Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Swanepoel Power 200 for 2024

It’s that time of year again! T3 Sixty has published their SP200 list for 2024. Each year I like to parse out the list and see how our brothers and sisters made out in the MLS community.

The Mt. Rushmore of MLS Execs (as I previously coined them last year) has not changed but each of their respective positions have slightly improved. Art Carter, CEO of CRMLS, Brian Donnellan, CEO of Bright MLS and Bob Hale, CEO of HAR.

Art and Brian both jumped 7 spots, Bob broke in to the twenties.

Merri Jo Cowen, CEO of Stellar MLS leaps 32 spots to #52 to the fourth highest ranking MLS exec on the list beating Teresa King Kinney of Miami AOR who dropped 5 spots to # 60.  Jeremy Crawford of FMLS catapults 48 spots up this year to #54.

John DiMichele of TREBB (the only MLS on this list that doesn’t offer Cloud CMA to its members) falls to #66.  ( you know I love you Jon. 😆)

Dionna Hall, CEO of Beaches MLS, glides up to #96 on the list.  Rebecca Jensen, CEO of MRED lands at # 99 while Matt Consalvo, CEO of ARMLS, climbs up 10 spots to #100.  Gene Millman, CEO of REColorado.com soars to #102 on the list (that’s a leap of 65!) Emily Chenevert, CEO of Austin Board of REALTORS jumps 18 spots up from last year to #124

AnneMarie DeCatsye, CEO of Canopy MLS climbs to #174. Brad Bjelke CEO of UtahRealEstate.com landed at #175.  

Stuart White, CEO of Realtracs rockets 56 spots to land at #120.  Plus “the mad scientist” Tim Dain was listed at #130 ( a jump of 58 spots)

Erm Grasso, CEO of MLS PIN, and Richard Haggerty , CEO OneKey MLS, debuts on the list at #195 and #198 respectively.

Congratulations everyone!

***Please forgive me if I missed someone or got something wrong. Just DM me and I’ll make the correction.***

Carl

It was announced back in September that long time industry vet Carl DeMusz was set to retire this year. I didn’t get a chance to write anything back then but wanted to give him a shout out today. Let it be said that Carl was one of the good guys. I always appreciated how he never sugar-coated things and just was matter of fact about everything. He has contributed so much to the industry with his time on various conferences and advisory boards. Marilyn did a nice write up earlier this year.

I got a chance to see him at the COVE meeting in Chicago early this year. And hearing him speak reminded me of what I most like about Carl. His optimism. Which we all know we need more of, especially in these trying times.

Happy trails Carl and thank you!

DOJ objects to MLS PIN settlement, again.

DOJ objects to 2nd settlement bid in MLS PIN commission case

“In a Dec. 18 letter, DOJ attorney Jessica Leal informed Judge Patti Saris of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts that the agency had conferred with lawyers for the plaintiffs and MLS Property Information Network (MLS PIN) to attempt to address concerns that the deal’s proposed commission rule changes may not go far enough, but wasn’t satisfied with the latest version of the deal.”

Andrea Brambila, Inman News

FFS, just tell us what you want.

New RESO Board Elections results announced

RESO Announces 2024 Board of Directors Election Winners

““The real estate industry is constantly changing and growing, and we need strong leaders to help navigate the wealth of technology at our disposal,” said Rebecca Jensen, President and CEO of Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED), who was re-elected as a director and chosen to return as 2024 Chair of the RESO board. “RESO’s membership elects an amazing group each year, and I am honored to be given the opportunity to continue to help create and enhance standards for an increasingly global housing market.”

RESO

I know I’m a little late on this but still wanted to recognize these individuals. Thanks everyone for supporting this industry.

CMLS elects new board members

Chris Haran
Justin Haag

COUNCIL OF MULTIPLE LISTING SERVICES ELECTS NEW DIRECTORS FOR 2024

“The Council of Multiple Listing Services (CMLS), the professional trade organization serving the Multiple Listing Services industry and representing 231 member organizations with 1.8 million subscribers, has elected new directors for 2024. They will assume their roles on January 1, 2024.

Justin Haag, General Counsel and incoming President and CEO (Jan. 1, 2024) of Northwest MLS (Washington); and Chris Haran, Managing Director and Chief Technology Officer of MRED (Illinois), were elected to serve three-year terms on the CMLS Board of Directors. Matthew Consalvo, CEO of ARMLS (Arizona) was re-elected for a second three-year term.”

Megan Moore, CMLS

Congrats to Justin, Chris and Matt. They certainly have signed up for some interesting time in the MLS industry!

Anyone else seeing these?

Just as predicted these copycat lawsuits are gonna be everywhere. 😖

VESTAPLUS

My thanks again to VestaPlus for sponsoring last month’s Vendor Alley! Following the success of THEMLSPRO®, in 2018, The MLS™ unveiled its next-generation software, VESTAPLUS™, an innovative and versatile suite of MLS software solutions founded on the idea of working with real estate professionals to develop technology solutions that are powerful yet easy to use. VESTAPLUS™ has become a leading technology vendor and winner of the 2020 HousingWire Tech100.

For more information please visit their website.

My prediction #sitzerburnett

With the risk of letting one more tiger in to the ring I’m going to make a prediction. I first have to thank Andrea Brambila of Inman News for her live updates. Also Austin Alanzo from Real Estate News.

While it would have been ideal to be in the courtroom and see the reactions of the jurors to testimony I’m going to make my prediction based upon a couple precepts.

  1. The issue is more complicated than it seems.
  2. The vote must be unanimous.

So, what’s my prediction? Drumroll please……

NAR wins.

Now, I’m unsure if the jury votes on the corporate defendants separately (KW and BHHS) and I don’t know if the jury’s instruction includes a “per se” messaging (you’ll have to listen to the last few episodes of Industry Relations to understand what that means).

But based upon what I’m hearing from people inside the courtroom and the summaries I’m reading this wasn’t a “slam dunk”. So if there is any hint of uncertainty, that means an unanimous vote is unlikely.

Now I believe this is a pretty bold prediction. You’ve got a home town lawyer (Ketchmark) who apparently was close to tears in his closing arguments (tears? really? really?) and the cliche of the “greedy real estate agent”. But did they prove an industry-wide conspiracy? I don’t think so.

VestaPlus

My thanks again to VestaPlus for sponsoring this month’s Vendor Alley. The team at VestaPlus has put together a great website that highlights the benefits of VestaPlus. The website is also a good resource to learn about the other products/features offered by VestaPlus such as Neighborhood Snapshot(tm), ShowingsPlus(tm), and Checkmate(tm) (which was recently adopted by CWMLS).

6%? Hold My Beer

In this first week of the Sitzer Burnett trial is all about the plaintiff presenting their case. And it seems that the plaintiffs are all about showing training materials, and slides from previous conferences that use the 6% as proof that the “fix is in”!

The poor consumer has been tricked in to thinking that this percentage was never negotiable. Hell, the whole reason for scripts in the first place was that CONSUMERS WERE ALWAYS TRYING TO NEGOTIATE. Has anyone brought that point up?

Also, this….

Sponsored By MLS Reset