Looks like this is a big win for Homes.com! Here are some highlights:
Homes Media Solutions will design and power a new remax.com site. To be launched sometime in 2016. At its core the new site will be designed to generate more referral-free leads. Homes.com is owned by Dominion Enterprises.
RE/MAX’s company owned regions (COR) will also get a brand new lead management solution/CRM, a re-designed Homes Connect, also powered by Homes Media Solutions. Part of the new Homes Connect platform gives every COR RE/MAX agent a mobile friendly single page agent website. Non-company owned regions can also participate.
So it looks like for COR Homes.com will power both the front end and back end.
Congrats to Andy Woolley and his team for making this happen. Since first signing a deal with RE/MAX, as part of eNeighborhoods(before they were acquired by Dominion Enterprises), they have kept the relationship and deals alive for over 10 years.
Billy Joel’s Glass HousesToday ListTrac, a relatively new vendor, announced a “breakthrough”, which allows real estate professionals to “monetize listings”.
I’m not totally familiar with ListTrac’s revenue model ( I don’t think they have one currently) but this whole premise struck me as odd. Or maybe I just woke up in a weird mood today.
This quote from ListTrac’s CEO, Trent Gardner got me started:
“Just as musicians are compensated each time their song is played on the Internet, ListTrac wants real estate professionals to be rewarded every time their listing is viewed on the Internet,”
Wait, what? My local Realtor is now Billy Joel?
“For years, companies have taken listing content and assembled multi-billion dollar business models by monetizing the ‘eye-balls’ looking at this valuable content,” Gardner explains. “However, these business models don’t allow brokers to participate — so they have been sidelined watching others make millions of dollars in IPOs off of their content. ListTrac helps change that paradigm with a framework allowing real estate professionals to monitor and monetize their listing content.”
Don’t brokers receive exposure for these listings which then translate in to sales?
“Through its patented-approved process, ListTrac, working with MLS firms, help brokers monetize their listing content through the new standard of online advertising known as ‘programmatic advertising.’ Programmatic advertising allows brands to reach consumers at the right time with the right product and the right message — better connecting the advertiser and the consumer.”
Here’s a question. And again, it might sound a bit too weird . Do the portals get to participate in “programmatic advertising” revenue ListTrac is going to help generate for real estate professionals? Shouldn’t they? Why or why not?
I mean if nobody sees the listings (hears the song?), how is ListTrac going to generate revenue? I mean if I never hear Piano Man on the internet how do I know when to buy a piano??!!
Think about it. ListTrac’s whole business model depends on listing portals to install their tracking software on their sites. Without this software ListTrac can’t operate. I can’t imagine Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com or Homes.com is too thrilled to install any third party software on their own servers. I’m sure all of these site could provide tracking and metrics to any MLS without the need for ListTrac.
If I were ListTrac I would be playing very nice with all these guys.
But…
“Gardner notes that ListTrac went through an arduous process meeting with MLS tech committees, syndication task forces and MLS boards — all populated with agents and brokers — to ensure that no personal information would be shared and that no MLS listing content would be licensed or sold
Meeting with their customers is an “arduous process”? I wrote about this before but this whole entitlement vibe with newer vendors in this space is ridiculous.
I’m sure ListTrac has some smart people, so I must be missing something about this “breakthrough”. Or just as Billy Joel sang, “You might be right, I may be crazy”
But last month, a Boston-based Internet data exchange (IDX) website provider, www.realestate Inc., contacted Inman, saying www.realestate Inc. had refused to implement ListTrac’s monitoring code in its websites for agents belonging to ListTrac customer Cape Cod and Islands MLS.
“Our business code of conduct prevents us from installing any third-party software we feel would harm you or others,” wrote the company’s founder, Mark Holt, in an email to its CCIMLS customers.
“We will not install monitoring software at the direction of any third-party without consent. We consider ListTrac’s ‘monitoring code’ dangerous at this time, therefore we will not install it.” ListTrac’s monitoring code is an “unknown back-door Trojan” that’s installed without agents’ express permission on their websites at the behest of their MLSs, Holt told Inman.
“Connecting consumers to Realtors on TulsaRealtors.com without displaying competing banner advertising was a top priority, ensuring the conversation stayed focused on helping Tulsa consumers find their next home,” said Mike Cotrill, CEO of GTAR, in a statement.”
Another tidbit about the article from above.
“Homes.com, the fourth most popular real estate portal in the nation, began powering the national websites for franchise powerhouses Re/Max in 2006 and ERA in 2012,…”
Back in 2006 eNeighborhoods originally signed the deal with RE/MAX. eNeighborhoods was then acquired by Dominion Enterprises (the parent company of Homes.com). Through that acquisition, other competition, changes in leadership at RE/MAX, the “Great Recession”, a lot of other shit I don’t know about, Andy Woolley and his team deserve a lot of credit for keeping that relationship (and revenue) going. 9 years is a helluva lot of time in this industry.
Homes.com also rolled out a new look, a more friendly version of the “3 headed monster”.
“Our new advertising product is the result of extensive discussions with agents, brokers, MLSs and industry partners to find the best way to connect engaged consumers with buyer’s agents as they search for their next home,” said Homes.com President David Mele in a statement. “Homes.com Local Connect clearly displays the listing agent at the top of every lead form and ensures that consumer leads are always routed back to the listing agent or broker, regardless of whether the listing is displayed for free or through paid advertising.”
And Homes.com signed up with Clareity’s Direct Connection tool.
“Implementing Clareity Direct Connections offers another resource to improve the accuracy and quality of listings on Homes.com, while providing MLSs and brokers a user-friendly way to opt in to display their listings on Homes.com and Homes.com marketing products,” said Andy Woolley, vice president of industry development, in a statement.
A few things I wanted to highlight about last week’s Clareity MLS Executive Workshop in Scottsdale, AZ last week. First off Gregg and his entire team did an amazing job. The content was fantastic and they managed to keep the conversation above the salacious syndication war between MOVE and Zillow Group narrative that has been floating around.
But, one of my takeaways about the Zillow Vs MOVE thing was how it effects other players, notably Homes.com. Seems like an opportunity for these guys. When I asked Andy Woolley, now Industry Relations at Homes.com. Andy was quick to point out that while they don’t, and won’t possibly ever have as much traffic as ZTR, they were focusing a lot on “quality”. Meaning the “quality” of leads coming through Homes.com. I was sent a screen shot of a ListHub report (from the Houston market) that seemed to prove that out.
Yes, I know their total detail views is much smaller, but their lead ratio is crazy good.
HAR .08%
Zillow .06%
realtor.com .03%
Trulia .019% Homes.com .97%
The other thing was the direct feed count. Check out this slide.
Homes.com has 400 direct feeds from MLS providers. 400 freaking hundred.Zillow Group isn’t even close. Great lead ratio, huge direct feed count, you gotta wonder what that is worth to someone.
On another topic, was the release of the MLS Satisfaction survey. Here’s the results of the “End User Satisfaction.”
Looking at MLS Vendors with more than 2 customers it appears that Black Knight and FBS still dominate the top two spots above their competition. Kudos to both of them.
Thanks again to Gregg, Matt and the rest of the Clareity team. We are always thrilled to participate. And I hope you enjoyed the Cloud Streams t-shirts. They look great!
“Homes.com is committed to providing consumers with the best possible search experience by offering the most accurate and timely data available, combined with being a ‘friend to the industry’ by positioning the listing agent as a critical part of the consumer inquiry,” said Dave Mele, president of Homes.com. “Andy brings a wealth of experience to a critical area of our business as we focus on strengthening and expanding our partnerships throughout the country to help agents, brokers and MLSs grow their businesses.”
The big news yesterday was the acquisition of MOVE, Inc. by News Corp. But there was a piece of news that many of you may not know about. As of yesterday, Homes.com will stop supporting WyldFyre.
WyldFyre, a distributed database system, one of the first true alternative front ends to an MLS system. And this was pre-internet. We’re talking TVI-950/VT-100n type of stuff.
WyldFyre was part of eNeighborhoods, who bought it from MOVE, Inc. back in 2004. I was in charge of sales at eNeighborhoods when this happen. Along with the product we got Michael Hayes, Bob Morse and Joe Happe to join our enterprise sales team led by Andy Woolley. We all had some great times together.
But WyldFyre origins go back all the way to 1992. Southland Regional MLS with Jim Link at the helm took a chance on their product. Southland’s backend system was called Computerized Real-estate Information System aka CRIS. The first version of WyldFyre was called CRISNet.
At the peak, there were well over 100,000 unique users of Wyldfyre in North America and Australia.
Dan Musso and Mike Myers sold their company to HomeStore in 2000.
I reached out to Mike Myers about this thoughts on the final sunset of WyldFyre. He simply stated.
“Had I known it was going to last this long…we would never have sold the company.”
Food for thought to other vendors out there.
22 years is a long time in technology. 22 years of helping agents do the business of real estate. And I’m sure there a few real estate agents who are still pretty pissed they are shutting it down.
So join me in pouring one out for WyldFyre. Dan and Mike, you should be very proud.
Word on the street is that Jason Doyle, after 14 years at Dominion Enterprises, is resigning. Dominion Enterprises is the parent company of Homes.com. I knew Jason from back when eNeighborhoods was acquired by Dominion and always found him to be a smart guy and straight shooter. With juggernauts like Zillow, Trulia and MOVE and their big budgets Jason did a great job in keeping Homes.com relevant, and profitable. Please join me in wishing him well on his new gig.
“The campaign will provide your brand and listings exposure to over 260 million consumers daily that watch HGTV, TLC and the DIY Network!”
The ad is decent, not great, but I see a few smart things Homes.com has done here.
1. Instead of a high concept ad like Zillow, which are hard to pull off, they went with their strongest asset, the URL. Nobody can argue that homes.com is the best url out there.
2. Morale. I think this type of exposure is huge for the company itself. Homes.com is competing with the likes of Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com. I’m sure the employees must be sick of seeing Zillow’s name all over the place. I think it’s great when you sit down in front of the television and a commercial for your company comes up and you say to your kids, “that’s the company Daddy works for.”
3. Sales. When you are running a sales team you need something for them to rally behind. It’s huge to add to your sales pitch that the company is launching a national television campaign.
“The display agreement provides Homes.com with data from the following MLS organizations: Houston Association of REALTORSÒ, California Regional MLS, MetroList Services (Sacramento area), Southland Regional Association of REALTORS (San Fernando Valley, CA), BAREIS (North San Francisco counties), MLSListings (Monterey to Silicon Valley), Intermountain MLS (Boise, Idaho), MLS Property Information Network (New England), and Midwest Real Estate Data (greater Chicago area).”
Super Impressive. Those are some of the largest and most respected MLS providers in the country. Plus think about the number of listings they have. This is a HUGE deal for Homes.com and win for consumers. If they keep this up their ListHub feeds might be regulated to just smaller MLS markets.
Then there’s this…
“Homes.com is an industry partner with a deep commitment to creating connections between real estate professionals and consumers. We believe that this starts with a direct relationship with local MLSs,” said Brock MacLean, executive vice president of Homes.com. “Through agreements with these nine MLS organizations, more than 200,000 MLS members will now be able to leverage traffic from more than 12.5 million homebuyers who visit Homes.com monthly, better connecting their member agents and brokers with active consumers.”
Riiiiight. It took a super connected dude like Brock McLean to get these deals done.
