Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Remember

My wife and I were in New York recently to help my son settle in for college. His dorm is walkable to the World Trade Center. We took the 9/11 Memorial Museum Tour, which was sad but also inspiring. If you haven’t done it, I would highly recommend it. #neverforget

Open or Closed?

Clearing the air on Clear Cooperation

this is about what kind of industry we want to be, and what kind of housing market we want to create: open or closed.

It is that simple. It is that important.

Brian Boero, 1000watt

Brian writes so well it almost makes me want to give up writing myself. In his “Friday Flash” he breaks down the posturing and rhetoric surrounding CCP and gets down to the real issues. It’s about whether we as an industry want an open or closed market.

I’m with Brian. “I want open.”

This a must read. Especially if you are at the Department of Justice.

Realtracs expands access to 1.9M listings

Realtracs Expands Access to 1.9 Million+ Listings Through Southeast MLS Alliance

“Realtracs, the technology company providing the largest multiple listing service (MLS) in Tennessee, announced today the data from a recent MLS alliance is available for subscribers. The Southeast MLS Alliance was created in 2023 to allow cross-regional data sharing among agents and brokers in Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina. “

Realtracs

I’ve been on the road awhile so I’m catching up on some the recent news and his caught my eye. Users of Realtracs, Canopy MLS, Georgia MLS and Charleston Regional MLS now have a full feed of more than 1.9 million additional listings across the southeast.  Boom!

Congrats Eric!

Just love the smile of Eric Stegemann’s face after his company, Tribus, winning the Inman Innovator Award for “Most Innovative Client Experience Solution“. Well done!

RIP Richard Simmons

While not the biggest news this past week the passing of Richard Simmons got me a bit nostalgic. I hired Richard Simmons to do a meet and greet at our booth at the 2004 NAR Annual Convention. This was on the heels of the NAR Annual Conference in 2003 where we had hired Fabio. But that’s another story. Fabio was a huge success and drew a huge crowd at the eNeighborhoods booth. So naturally we thought, let’s get another celebrity! After some brain-storming we settled on Richard Simmons. You can see page one of the agreement we did with the company repping him below and an ad we ran in REALTOR Magazine:

He was a lot of fun. I remember him calling our wives for a prank, “Hi Honey, guess who’s with your husband right now?!” He would also record voice mail greetings for our cell phones. “Hi this is Richard Simmons and you’ve reached Shane’s voice mail!”

Another thing I remember was how a lot of conference attendees came up and told stories about how he had motivated them to live a more healthy life. When I saw him having these conversations (sometimes he would pull them aside) you could see something in his eyes…he truly cared. Such a great legacy.

NYU bound

My son got accepted to NYU Film School. Jenn and I are extremely proud of him.

The above photo is a picture from a trip he took with his senior class in high school. He came back from that trip buzzing. He had many schools to choose from but in the end I wasn’t surprised when he chose New York City.

This week he started his adventure.

How will my heart work, when part of it is so far away?

Addresses in Japan

Japanese addresses: No street names. Block numbers.

“Mailing addresses in Japan, after naming the province and city, are a series of three numbers: district number, block number, building number. That’s how the building is found. No street names.”

Derek Sivers

I thought the nerdy readers of Vendor Alley would love this.

Like father like daughter

Did you know that Darian Woolley, daughter of my friend and co-founder Dan Woolley, just won 1st place 🏆 in Design at UCI‘s Spring Quarter Project teams!

I can’t tell you how much this brought a smile to my face. Go Darian!!

Darian is majoring in HCI Informatics at University of California Irvine (UCI). The team contest was to design an app in the Health category.

“To address the theme of Health, we designed Skintel to help users curate skin care routines and search for new products while being mindful of ingredient synergy: the way skincare ingredients work with or against each other 🧴🔍 ✅. “

Darian Woolley

Check out the video! It’s so good! 👏🥹

Trackxi adds integration with Earnnest

Trackxi partners with Earnnest

“This partnership underscores our commitment to innovation and excellence in simplifying earnest money deposits for real estate professionals and buyers. We’re crafting a new benchmark for simple, efficient transactions, with an unwavering focus on convenience.” 

– Russell Smith, President & COO, Earnnest

Great to see. Two of my favorite apps! Congrats Vijay and Russell!

Pro Tip: Order that ribeye steak

Your mileage may vary.

Sponsored By MLS Reset