Comments on: “I am Tiger Woods”

By: What The #$*! Is livium? (Part I) at livium-the blog

What The #$*! Is livium? (Part I) at livium-the blog — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 19:15:12 +0000

[...] Well, coupled with our observations about good agents and bad listings were observations about changes the Internet was/is bringing to the real estate industry. There has been ample discussion about these changes elsewhere, so they won’t be written about here. Suffice it to say that we see an opportunity to utilize technology and the web to bring good real estate professionals, good listings, and good consumers together – directly. No middleman; no selling leads. Just the agent, the seller, the buyer: an open platform where listings are advertised and questions, information, and ideas are exchanged. It’s about empowering the agent by providing tools that allow her to demonstrate her value; to not just say she’s good (like she does in a 3 x 3 black and white newspaper ad), but to actually show it; to tell her story. [...]

By: Robbie

Robbie — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 20:08:21 +0000

FYI - The real Tiger Woods shot an 8 under 63 in the final round to win the Deutsche Bank Championship this weekend.

By: Matrix » New Brokerage Models Flourish (NAR Needs Redfin’s PR Firm)

Matrix » New Brokerage Models Flourish (NAR Needs Redfin’s PR Firm) — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 09:44:15 +0000

[...] Well, rather than the idea that full service brokers are obsolete, I think the takeaway should be that there is room for both the old and the new. Like Dottie Herman, CEO of Prudential Douglas Elliman (the firm for whom I author their market reports for) said at Inman San Francisco: Technology won’t replace agents, agents with technology will replace agents [RCG]. Exactly. [...]

By: Robbie

Robbie — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 06:50:38 +0000

To be honest, there’s nothing wrong with the MLS system besides the fact there are too many different schemas, too many different access mechanisms, too many different access policies, not enough MLS server power to meet existing demand (much less future demand) of application vendors, and too many different display rules (assuming you can actually manage to get the MLS data onto your server). If you can fix those problems and I suspect you’ll have software engineers & web designers beating a path to your door.

It’s obvious there’s a big enough demand for the stuff, if vendors could just be profitable at supplying it at the price the market wants to pay. Unfortunately, the barriers to entry are too high, so you pay the price.

Otherwise, you gotta do what CB Bain & John L did (Pay big $$ for software engineers as consultants) or do what RedFin did (pay medium $$ for software engineers as employees).

By: Altos Research Real Estate Insights

Altos Research Real Estate Insights — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 06:32:40 +0000

The Last Stand of the 6-Percenters?…

The New York Times jumped on the real-estate-commissions bandwagon on Sunday with this piece that makes Glenn Kelman at Redfin look like a rock star. The article rehashes the usual real estate commissions arguments: agents don’t deserve the big com…

By: Jay Thompson

Jay Thompson — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 05:47:54 +0000

To answer the original question, “So Mr. Agent & Ms. Broker, are there any good MLS/IDX vendors out there whose game impresses you?”

No.

Those that have map search are woefully slow, and the interfaces are not intuirive. 1ParkPlace has a pretty nice registration/no registration set up, and a decent back end. It’s probably the best I’ve seen. Alas, it has no map based search and more importantly doesn’t work with my MLS (very few do, mainly because my MLS doesn’t play well with others).

The IDX my MLS does provide is horrific.

Why can’t I have a speedy map AND text based search with a USER intutive interface? Is that really asking so much?

By: Marlow

Marlow — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 16:15:09 +0000

As I said, I may not like the fact that social connections may be just as important as technological relevance, but I was just stating my observations. Personally, I’m hedging my bets and trying to develop both!

By: Robbie

Robbie — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 16:12:51 +0000

Michael (Price),

It’s been said that the nice thing about standards is there are so many to choose from. But yeah, I’m hoping that RETS clears away the MLS minefield because otherwise, you’re right and I’ll just be playing local tournaments.

Fortunately, at least there is awareness of the problem (which I suspect wasn’t the case a few short years ago). Hopefully the NAR or local brokers, can force their MLS into supporting it. It’s for their own good because it will lower the cost of software development, which will in turn lower the industry’s IT costs. It also good for the vendors because the bigger the market we can sell our products into, the more we can invest back into R&D.

Right now, we have the worst of both worlds. Most agents/brokers have no real choice in vendors and forced to deal with lesser products, and most vendors aren’t seeing the return on investment they need in order to grow and improve. It seems only the billion dollar brokers can afford great technology. It shouldn’t be that expensive because the market is big enough to support an industry if it was organized properly.

I hope it happens sooner, rather than later for the good of the industry though. Otherwise, we’ll all be using Trulia instead of the MLS and I’ll just be selling expensive consulting time to a few instead of an inexpensive product to the masses.

I think the biggest service realtor.com could provide the industry, is become the national MLS and be the de-facto standard. We get rid of all crap we application vendors have to deal with it. Each local MLS would sync with realtor.com schema & data and the MLS would no longer control the schema (just the access to it and the data). That way each local MLS could do what they do today (control access), we have one national standard (yeah), and realtor.com will have a workable server load because only 900 MLS accounts will have access to the server.

Or Dustin could just give me the connection string and allow me past the firewall.

Truthfully, I think Trulia & Zillow are going to inflict more pain before things get better.

By: Michael Daly

Michael Daly — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 16:11:38 +0000

It appears that the gap between what we now have to use and what we need as brokers is about as wide as the gap between Seattle and the Hamptons. So is the understanding of the industry leadership as they clutch onto their existing MLS, even though the usefulness is wilting quickly.
The main point I come away with is that we (real estate brokers/companies/agents) are not satisfying the consumers with our technology offerings. We are still stuck in this self promotion shell game, trying to trick consumers into using us and only us. Agents scream and cry about the lack of customer and client loyalty, while they do so little to earn it. Agents who say “buyers are liars and sellers are worse” are showing their true colors and will be left in the dust.
The other point I come away with is that some of these new real estate sites (z,t,rf,etc) ARE providing consumers what they want; sexy, colorful, interactive sites that make the brokerage industry look like old farts in the process. The problem is that some of these non-broker sites (especially z) are causing collateral damage with their approaches, leaving brokers to explain and defend their value as well as descrepencies in valuations- AND these non-broker sites are enjoying a honeymoon period with no accountability for their information. That will change as lawsuits start to mount.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 15:44:36 +0000

Robbie-

Couldn’t agree with you more. To me, the last three paragraphs in your response to Marlow, says it all. IMHO, in real estate and in our society in general, the definition of success seems to be wrapped up in the cloak of how much money you make & market share, rather than the impact you have on others due to your business or personal dealings–ie, super agents that do nothing for you as in your personal example. Unfortunately, in real estate some of the first thoughts that comes to peoples mind are “how many deals does he/she close or what’s the gross commissions earned.” Really, the question to ask yourself is “how is my business impacting the very last transaction I was involved in.” If you left the business you are in today, would the “waves of your wake” have an impact on those you previously served?

Tech., innovation & building satisfied clients are all important ingredients for success in any business at every level.

PS. a perfect example of the impact I discuss (”waves of your business wake”) was having Dustin’s site down over the weekend. His impact on our small business and others is probably underestimated on his part.