In Which I Propose a New Role for the REALTOR Association

I’ve been in the real estate market the last few months. It has been an interesting experience all around to be a straight up consumer, both selling and buying. And I’ll tell you what: it has been absolutely amazing to see the good, the bad, and the ugly of the industry personally from a consumer’s … Read more

The Need for More Effective Online Marketing by Real Estate Professionals… Nine Years Later

  In the course of research for something I’m working on, I ran across an absolute gem: the white paper published by Cendant (the former parent company of what is today Realogy) in 2004 entitled, The Need for More Effective Online Marketing by Real Estate Professionals. The unnamed author(s) wrote the white paper for the … Read more

Brokerage Control Over Listings: One Small Data Sample

At the Midyear meetings, I got into some conversations with fellow attendees about the whole MLS public website debate. Obviously. Again. Still. It was a lot of fun, and interesting thoughts were shared. But given that I have written that agent teams are the biggest threats to brokerages, I kinda got curious about something. Just … Read more

Pocket Listings and MLS Accuracy

After all the chatter emerging out of Midyear, there really is no shortage of topics to think and talk about. There is merely the shortage of time. But I thought this topic needs to be addressed, and I’m quite surprised none of the usual commentariat has tackled it. At some point, we are going to … Read more

[PREMIUM] Move, Trulia, Zillow: Q1/2013 Report – The Narratives Take Shape

When I began writing this report, I did not think that a mere update on quarterly results would reach over 12,000 words and require so much work. After all, the annual report is the really important one, and the quarterly reports are mere milestones along the path. But with all of the changes going on … Read more

NAR Mid-Year: Cry Havoc, and Let Slip the Dogs of War

I have been asked for a recap of the events at NAR Midyear, but as I did not attend the Board of Directors meeting, and as I was busy doing other things, I felt it wasn’t really my place to give a recap. It is, however, my place to offer some thoughts — high-level, unusual, … Read more

Brief Report from NAR Midyear MLS Policy Committee Meetings

  Let’s just say that Internet access where I am is shaky, at best. So I’ll try to keep this as brief as possible. A couple of interesting things happened today at the MLS Policy Committee Meeting. I’m sure the full report will be available after Midyear, but these are my initial brief thoughts. MLS … Read more

Notorious P.O.D. Episode 3: Gahlord Dewald

  For anyone who doesn’t know, which is unlikely amongst my readers, Gahlord Dewald is the Founder, CEO, and Janitor of Thoughtfaucet. He’s also one of the hosts for the Trialogues podcast. Because we’ve been missing doing these, as Matthew Shadbolt, our dear friend and Trialogues partner, is temporarily out of commission, we decided to … Read more

Words Matter: The Case Against “Listing Data”

Not that there’s anything truly new under the sun when it comes to the old warhorse topic of listing syndication, but… something did occur to me while wading through this nugget on Inman News’ Facebook Page. Is it possible that so much of the discussion is confused because of the word “data”? For example, Saul … Read more