Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Zillow settles lawsuit with MOVE/NAR

Andrea Brambila reporting for Inman News

Zillow and Move settle trade secrets lawsuit for $130M

$130 million smackaroos is all it took.

“Before the settlement, the case was scheduled to go to jury trial today. None of the parties admitted any liability, wrongdoing or responsibility in the settlement agreement, according to a Zillow Group public filing.

Move’s co-plaintiff, the National Association of Realtors, is entitled to 10 percent of the settlement proceeds after deduction of Move’s litigation-related costs and fees, with the remainder being paid to Move, according to a News Corp. public filing.”

All I can say is thank goodness. This was a huge distraction for everyone involved. I’m so happy for Errol, Curt and their families. This had to cause such undue stress on all involved.

I hoping that everyone involved can move forward and forgive and forget. I thought is was bullshit when MOVE and NAR first filed the lawsuit against Errol, especially in an industry where people seem to move from different companies on a regular basis.

But, I was also worried about Zillow’s timing and the aggressive way that they hired Curt. It seemed pretty ruthless.

This industry needs as many smart people involved in the conversation as possible. So NAR, let Zillow Group participate in trade shows and events.

Zillow, the last time I saw Spencer give a talk they asked him what was one of things he would have changed in the past. He said he would have reached out more to the industry. Well, you talked the talk, now walk the walk.

I’m also excited to see what is on the horizon for online real estate. You can bet the competition between MOVE, Zillow Group, Redfin and other is going to be fierce.

I glad were are back to innovation instead of spoliation.

The talk of T3

I had a major case of FOMO last week, missing out on the T3 Summit. While Stefan was gracious enough to include me on their Power 200 list I had way too much going on (i.e. launching our new Cloud MLX product) to make the trek.

Rank-45-HeadshotWhile there were a lot of sessions covering some of the most talked about topics (Upstream, AMP, etc.) I’ve talked to a few people who attended the event and the one speaker/person who kept coming up and that everyone was impressed by was Amy Bohutinsky, the Chief Operating Officer of Zillow. She previously ran the marketing at Zillow and took the new role right around when they closed Trulia.

If anyone else has anything to share please say something in the comments. I tried following on Twitter but couldn’t keep up.

Well, there’s always next year. Word is they will hold it at the Four Seasons again in Westlake Village. This year the event sold out fast.

Mike Wurzer says you shouldn’t be “spooked”

Are MLSs spooked by AMP?

“What this means is that AMP isn’t something to be worried about, rather each MLS will be able to consider choosing AMP as their MLS vendor on the same basis it would consider choosing FBS, Black Knight, Corelogic, or any other vendor. That’s an opportunity, not something to fear.

Rational and thoughtful (and a bit fun) post from Mr. Wurzer. Nice to see him writing again.

Clareity MLS Survey: Black Knight claims top spot again, FBS closing gap.

You gotta hand it to Rich Lull, Marty Reed and the rest of the team at Black Knight for another year at the top of Clareity Consulting’s “MLS Customer Satisfaction Survey“.

Oddly enough this year’s (and last years) number 2, FBS, was not at the event. And it appears that FBS is closing the gap. While Black Knight had a 10 point lead last year, FBS closed that gap to only 4 points. FBS also had the biggest jump in points.

2015 Clareity

2014 Clareity

According to the survey,points are calculated:

“…grouped by MLS vendor and system, based on a calculated score (3 times the “Excellent” percentage plus “Good,” minus “Fair,” minus 3 times “Poor”). A higher calculated score signifies better end-user satisfaction as reported by the MLS executive.“

Nice to see Rapattoni (who was at the event) go up a few points as well.

More later on the workshop itself, but wanted to congratulate everyone above.

Realtor.com’s Chief Economist “DJ Smokey Smoke” is available for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs

rdc dj

His name is Jonathan Smoke a.k.a. “DJ Smokey Smoke“. It’s nice to see the new owner’s of MOVE are loosening up. But DJ Smokey Smoke’s latest post on Realtor.com’s official blog did catch my eye and left me wondering what exactly is News Corp smoking?

DJ blog

Plus I thought Rob Hahn a.k.a “The Notorious R.O.B.” owned this type of commentary/video format?

Can you beat Karl?

I’m not sure if our “Beat Karl” campaign is actually going to help us hype up our booth presence at the REALTORS EXPO & CONVENTION in San Diego this week, but we are sure having fun with the promotion. : )

We created a “walk on” video that will be played right before Karl’s ping pong matches. Enjoy, and please share!


#BEATKARL #BOOTH945 #NARANNUAL

Robertson interviews Frame

This Friday I’ll be interviewing Marty Frame from RPR at the MLS Executives Session. I’ll be asking Marty a few questions about RPR, Upstream, AMP and maybe get some weight loss tips. I hope you’ll join me.

P.S. If you have any questions you would like me to ask just send them to me via email.

Zillow/Retsly announce judges for upcoming “zip.code” hackathon

ff_hackathons_f-2I’m very excited to be selected as a judge at Retsly’s “zip.code” hackathon this weekend!

For those of you who don’t know Retsly is a software company acquired by Zillow Group last year. They have created “Listing and Public Data” APIs.

zip.code

“Embracing the power of the Retsly Listings and Public Data APIs, zip.code 2015 aims to bring together the most creative and tireless hackers for a weekend of furious, sweaty, real estate innovation.”

Up to 300 developers will participate. Many of them from companies like Lyft, Uber, Microsoft, ModCloth, OpenDoor and schools like Stanford, Berkeley and SFSU.

The panel of judges also include Realogy CEO, Alex Perriello, Lynette Keyowski from OMREB and Brad Griffith, CEO of Gametime.

I’m looking forward to see what types of products and services the developers come up with. Should be a fun weekend!

Pro Tips: Anatomy of a trade show – 2015 N.A.R. Annual Conference San Diego

I get asked a lot whether or not it make sense to have a big booth at the N.A.R. Annual conference or any trade show for that matter.

First off I think the biggest mistake most vendors make is they don’t do anything to help drive traffic to their booth. They basically just show up with some swag and hope agents will pay attention to them. So, here are some simple tips to help you increase your ROI.

1. You need to have a hook.

In previous years I’ve had celebrities like Fabio and Richard Simmons at our booth. Agents loved them. But your hook doesn’t need to be celebrity. Sometimes you need to get creative. This year we are doing a ping pong themed event. We are challenging all agents to beat our CFO, Karl Ziegler, at ping pong to win free subscriptions to our software. Here’s a video that we put together.


2. Ted Turner is credited with the phrase, “Early to bed, early to rise, in-between…advertise!”. You gotta promote your hook. In our case we are doing a lot of social media (#BEATKARL). Plus we sent out postcards to all N.A.R. Annual attendees.

karl postcard

We are also cross matching that mailing list against our email database and following up with an email campaign to those same attendees.

If you can afford it, signage at the event can also help you draw attention to your booth.

***True story, I actually met Ted Turner once and asked him if he said the above phrase. He quipped back to me, “Well son, i would say, work like hell, and advertise!”***

3. Have a goal.
You need your sales team to have a goal. 400 signups? 100 solid leads. Something to keep their eye on the prize and motivated.

If anybody else has any other tips I’m sure everyone would love to hear them in the comments. Have a great show!

CRMLS wins “Most Innovative MLS” award from Inman Inman. Celeste Starchild from ListHub also honored.

Congrats to Art Carter and the rest of the CRMLS team for winning this year’s Inman 2015 Innovator Award winner for “Most innovative MLS”. Inman news cited “has been clawing away at getting local MLS organizations to participate in its shareable database of listings, which will expedite innovation.” I think what made the difference for CRMLS was the well crafted messaging, videos and social media around their #ItsMyBiz campaign.

Also happy to see Celeste Starchild being recognized as one of the “four women who have shown leadership in the constant pursuit of innovation. Susan Daimler from Zillow, Chelsea Goyer from Redfin, and Dottie Herman from Douglas Elliman Real Estate. I’d like to see this list kept going and expanded next year, there are many others deserving to be recognized.

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