Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

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.

RESO Spring Summit going digital

2020 Digital Spring Technology Summit

“Your safety is our top priority. New Orleans is under a state of emergency and Louisiana has banned large meetings through mid-April. We can’t ensure that our 2020 Spring Summit will be allowed to take place, or that it would be safe for our members to travel to it.

Instead of an in-person event, we will deliver the RESO Spring Summit as a digital event. While the RESO team and I are disappointed that we won’t see you in person, we will take this opportunity to reach a broader audience with the industry-leading work that you do.”

Sam DeBoard, CEO RESO

What a bummer, I was really looking forward to this one. But its the right move. I’m sure this won’t be the first or last event that is going “digital” this year.

See you tomorrow at Inman Connect SF


Dan and I will be attending Inman Connect SF starting tomorrow, until Friday. I will be on stage at 4:40PM Tuesday on the “New Kids On The Block” panel (don’t ask) making a special announcement about Cloud CMA. We are super pumped about this announcement and think its one of the most innovative things we’ve done….ever. So stay tuned, and see you is SF!

Vendor Alley 2017 Gift Guide

Here’s a list of items any Vendor would love.

1. Apple MFi Certified USB to Micro USB + USB Type-C + Lightning Charge & Sync Cable, 3ft Black. Currently out of stock but you must have this cable in your bag.

2. Juiced Systems BizHUB USB-C Multiport Gigabit HDMI Hub, 3x USB 3.0 Ports, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI 4K, SD/Micro SD, USB-C Power Delivery
For those having gone to the pain of upgrade to a new MacBook Pro and the nightmare of USB-C, this thing is a life saver, better than Apple’s in my opinion.

3. Apple iPad Pro
Speaking of Apple, I just love this thing. I prefer the 10.5″ version. And spend the extra money and get WIFI + Celluar. As shitty as airport and hotel’s WIFI is its always cool to have another option. Think of it as you own personal WIFI spot with a huge battery. PRO TIP: If you are on AT&T with your phone get on another network with your iPad. That way if one network is down or not accessible you have a backup.

4. Eyekepper 5-pack Spring Hinges 80’s Reading Glasses +1.25
These are cheap ray ban knock off reading glasses. They come in a 5 pack so I can just keep a pair upstairs, downstairs, in the garage, wherever.

5. AirPods
One of the those products that you wonder how you did without them.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Restaurant UI/UX

Maybe this is something that has already happen to you, but it was new to me.

Last night at dinner the waiter came by and asked a late arrival at our table, “Sparking or flat water, sir?” The guest answered, “Sparkling, please” and the waiter removed his glass and left the table. My assumption was he was going to get his glass filled. Almost as quickly as the glass was removed it was quickly replaced by another glass by someone else on the wait staff.

I thought it was a simple mistake, another waiter thought the glass was missing from the place setting. But then we noticed that the new glass had a slight tinge of blue. While others at the table (the ones who had requested flat water) had no color.

We quickly realized that from now on any member of the restaurant staff could fill each guests glass with the right type of water without asking.

How cool is that!

I pity the fool who doesn’t use ShowingTime

Lane and Mr T

Guess who was on ShowingTime’s president Michael Lane’s flight today?

CMLS 2014 afterglow and hangover

It was the biggest CMLS conference by attendance and sponsorship. I remember when it was a small group (Northwest Council of MLS), say less than 90, for the whole conference. Compare that to today, where FBS took out over 90 of their customers to dinner on Thursday night. Things have changed. I may be biased but I also have to say it was the best location as well. The weather was perfect. The hotel was fantastic. The food was amazing. You have to give it up to Art Carter, Patty Connor and the rest of the CRMLS staff for pulling off such and incredible event.

Before the event I heard a few people complaining about the agenda. They were wondering why all the “non-industry” speakers. Art Carter made it clear from the beginning, he wanted to craft an event, “I would like to see”. As it turns out the outside speakers were a huge hit. So much so, I bet future conferences you’ll see more of them than less.

Then there were the parties. My company held an “Open House” at our W&R Studios headquarters down on Main Street on Tuesday night. It was a huge hit, even if it required you to go big on the first night. Trulia and Zillow held separate events, one at Red O restaurant in Newport Beach (very che’che’). And of course there was Mini-Kiss event at Hurricanes on Wednesday night (I heard the band was spotted later and a local I-Hop around 1:30am, can you imagine the stares?)

Again, I may be biased, and I think I say this every year, but CMLS 2014 was best CMLS conference ever.

And then Craig Cheatham took the stage.

It was about 4:15PM on Friday afternoon and Art had a big smile on his face. He even commented, “If you are wondering why I have a big smile on my face its because I see so many of out there.” Having Craig Cheatham, the CEO of The Realty Alliance, as the last presenter was no coicendence. It was a master stroke from Art and did exactly what he hoped, keep people in their seats for the entire conference.

It’s hard to blame Mr. Cheatham for what happen next. And I have to give him credit for showing up, the expectations were pretty high. But he seems to be just a messenger, and a poor one at that, to the whims of The Realty Alliance masters he serves. Kind of like a Roger Goddell, with much less pay and prestige.

The Realty Alliance had gotten the MLS industry’s attention with Mr. Cheatham’s declaration last year, of “You’ve got 10 days”. One year later they had nothing to show or really talk about. Mr. Cheatham’s responses were, at best, oblique. I think John Mosey, CEO of Northstar MLS, put it best in a follow up question, Mr. Cheatham’s statements were “clear as mud”.

The subsequent interview was, at best, awkward, at worst insulting and a waste of everyone’s time. It’s a shame because the audience was full of MLS professionals who truly wanted to help make things better. It reminds me of the old saying, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”

But lets move on, and not waste anymore time on these Keystone Cops.

My thanks again to everyone at CRMLS, the CMLS board of directors (you too Sarah), for putting together a truly spectacular event. And see you next year in Kansas City!

Over 1,000 brokers send their listings to Zillow directly.

Zillow ‘Pro for Brokers’ participation takes off
Portal receiving direct listing feeds from more than 1,000 brokers

Paul Hagey for Inman News

Zillow is now receiving listings directly from more than 1,000 brokers under its 2-year-old Zillow Pro for Brokers program.

The program, which Zillow launched in June 2012, has grown rapidly in recent months. Last fall Zillow announced that approximately 200 brokers were enrolled.

Impressive.

“Both Zillow and Trulia have been making a push to get direct feeds from brokers and multiple listing services to improve the accuracy, timeliness and comprehensiveness of their listing databases. Their chief rival, realtor.com, gets listings directly from over 800 MLSs across the U.S.”

I’m starting to get a better idea of what Curt meant by the “save ListHub” plan.

See you next week at Inman Connect NYC

Looking forward to heading out to New York City next week for Inman Connect. I’m doing a “Quick Hits” preso on the main stage (Wednesday at 10:25am) on “The Best CRMs in the Business: what should you use?”.

I’m also going to be participating on a panel moderated by David Charron dubbed, “Who Owns What? The Protection of Intellectual Property in Today’s Market”.

Also on the panel will be:
Ann Bailey, President, Pranix, Inc.
Constance Freedman, Managing Director , Second Century Ventures, NAR
Jay Gaskill, President, Real Estate Digital

For more information on the panel check out this video:

If you haven’t registered, and thinking of going let me know, I’ve got a link for a big discount.

See you there!

The ground is shifting below us.

24-Science-NZealand_486271eI was thinking how fitting that NAR’s conference and expo is being held in San Francisco this week. Not only a hub for technology and innovation but San Francisco is a place where the ground literally shakes from time to time. And things in real estate are getting shaken up.

The combined market cap of Zillow and Trulia is about 3 billion dollars.

The Really Alliance has all but declared war on MLS providers (or not).

A few MLS providers have stopped syndicating listing thru ListHub (more on the way?).

and nobody likes their MLS system (who knew??).

Is there anything solid that we can hold on to? What’s a poor vendor or MLS provider to do in such a unbalanced world? What’s the “new normal”?

I don’t have the answers but, I’m optimistic about the future, and San Francisco is as good a place to start to look for answers as anywhere. My search begins tomorrow. See you there.

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