Looking for a new gig?
Full Stack Developer – Stellar MLS
“The Full-Stack Developer is responsible for designing, building, and maintaining existing and new full-stack applications. This role will work closely with a team of developers to deliver interactive, scalable, web apps in the real estate industry. This position must have in-depth knowledge of C#, .NET Core, HTML5/CSS3, JavaScript Framework, JavaScript, and Microsoft SQL Server and will be responsible for not just maintaining existing systems but designing and building new systems and sites to keep Stellar MLS up to date with modern web standards. The full stack developer is expected to provide mentor-ship with regards to design patterns, architecture, process, and communication among all developers on the team. This position reports to the Lead Developer and is a salary, exempt, full-time position.”
The find out about this job, or post a job, please visit the Vendor Alley Job Board.
Looking for a new gig?
Enterprise Customer Success Manager – Lone Wolf
“Our collaborative and dynamic Enterprise Team is responsible for acting as trusted advisors to our enterprise customers. In this role, you will work on a range of activities such as collaborating on solutions cross-functionally, driving customer adoption, and assisting enterprise customers in identifying additional value-creation opportunities.”
We have a couple of these positions open. They are needed on my MLS Team (come work with me!) and our Franchise Team. The find out about this job, or post a job, please visit the Vendor Alley Job Board.
Google Ads on Vendor Alley
I screwed something up and ads are all over my site. Trying to fix. Sorry for all the pop ups.
San Diego 2015
Just like any startup, W+R Studios had a ping pong table at our Main Street office in Huntington Beach. I was pretty good, a few others in our office were decent but by far the best ping pong player we had was our CFO, Karl Ziegler. Karl lived in Boulder CO, but would visit the office about twice a quarter. Nobody could beat Karl.
We were brainstorming one year about what we could do to attract attention to our booth at the upcoming NAR Annual Expo in San Diego (this was 2015) and either Shane or Damon came up with the idea of having a contest for agents to come to our booth and try to beat Karl at ping pong for a free subscription to the Cloud Agent Suite. I thought it was brilliant! So thus the “BEAT KARL” campaign began. We did mock video interviews with Karl, a workout routine video, and a walk-on video for the booth. I had so much fun putting the campaign together.
Karl was a good sport (although he hated the white shorts I picked out for him) and I think his record at the end of the show was something insane like 93 -4. Below is a video reel we put together for Karl for a farewell dinner we hosted for him when he left Lone Wolf earlier this year. The mock interview in the middle is hilarious.
Looking forward to seeing everyone this week.
If you are reading this Karl. Love you man. #MLKLLG
Looking for a new gig?
“The Support/Call Center Manager is responsible for the daily operations of the Support Center and Tier 2 teams to ensure delivery of high standards of service to MLS customers while also making the most effective and efficient use of Company resources. The Manager ensures all customer service, employee performance and reporting objectives are met. This position also manages the Tier 2 team to ensure system and/or process bugs are identified, resolved in a timely manner and MLS customers receive full circle follow-up.”
The find out about this job, or post a job, please visit the Vendor Alley Job Board.
#jobboard
MLS Aligned adds BeachesMLS
“The announcements continue to come for MLS Aligned as earlier this year, MLS Aligned purchased the intellectual property rights to the Agent Inbox software, a real estate showing and messaging platform. They intend to pave the way for showing standards as they rebuild and standardize this new product as Aligned Showings. The collaboration between these forward-thinking companies is what allows MLS Aligned to build and acquire powerful tools and technologies to improve the standards and power of the MLS and real estate industry
Dionna Hall, CEO of BeachesMLS, said that “The best MLS collaborations are with those that align through similar DNA regardless of borders. It is with that mindset that BeachesMLS joins MLS Aligned to work together on future industry initiatives and innovations.”
41,000 members is a big add. Looks MLS Aligned’s value proposition is showing appeal.
Kim Roller-Hoereth joins ShowingTime
According to an internal message, Kim Roller-Hoereth is joining ShowingTime as an Industry Relations executive. She will work closely with Mike Lane and ShowingTime’s MLS sales and account management team to support MLSs, Boards, and Associations throughout the US and Canada.
Great gig for Kim, she’s an industry vet and well respected. Congrats to both Kim and ShowingTime.
Zillow Quits Home-Flipping Business, Cites Inability to Forecast Prices
“But Chief Executive Rich Barton said Tuesday that Zillow had failed to accurately predict the pace of home-price appreciation, marking an end to a venture the company once said could generate $20 billion a year.”
The irony is so thick here you could cut it with a knife.
CoStar’s big bet against MLS
Lots of chatter about Andy Florance’s interview with Brad Inman last week at Inman Connect. Andy has certainly gotten better at his storytelling since his last interview with Brad. According to Mr. Florance Zillow is “hijacking” listings by placing other agents around the listing. But what Mr. Florance fails to mention is that any broker or agent that has an IDX website is also “hijacking” listings.
What’s at stake here is at the very core of the principles behind the MLS, “cooperation and compensation”. Basically, you help me sell my listing, I’ll help you sell yours.
In a perfect “CoStar world” cooperative compensation goes away, and agents must directly pay to advertise listings. “The Australian model”, some have dubbed it. In this case, CoStar’s acquisition of Homes.com serves as their listing portal and Homesnap for their agent toolbox. Sidenote: I find it kind of funny that Mr. Florance has beaten Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp to the “Australian model” of real estate. Since realtor.com is so very entrenched in Opcity’s broker referral model.
Now, this is a completely sound business strategy. Break up the MLS-Broker model and go directly to agents and consumers. CoStar, Homes.com, and Homesnap have made a bet, in my opinion against the MLS. Okay, you do you.
But, I personally don’t agree with this solution. I think having a strong MLS, makes the market work. And I think as we evolve policy in regard to transparency in commissions and listing attribution we can make things better for everyone.
And let’s be honest. The Seller doesn’t give a shit about any of this. They just want their house sold. Zillow and other IDX sites do a great job of giving listings the greatest exposure in the market. All the broker needs to do is, put it on the MLS.
I also don’t agree with the fear-based message Mr. Florance is sending out. It seems that Mr. Florance’s whole value proposition is that they are “not Zillow”. Zillow is the “mafia”. Zillow is “hijacking” your listings. He even readily admits that CoStar is not coming out with any innovations in regard to the “UI or UX” of its software. It seems their entire go-to-market strategy is just tapping into all the Zillow haters. Granted, Zillow has done a lot of stupid things to make it easy to pick on them but I wish Mr. Florance would tell us why his site and tools are better than everyone else’s instead of just bashing competitors.
Next week CoStar/Homes.com/Homesnap is shutting down part of the Gaslight District in San Diego and throwing a huge party and concert with Country Music Star, Keith Urban. And I’m sure a lot of wining and dining will happen.
But, I’m not a big fan of Country Music, especially Australian Country Music.
MLS Grid – “But Wait There’s More!”
Gotta love this “infomercial” that MLS Grid created. So funny and super well done. They showed this at the recent RESO Conference. Thanks to Rebecca Pearson of MRED for letting me share it here too.
