.

Now I know that the listing data coming from syndicators like ListHub are stripped on many of the restrictions that a typical IDX vendor must adhere to. But this practice just seems wrong.

Typically most vendors are restricted from using MLS data to mine/contact agents. In fact many MLS providers seed their listings data with false e-mail addresses that flag when an unscrupulous vendor tries to use the data to market to their membership.

The irony here is that many agents and brokers have criticized sites like Trulia (and even Realtor.com) for using their own listing data to generate revenue (advertising) and charging the same agents to “enhance” their own listing data. Now it turns out they are also using the listing data to target who the best agents and brokers to sell to!

Something tells me that Trulia shouldn’t be heading over to RE/MAX to borrow a cup of sugar anytime soon.

UPDATE [ LOOKS LIKE SALESCRUNCH MADE THE VIDEO PRIVATE]
UPDATE 2 [LOOKS LIKE ITS BACK UP. WEIRD]
UPDATE 3 [ITS BACK TO BEING SET TO PRIVATE- What are they hiding?]

Congrats to Real Estate’s 100 Most Influential Leaders: 2010

The list is out!  Once again Inman News has release it’s list of the 100 Most Influential Leaders in Real Estate for 2010.  The list was broken down into several catergories:

Categories of 100 Leaders:

  • Brokerage
  • Economists, Academics and Consultants
  • Government
  • Media
  • Mortgage and Ancillary Services
  • Online – Blogging, Social Media
  • Technology
  • Trade Organizations, MLSs

Yours truly made the list under the Technology category!  I’m just two spots away from Steve Ozonian!

RPR Dress Code Memo Leaked!

Vendor Alley has been forwarded a page from the official RPR dress code policy handbook. Take a look! (Click the image to get a a larger view)

Tough gig!

; )

CMLS Fun

I’ll be doing a full recap later in the week but wanted to post something quick.

First off “Best Booth”. I broke it down to two catergories, since some companies had more room to work with.

Best Booth (Hallway) of CMLS goes to….

dynaConnections!

dynaConnections CMLS Booth

These guys were a triple threat. Great booth, great reps, and great swag!

Check out the clever swag. Coffee mugs with a mustache drawn on!

dynaConnections Swag

Swag action shot!

Swag Demo Shot!

If these guys pay as much attention to their MLS system as they to to their marketing then sign me up!

Next up is Best Booth display in a limited space. And the winner is….

ShowingTime!

These guys always do a pro job. Some booth had the same components but ShowingTime did a great job of pulling it all together.

ShowingTime Booth

Then there’s also the “Not Even Trying” Booth Award:

And the winner loser is….

Name Withheld

You can check out more images of CMLS 2010 on the new Vendor Alley Flickr Photostream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vendoralley/

Seven Big Wishes: The Vendor Edition

CMLS is just around the corner and it promises to be the most attended in it’s 53 year history. Rob Hahn recently posted “Seven Big Questions ‘The MLS Edition'”, I’m going to riff off that and give my 7 wishes from Real Estate Vendors. Some of these I’ve experienced first hand, some I’ve heard from others. I don’t want the list to sound whiny, and like everything on this site, please take it with a little tongue in cheek (just a little).

1. I want standards. I want to be able to write a killer real estate app and release it everywhere at once. Yes, I know there are “chicken and egg” type issues, and it’s difficult. But, it’s 2010 people, let’s make this happen!

2. I want MLS providers to make decisions quicker. The Internet moves faster than one board meeting a month. How many times have you heard, “Our board meets next week but the agenda is already full, and next months is also full, but I might be able to squeeze you in the following month…maybe”? Lame.

3. Let me compete. For a number of reasons, many MLS providers put up huge walls or policies designed to keep new products from entering in the market. Give your members a choice.

4. Stop the shake down. One MLS provider requires me to pay $1,500 a month to release a CMA app in their market, at another MLS it’s $1,000 a month, at another it’s $600.00 per quarter and at another its $0.00. WTF? As a technology solution provider, I’m pretty well aware of the “costs” of providing data. Instead of making me pay you protection money….

5. ..Let’s be partners. I would much rather do a revenue share where you and I both gain based on performance rather than paying you a “tribute” each month.

6. Let me make a living. You complain about customer service but forget you drilled your vendor so far down on price that you made it impossible for them to perform.

7. I want to advertise (in your magazine, newsletter, or website), sponsor (your event, blog) , and attend trade shows. But, make it worth my while. Don’t just put me in a booth in the middle of nowhere, put my logo on a sign, and expect me to be happy. Be creative! And, don’t charge me an arm and a leg. The longer I’m around, the more money I will have to spend. We need each other, price accordingly.

Did I miss your wish? Let me hear them or your comments.

eNeighborhoods releasing iPhone and iPad app.

Just caught this is my Google Reader today. Looks like eNeighborhoods is releasing an iPhone and iPad app dubbed “Neighborhood Envoy”. It’s available on the iTunes store today. I think it’s great to see eN rolling out new apps. Below are a few screen shots of the iPhone version.

I can’t really give a full review of the product (it requires a subscription to their eNeighborhoods NEXT product), so I’ll comment on what I can see here.

Somebody needs to tell eNeighborhoods to turn down the brightness of the colors they use. The color scheme looks like a circus tent.

The name of the app, “Neighborhood Envoy”. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. You would think they would leverage the whole Mexican/Spanish thing they have going on with “eNeighborhoods Mercado” and call the iPhone app something like “Neighborhood Amigo”.

But, in that case they wouldn’t be allowed to launch it in Arizona. ; )

Have you voted yet?

Inman News is doing a People’s Choice Innovator Award.  The awards go to a variety of categories.  We’ve got two finalists in the running.

Cloud CMA – Most Innovative Web Service.

Vendor Alley – Most Innovative Blog

Since you can only vote once, I would humbly suggest you use one of your “life lines” and “phone a friend”.

:  )

RPR announces creation of National MLS, chooses calREDD as its MLS vendor.

Dale Ross, CEO of RPR,  confirmed what many people have longed suspected, RPR intends to launch a National MLS.  Dubbed Realtor information Property MLS or “RIPMLS” the new system will launch in June of 2011.  “We weren’t fooling anyone, so we thought we might as well get on with it.” stated Mr. Ross.

“We couldn’t keep this secret any longer.”  stated Marty Frame, RPR President.  “Beta testing starts in a couple months.”  When asked about calREDD‘s MLS system Marty Frame stated.  “I wasn’t personally involved with the decision but from what I hear the MLS system is state of the art, and implementations are proceeding in an orderly fashion.”

Joel Singer was at an undisclosed location and could not be reached for comment.

MRED MLS’ Board of directors hires new CEO.

The board of directors of the Midwest Real Estate Data MLS (MRED) announced they have made a selection in their recent executive search.

Howard Doody

“After an exhaustive search we feel that we have found someone we can finally work with.” -stated a long time MRED, LLC board member.

Charlie Melidosian, also seeking the top spot at MRED, LLC, immediately resigned his seat on the board and was replaced by Clarabell the Clown.

Charlie could not be immediately reach for comment because his voice mail stated he would not take any phone calls or emails and required all inquires to be made in writing and mailed to his Baird & Warner office.

More great quotes about calREDD from Inman article last week.

I was re-reading Matt Carter’s article from last week on Inman News: Another rocky start for ‘California MLS’.  As a side note, C.A.R. posted a response to the article you can read here.

Here’s a couple quotes that also deserve attention.

“We’ve delivered everything we said we would,” Kucirek said. “We have a signed contract … whatever (the Lake County board votes in April), they have to live up to it.”

Sounds like a vendor I would like to work with….NOT!

and this gem from Mike Silvas…

“The reality is that the statewide MLS effort is proceeding in an orderly fashion”

Sounds like Mike made a trip to Humboldt County to talk about Lake County!

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