Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Aligned Showings passes 2 millionth mark and introduces usage-based pricing

Aligned Showings Reaches 2 Millionth Showing and Introduces Usage-Based Pricing

“Having booked over 2 million showings across our MLS partners is a huge milestone for us. We continue to add new features to Aligned Showings, which has led to over 91% of active listings using the platform in RMLS alone,” stated Kurt von Wasmuth, CEO of RMLS in Portland, Oregon.”

Many MLS software solutions are bundled or provided at little or no cost. The drawback to these tethered solutions is that they limit choice and competition. Additionally, many of these vendors require licensing and terms that MLS organizations would rather not concede. As the saying goes, ‘When the product is free, you’re the product.’

With Aligned Showings usage-based pricing, MLS organizations can now offer more choice to their agents without surrendering unwanted or aggressive data usage rights.

MetroList finds a voice

MetroList Introduces Revolutionary Voice-Activated Property Add-Edit Feature

“MetroList President and CEO Dave Howe highlighted the significance of this launch, “This new Add-Edit feature is important for the industry to radically modernize the day-to-day business of real estate professionals. We are thrilled to continue partnering with Lundy and Rapattoni to set new real estate standards.”

Pretty cool! The new voice search on MetroListMLS.com (also powered by Lundy) just keeps getting better and better—super fast! So, adding their voice recognition to listing input seems like a no-brainer.

Side note: Zillow’s voice search experience on the iPhone is much slower and more finicky, in my experience, compared to what Lundy has accomplished. Not sure why Zillow (or Realtor.com/Homes.com) hasn’t bought Lundy already… hint, hint.

That being said, I mostly use voice as an input device at home with Siri on my HomePod: “Siri, start a timer for 4 minutes,” or “Siri, what’s the weather like today?” I’ve just started getting more comfortable using voice with ChatGPT. I’m still a little self-conscious about it, but I know that will fade as AI improves.

Great to see MetroList and Rapattoni driving this innovation—it’s really close to magic!

OMG! They did it!

Woke up early this morning to “catch” this. SpaceX just launched its biggest rocket, which includes Starship. But the trick was they wanted to catch the booster part of the rocket back on the launch platform with what they call, “chopsticks”. And they did it!! I was watching this live on my phone jumping around in the kitchen like a madman!

Oh, and BTW, Starship made it to orbit with no problems.

Rayse rising

Rayse Launches to 200 Brokerages, Transforming Transparency and Value in Real Estate Transactions

“Developed in collaboration with leading brokerages, franchisors, and multiple listing service (MLS) providers, Rayse has garnered significant industry support. “We believe in shared ownership of technology solutions to benefit both real estate professionals and their clients,” said Howard W. “Hoby” Hanna IV, CEO of Howard Hanna Real Estate Services, an early investor in Rayse. Founding investors in Rayse completed over 1.1 million transactions in 2023, and the combined agent count among brokers and MLSs is over 470,000, according to data provided by T3 Sixty.”

What I appreciate about what James Dwiggins has so far done with Rayse is the shear number of industry participants who have invested real money to launch this new venture. The count of industry investors he has put together is amazing. It lessens the burden of having to rely on one or two big checks and also has the advantage of smart money. If you take a look at the list of people/companies that have invested they are the same people that can actively participate in helping the company succeed. And when Rayse does succeed they all can participate in its success. Love, love love.

MetroList adds voice search to popular MLS portal, MetroList.com

MetroList Unveils Revolutionary Voice-Activated Real Estate Search Platform for Consumers

“MetroList CEO Dave Howe highlighted the significance of this launch: “This isn’t just an enhancement—it’s a transformative leap forward in real estate technology. We are thrilled to offer the convenience of voice-enabled commands, setting a new standard for property search in the real estate industry.”

Heath Craig, Co-Founder of SaleCore, echoed this sentiment: “Partnering with Lundy on this project has been a natural fit. MetroList’s commitment to innovation aligns perfectly with our vision for the future of real estate technology. We’re excited to see the industry embrace this powerful new property-search tool.”

Pretty rad. When I just asked for a zip code, the experience was super fast and kind of magical. Pretty cutting-edge if you ask me, and it’s great to see an MLS organization like MetroList launch this type of innovation. It shows what good partnerships with vendors can create.

Minor quibbles:

Search requests beyond zip codes with more criteria (beds, baths, price range) take a bit longer.

I couldn’t get it to work on my Safari browser, but it did work on Google Chrome.

When I click the microphone button to start talking, the icon does change color, but I think the button state needs to more clearly indicate that it is in the “on” mode.

Similarly, when you click the microphone to turn it off and start searching, there is no status message to indicate that it is processing your search request. This can feel a bit odd, especially if the search results are not immediate.

Also, in every search I did with a price range, it asked me to repeat the price range.

Ben Thompson interviews new Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman

An Interview with Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman About Evolving Strategy

“This week’s Stratechery Interview is with new Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman. Wacksman is a long-time Zillow employee, having joined the company in 2009, three years after its founding. We also have a lot in common, including working at Microsoft after an MBA at Kellogg (we went in rather different directions since then!). Wacksman was previously COO of Zillow, and before that was CMO.”

Ben Thompson is the founder of Stratechery, which is one of my favorite technology blogs. Ben had previously interviewed Zillow co-founder and former CEO, Rich Barton. Barton has cited Ben’s writing about Opendoor as one of the reasons Zillow went in to iBuying. I would recommend listening to the interview via the Stratechery podcast. Access might require a subscription, which I highly recommend.

This is a great interview and really covers a lot of subjects including Jeremy’s background, Zillow’s early history, its business model evolution, its launch and then quick exit out of iBuying. But these three sections caught my attention. First is his thoughts his “pitch” on their upcoming “Super App”

“Well, give the Super App pitch. What is the overarching strategy, the shift away being an ads business to what you’re doing today?

JW: Yeah, the Super App pitch is that if I could give you a remote control on your phone so that the same way you can order an Uber or book an Airbnb, you could do all of your real estate transaction inside of the Zillow app. You could talk to your loan officer and your agent 24/7 via group chat. You could understand via a pizza tracker where your loan is and are you missing any documents and it could all be in one place.”

I have some thoughts on this I’ll save for a later post.

The other is about the impact of the NAR Settlement.

Give us the overview, you’re the expert.

“JW: The two high level changes are both about buyer and seller choice and education.
…..So in both cases, on the seller side, on the buyer side, it’s a more empowered customer, and it’s a more educated customer and we can come back to what we’re doing, we’re leaning into that education. On the buy side, we are innovating a touring agreement, like a dating form because we want to help educate customers before they get married to an agent. Well, what are you going to get into? What should you expect? What should a contract look like? And help them be informed about their choice before they make it, so that’s what changing.”

I like the analogy of a “dating form”.

And lastly on the fate of the MLS.

“JW: Our argument is again, we’re here for the customer and there is some real good in this marketplace and you can build a lot of good and we can grow our company really big in a world where there is listing sharing and there are all these benefits and all these things we are doing to grow our company to — you’d move back to a classified business model which isn’t really good for the buyer and the seller. So that’s the big part of why we’re like — but it was this weird argument where we’re talking to investors about like, “Well, yeah, the margin profile of that business might look better, Zillow would probably win more, but we don’t actually think that’s good”, it’s not really good for anyone. It’s definitely not even good for the suppliers who would in theory, enact it.”

Bravo.

Polyglot listings arrive in Staten Island MLS

Staten Island Multiple Listing Service Partners With DirectOffer, Inc. to Give Subscribers a New Way to Enhance Their Property Listings

“At SIMLS, our subscribers serve a diverse set of clients, and we are committed to providing innovative tools that empower them to make homeownership a possibility for more people,” said Sandy Krueger, President and CEO of Staten Island Multiple Listing Service. “We couldn’t be more excited about our partnership with DirectOffer. DO AudioTour’s multi-language and closed captioning capabilities ensure that our subscribers’ property listings are reaching the broadest audience, while supporting our ADA and DEI initiatives.”

Sandy Krueger, President and CEO of Staten Island Multiple Listing Service

Chéri(e), arrête la voiture !

Lone Wolf Foundation

Lone Wolf Technologies officially introduces Lone Wolf Foundation and the new generation of real estate software.

The future of real estate has arrived: Lone Wolf launches Lone Wolf Foundation, new generation of software

“This is the end result of that extensive research; a platform that goes beyond integrations, beyond connections, beyond a rebrand to create a real solution. From a single login to a modular design that allows real estate professionals to pick and choose the solutions they need, with shared data workflows that keep information consistent from lead to close and the latest in digital security, there’s nothing like this in the industry today—and it will transform the way real estate professionals work, now and into the future.”

Sean Wheeler, CTO of Lone Wolf Technologies

This has been a huge project and I’m loving what Lone Wolf has pulled off. Having acquired some of the most popular and widely adopted software in the real estate space, they have taken a fresh approach on how to create an end-to-end platform. Am I biased? Of course! It’s all because I know the team there is made up some of the most creative and talented people in the industry, people from HomeSpotter, Instanet, zipForm, Terradatum and W+R Studios.

I hear some of you say, “But, Greg, I thought you didn’t like all-in-one solutions?” I think that Lone Wolf’s CEO Jimmy Kelly said it best, “Real Estate Doesn’t Need More Software“. In a nutshell what he is saying real estate has a lot of point solutions; it needs what it already has to pull more weight. The industry wants its existing software to work together, and be more automated. What Lone Wolf is doing is creating a foundation (see what I did there) for their software (and also giving the flexibility to add other solutions) to let brokers and agents create the experience they want. Experience I believe is the key word here.

Congrats to everyone at Lone Wolf!

Doing the right thing

FTC Sues Adobe, The Legal Question, The Value of Doing Right

“More generally, what bothers me about this case is the moral component; I assume this entire purchase flow has been A/B tested to death, and that the current configuration makes the most money, at least across whatever timeline is being considered. However, did anyone at Adobe stop and consider why that might be? Is there any answer other than, some number of users won’t be careful enough and will buy the wrong plan, and then get hit with a large fee, which will either drive revenue on its own or convince the user to begrudgingly not cancel, driving more revenue going forward? Even leaving aside the long-term hit to the brand’s reputation, what about doing the right thing?”

Ben Thompson, Stratechery

Stratechery is probably my favorite newsletter/podcast. And I love the Dithering podcast he does with Apple nerd John Gruber. Worth the money. Ben Thompson is a business strategist and his “aggregation theory” has multiple ramifications in real estate. John Gruber’s blog Daring Fireball was a big inspiration when I started Vendor Alley.

This article struck me in a couple ways. You should go read it. I think one of the main things that made Cloud CMA so successful was the ability for customers to “self-serve”, meaning they didn’t have to book a demo with a sales person to see pricing and order the product directly. Basically, customers could just go to the website, put a credit card in and boom start using Cloud CMA right away. Cheers to Dan Woolley for making this complicated process seem so easy. So I can say that I have been a part of the design process of close of 100 different landing pages in regard to pricing. So I know all the ways and the “dark patterns” that some companies used to trick their customers in to signing up without really knowing what they are signing up for. This also Includes hiding/burying the cancel button. In fact when Dan and I started W+R Studios one of our main tenets was we were going to make it easy for agents to cancel their subscription. We needed that trust so if we came up with a new product they would be willing to try us again.

We weren’t always perfect, it can be a tough balance, but I can say that it is something we were very conscious of, doing the right thing.

So that got me thinking. We have all been struggling with #NARsettlement. Transparency, commissions, concessions, buyers agreements, touring agreements, etc. I think largely centered around how close to the status quo can we keep things?

So if you are a real estate broker/agent and you are entering in to a business relationship with a homebuyer, what would be the right thing to do in regard to disclosure? Can we all work backwards from that?

Delight

This is an example of what it means when your product “delights” your customers. h/t: Pomp

Sponsored By MLS Reset