Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Looking for a new gig?

FMLS – Product Support Analyst

“The Product Support Analyst is responsible for evaluating current FMLS products, identifying areas for improvement, and assisting with developing internal products to meet member needs.”

FMLS, Sandy Springs, GA

FMLS – Data Integrity Representative

“The Data Integrity Representative is responsible for administrating Data Integrity compliance by the set Rules and Regulations to ensure data accuracy. This position responds to all phone, email, and Live chat queries including escalation calls, and helps resolve the relevant data violations.”

FMLS, Sandy Springs, GA

FMLS – Marketing Specialist

“The Marketing Specialist plays an integral role in developing and executing marketing plans designed to expand FMLS brand awareness, promote our products, and grow the company strategically. “

FMLS, Sandy Springs, GA

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.

Looking for a new gig?

FMLS – Product Support Analyst

“The Product Support Analyst is responsible for evaluating current FMLS products, identifying areas for improvement, and assisting with developing internal products to meet member needs.”

FMLS, Sandy Springs, GA

FMLS – Data Integrity Representative

“The Data Integrity Representative is responsible for administrating Data Integrity compliance by the set Rules and Regulations to ensure data accuracy. This position responds to all phone, email, and Live chat queries including escalation calls, and helps resolve the relevant data violations.”

FMLS, Sandy Springs, GA

FMLS – Marketing Specialist

“The Marketing Specialist plays an integral role in developing and executing marketing plans designed to expand FMLS brand awareness, promote our products, and grow the company strategically. “

FMLS, Sandy Springs, GA

To find out about these jobs and more please visit the Vendor Alley Job Board.


A new home search portal swoops in to the mix

Flyhomes Launches World’s First AI-Powered Home Search Portal

“Developed over the last two years, ‘Flyhomes AI,’ is a proprietary technology which brings the first conversational real estate search and research to the market, dramatically expanding the amount of information home shoppers can find online.”

Flyhomes

The company has some legit pedigree too.

“The technology integration was overseen by ZeroDown co-founders, Laks Srini and Abhijeet Dwivedi, who joined Flyhomes as chief technology officer (CTO) and chief growth officer (CGO), respectively. Srini and Dwivedi previously served as Co-founder/CTO and as COO at SaaS HR platform, Zenefits.”

Flyhomes

One of ZeroDown’s major investors is Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT.

The new portal will be live in 28 states and Washington D.C., which they claim covers 75% of the listings (I think that sounds right). I got an early sneak peak at the site and it’s pretty rad. Along with the typical portal things you can also ask it questions like

“Show me homes in Los Angeles that have recently dropped in price”
“Provide me an overview of recent t sales in 90210”
“Show me homes in 92648 that are having an open house this weekend.”

To me this could be what a future MLS system interface could look like.

I’m hoping to have someone from Flyhomes on my podcast, I’ve got a ton of questions about their business model, and how they plan to expand coverage.

But my biggest take away is just when we thought that there was no innovation left in the listing portal space, a new competitor enters the ring. Congrats flyhomes! Can’t wait to see more!

Stuart White, CEO of Realtracs, on why the MLS will continue

A couple of things from Stuart’s opinion post on Inman News I thought were interesting.

“The network effect has provided a dependable listing and buying network — creating a singular destination where an area’s buyers and listings are in the same place. The network effect has always been more important to consumers (and professionals) than publishing compensation and will continue to benefit consumers (and professionals) after the settlement. “

Stuart White

We don’t really think about how much the network effect matters in our business. We are just so used to it.

“MLSs must continue to make platforms easier to use. Designing an accessible and intuitive interface with user-friendly features allows seamless navigation, as both real estate professionals and consumers will be seeking enhanced productivity and efficiency. By making their products more accessible, MLSs reinforce their role as indispensable tools and empower users to achieve their goals with ease.”

Stuart White

Making MLS system easier to use has been a thing since I started in the business in 1992. I believe the industry has done a good job with point solutions based on features of MLS systems, but coming up with a new take on a MLS system itself is something I think about a lot.

Microsoft agrees to take down Bing Homes Portal

via GIPHY

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! 👏🥹

Nova Scotia adds mandatory fields for adaptable homes

Nova Scotia REALTORS®: leading the way in searching for adaptable homes

“Director of NSAR’s MLS® System, Bonnie Wigg says, “With the most common barriers people with mobility issues face being in the built environment, NSAR worked with several key partners to look at how we could make a difference in searching for an adaptable home. Everyone’s definition of an accessible home is different, so adding more information to listings will enable people to determine if a home is adaptable for them.”

NSAR

I can see this really useful in many communities.

Industry Relations Podcast: Bravery and Impact of the MLS

Have you been keeping up with the latest updates in MLS policies? Rob and Greg break down the key details of Bright MLS’s clear cooperation policy and NWMLS’s decision not to remove compensation data from their system. But it doesn’t stop there. They also dive into the potential legal consequences for fair housing violations and federal antitrust claims.

They also touch on the Department of Justice’s involvement, implications for the industry, and potential risks for Northwest MLS and other players in the market.

Watch us on YouTube!

Connect with Rob and Greg: 

Rob’s Website

Greg’s Website

Our Sponsors: 

CoreLogic

Notorious VIP

This podcast is produced by Two Brothers Creative 2024.

Bada Bing

Microsoft Bing Real Estate Portal in Violation of Copyright Infringement – MLSs Must Act Immediately

“It seems like Zillow and Redfin started a relationship with Microsoft to leverage innovative OpenAI technology to deliver some interesting consumer benefits to people searching for homes on Zillow and Redfin. It is hard to ascertain how this relationship started with Bing Chat and evolved into Bing.com/realestate providing a full listing display breaking so many MLS rules, that links out to advertisers, and points to Zillow and Redfin as the sources of the data rather than the brokerage or MLS. It’s not Zillow or Redfin’s data to give!”

Victor Lund, WAV Group

Great write up from Victor regarding the Bing controversy, go read the whole thing. Sam DeBord was the first to start posting about this and Marian at Inman News did a story as well. Good reporting.

Okay so let’s first let’s get something straight right from the top, Bing.com/realestate is a mother fucking real estate portal, not a search results page.

  • I can like properties
  • I can save a property
  • I can setup a saved search
  • I can see multiple photos (sans watermark) – WTF?
  • I can “claim ownership”
  • I can see an “estimated value”
  • I can even get a mortgage!

And it appears that Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com may be complicit in powering Bing. From Victor’s post,

“Here is how easily Zillow and Redfin can stop bing from accessing and republishing content – code courtesy of OpenAI “<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”>.” Inventory is turning in 30-90 days in most markets, rendering search on Bing irrelevant in a short period of time. If current listings are not displayed to active home buyers in today’s tight market, consumers will abandon them. Of course, this would be a poison pill for Zillow and Redfin who rely on search engines for a significant amount of their consumer traffic.”

Victor Lund, WAV Group

Shout out to Homes.com for not being a part of this scheme, as Victor also points out.

But MLS organizations need to step up, more from Victor.

“MLS must protect the assets contributed by each broker, or firms will simply contribute their content to OpenAI for free, and access the listing content of other brokerage firms using OpenAI. CMA vendors like Inside Real Estate, Delta Media and dozens of others can stop paying $5 Million a year in Data License fees and access the data from OpenAI. An OpenAi driven CMA would work like Cloud CMAs revolutionary 1 Minute CMA, only it would be almost instant. Moreover, consumers could simply run their own CMA without a professional.”

Victor Lund, WAV Group

“AI” is the new “lion over the hill”. If MLS orgs want to protect their data licensing revenue you need to nip this in the bud now.

Sponsored By MLS Reset