Zillow Strikes Again

On the newswire this morning was a press release announcing the broadcast of an interview with Senators Bob Cocker (R-Tenn) and Mark Warner (D-Va) conducted by Zillow Chief Economist and all-round trend prognosticator, Dr. Stan Humphries. The senators are co-sponsors of Senate Bill 1217, the Housing Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013 which seeks … Read more

What is a Listing? On the SourceMLS project from CMLS

I’ve been invited to speak at CMLS on the topic of what MLSs should do to help brokers make smart decisions about syndication. The invitation is surprising for a couple of reasons:  I’m no longer in the MLS business nor do I work for a recipient of said broker syndication efforts and decisions.  Also, after … Read more

What I Saw At the Zillow Summit

Earlier this week, before my insane travel schedule hit in earnest, I had the opportunity to attend the Zillow Premier Agent Summit held in Houston. Since I’m not an agent, nevermind a Zillow Premier Agent, I’d like to thank Mitch Robinson of Zillow for extending the invitation. I sent out a steady stream onto the … Read more

Why Bother? Brokerage Numbers From the New NAR Study

So NAR has published a new study of brokerage firms ($149 if you’re not a NAR member) which shows “optimism and challenges”. Various media folks have opined and reported on it already, and I read the RISMedia story on the survey. Go check it out in full if you haven’t already. But one passage in … Read more

That Mysterious “Other” – Tales from Google Consumer Survey

Tim Dain is the Executive Director at SIRMLS and one of the most forward-thinking MLS people in the industry today. He’s also a bit of a tech geek and likes to experiment with techie things. Well, he sent me something he did through Google’s new consumer survey service, and I thought it was interesting enough … Read more

That Mysterious "Other" – Tales from Google Consumer Survey

Tim Dain is the Executive Director at SIRMLS and one of the most forward-thinking MLS people in the industry today. He’s also a bit of a tech geek and likes to experiment with techie things. Well, he sent me something he did through Google’s new consumer survey service, and I thought it was interesting enough … Read more

Quick Promo: The Neighborhood Advocate Initiative

Sorry to be working on Labor Day… an ironic thing if ever there was one… but a quick promo. This is really intended for those in my audience who are Association leadership or staff. If you were at my AE Institute presentation back in March, you saw some issues I laid out for a “Leaner, … Read more

Introducing… the Notorious B.O.B.

As longtime readers know, this has always been my personal blog since I started it in 2008. But, honestly, over time, it’s become far more of a real estate industry blog. It’s probably time I recognized that. One way to recognize such a shift is to bring on other writers, other voices who have interesting … Read more

A Slight Tremor or Foreshock?

An interesting article appeared in Inman News back in early July.  It might have gone unnoticed but for a reminder video they posted this past week. It was coverage of a new brokerage, Suitey.com (pronounced “sweetie”), that opened this year in Manhattan.  In the video, one of the founders David Walker gave one of their … Read more