Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Listing Bits Podcast: Elevating Women in Real Estate – with Lauren Martin of RentSpree

Lauren Martin began her career in the fashion industry to be among powerful women.

But when she transitioned to proptech, she realized that real estate is the true pinnacle of girl power. And yet, women are not always represented in leadership.

So, when she landed her current role as Senior Account Director of Partnerships at RentSpree, Lauren approached her CEO about creating RENEW, the Real Estate Network for Empowered Women, an initiative that seeks to connect and champion female professionals across all sectors of the industry nationwide.

On this episode of Listing Bits, Lauren shares her journey from the fashion industry to proptech, describing how what she learned in fashion translates to real estate.

Lauren discusses her role at RentSpree, explaining how the platform partners with MLSs and other proptech companies to streamline the rental process—in a way that serves real estate agents and renters.

Listen in for insight on what inspired Lauren to build RENEW and learn how you can get involved in her initiative to elevate women in real estate!

What’s Discussed:  

How Lauren was poached from a catering company to work in sales at Remine

What Lauren learned in the fashion industry that translates to real estate and proptech

Lauren’s insight on approaching uncomfortable conversations with humor

Lauren’s experiences working with MLS professionals who champion each other

How RentSpree partners with MLSs and proptech companies to streamline the rental process

The revenue sharing model at RentSpree and how MLSs benefit from it

How REALTORS benefit from building relationships with renters early in their housing journey

Lauren’s role handling both MLS and proptech partnerships at RentSpree

Lauren’s best travel hacks for real estate professionals

What inspired Lauren to start the RENEW initiative to elevate women in real estate

Connect with Lauren:

RentSpree

Lauren on LinkedIn

Email laurenm@rentspree.com

RENEW Initiative

The RENEW Podcast by RentSpree

Resources:

Remine

Project Runway

Vendor Alley

SentriLock

Rent the Runway

Teresa King Kinney & Liz Sturrock on The RENEW Podcast EP001

Betsy Hanson of Markt on Listing Bits EP078

Our Sponsor:Cloud CMA for Brokers

Industry Relations Podcast: Moehrl v. NAR: Rob Walks Greg Back from the Ledge

Could we be witnessing the biggest lawsuit in American real estate? Moehrl v. NAR has officially turned into a class-action lawsuit, which could have major repercussions on how commissions are earned and paid. It could also mean the country’s largest organization for REALTORS could be in some serious financial trouble should the plaintiffs win their case. This episode of Industry Relations dives into the history of this lawsuit and what potential outcomes could be. Let’s go!

Watch us on YouTube!

Connect with Rob and Greg: 

Rob’s Website

Greg’s Website

This podcast is produced by Two Brothers Creative 2023.

NEREN rebrands as PrimeMLS

NEREN Is now PrimeMLS

“The word ‘prime’ has been part of our DNA for a long time,” said Chad Jacobson, CEO of PrimeMLS. “We have been the prime model of collaboration within the MLS industry for decades – home to more than two dozen local Realtor organizations. And now our name no longer ties us to a geographic location, but instead embodies our desire to be the best at what we do – and that’s taking care of our subscribers to help them succeed in their businesses,” he added.”

I like the new name. Had no idea how large and the coverage they had.

Rob Hahn : “Fundamentally, I believe NAR and the Corporate Defendants will lose at trial on all of the cases known today.”

Recap and Summary: Likely Impact of the Commission Lawsuits

“As promised, I thought I would recap and summarize my thoughts on what the impact of the various lawsuits against NAR, brokerages, Zillow, and MLSs likely would be. These date back as far as March of 2019, when I wrote the first post about the first class action lawsuit, Moehrl v. NAR, which has now been certified as a class action. Over the years, I’ve written about Moehrl, Burnett, PLS v. NAR, Rex v. Zillow, and other lawsuits confronting the industry.”

Take your medicine from Dr. Notorious and read this post.

CoreLogic

My thanks to CoreLogic for sponsoring Vendor Alley again this month.

If you are an MLS organization, it’s time to transition from old-school RETS to modern Web API. Launched by CoreLogic just this week, Trestle Direct offers a new way for MLSs to provide agents, brokers, and technology companies Web API access to non-standardized listing data and additional assets such as contacts, saved searches, and more. Now available exclusively to Matrix clients at no cost and provided through Trestle, CoreLogic’s data distribution platform, for accessible data licensing management.

Is Homes.com hijacking traffic from broker and agent websites?

BREAKING: IS HOMES.COM USING YOUR NAME TO STEAL YOUR LEADS?

“Is Homes.com selling your own leads back to you?

Kristina Smallhorn, eXp agent and real estate YouTube extraordinaire, searched her own name on YouTube and was shocked at what she found. 

The ad read, “Kristina Smallhorn, Real Estate Agent in Baton Rouge, LA” and looked like a large text post on Facebook. The call to action was a simple “Visit site,” and just below that was a one-line title for the ad: “Find Beautiful Real Estate for Sale with Homes.com”

Interesting story. CoStar has recently touted that they have increased traffic to Homes.com website by 84%, we may be finding out how they are doing it.

It appears that in this case Homes.com is buying ads on YouTube and YouTube is inserting Homes.com ads in YouTube search results related to high performing real estate YouTube channels. These ads will use the agent’s name and then link back to their Homes.com agent profile.

What’s the rub? Well what the article gets wrong is that with Homes.com’s “your listing, your lead” any lead on Kristina’s listings should go right back to her. But Kristina and other agents are concerned about traffic.

“It’s harmful because they are tracking your leads that you’ve cultivated with your content to drive traffic to their website. They are using your name to collect data and send advertising to those people who wanted to speak to you and now are being pushed to use their site,”

Another concern is that a lot of the information on the agent profile is incorrect. Christa Nielsen writes…

“As (with) all ads, when the user clicks to the Homes.com ad that is using my name without permission, they are now going to be “followed” and retargeted from them.  They are using agents to generate traffic to their website.  This, plus the false information shown, can be detrimental to any business.”

Christa goes on to say that a lot of data on her profile was compltely wrong, including sales history and experience.

“If someone is clicking this profile, they are being shown that I, for example, sold one house in the last 5 years. This also can be detrimental.”

There are a few concerns here. I’m not sure if this would be too much of a story but CoStar’s CEO Andy Florance’s statements about other portal’s “hijacking” leads seems to invite criticism when something like this is exposed.

On the other hand, Kristina and Christa are using Google’s platform(s) (most likley for free) and as the saying goes, “if the service is free, you’re the product.”

The end is nigh?

Andrea Brambila for Inman News: Bombshell multibillion-dollar commission suit now a class action

“In a serious blow to the National Association of Realtors and major real estate franchisors, potentially millions of homesellers can ask to be reimbursed for billions in commissions they paid to buyer agents between 2015 and 2020 as a result of a federal court ruling on Wednesday.”

Welp, here we go. I’ve been holding off writing about this in the hopes I come up with some sort of positive spin. But I don’t have one. After reading the judge’s memo, it seems she has her mind made up. And I’m afraid all the nuances of our business are going to be lost to someone who wants to take the advice of someone who says…

“…in more competitive markets, the increasing use of the internet has reduced consumer costs, highlighting how increases in the number of consumers using the internet to book air travel and to trade stocks has been accompanied by corresponding decreases in commissions for travel agents and stockbrokers.”

Buying a house ≠ Buying a plane ticket

Buying a house ≠ Buying a stock

And Zillow can’t smell the cat.

Listing Bits Podcast: Pooling Resources & Expertise Among MLSs – with Betsy Hanson of Markt

From a vendor’s perspective, small MLSs are the most challenging to work with. And that’s no surprise, seeing as how they have fewer resources than the big players in the space.

So, how do we support MLSs with fewer than 400 members in keeping up with NAR rules, for example? Is there a way MLSs might share marketing, support, and compliance services in a way that makes the market work better for all involved?

Betsy Hanson is General Manager and General Counsel at Markt, a multi-MLS service organization focused on pooling resources and expertise to serve MLSs, brokers, and agents. 

On this episode of Listing Bits, Betsy shares her journey from an executive assistant at a small association to her current role at Markt, describing how she avoids the attorney’s reputation as the Department of No.

Betsy offers her take on what organized real estate is missing about the life and times of an ordinary REALTOR, why the average agent doesn’t understand the lawsuits facing the industry, and how those lawsuits might change the way we do things moving forward.

Listen in to understand how Markt works as an MLS back-office provider and learn how Betsy and her team are uniquely positioned to help MLSs of all sizes with local market delivery.

What’s Discussed:  

Betsy’s journey from an executive assistant at a small association to General Counsel at Markt

What differentiates the role of executive assistant from that of the chief of staff

How Betsy avoids the attorney’s reputation as the Department of No

Betsy’s experience teaching English in China between undergrad and law school

What organized real estate is missing about the life and times of an ordinary REALTOR

Why the average REALTOR-on-the-street doesn’t know about the lawsuits facing the industry

How public perception of REALTORS remains positive despite lawsuits around compensation

Betsy’s predictions re: how the lawsuits facing organized real estate might play out

How Markt began as a way for MLSs to pool support resources and create efficiencies

Markt’s potential to solve the challenge small MLSs face in keeping up with NAR rules

Connect with Betsy:

Markt

Email betsy@themarkt.com

Resources:

Notorious ROB

Industry Relations Podcast

Turn On by 1000watt

Our Sponsor:

Cloud CMA for Brokers

Industry Relations Podcast: Beating a Dead Horse a Fresh New Way

What should it take to be a REALTOR (r)? And, perhaps a better question is, what does it currently take to be a REALTOR? Homebuyers are using REALTORS more than ever before, but Rob seems to think that doesn’t mean realtors are performing better; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. This episode of Industry Relations dives into the world of the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the standards by which REALTORS operate, and whether or not today’s REALTOR is living up to the NAR’s mission of creating professionals in the real estate industry.

Watch us on YouTube!

Connect with Rob and Greg: 

Rob’s Website

Greg’s Website

This podcast is produced by Two Brothers Creative 2023.

New Cloud CMA enhancement (Live Buyer Tour) works with Apple CarPlay

New in Cloud CMA: Live buyer tours

“Live buyer tours build on the existing functionality to turn static reports into dynamic ones—with real-time data that you and your buyers can easily read on any device. So you get a new way to show off properties, and your clients get live access to the most relevant information about their favorite listings. “

I’m really proud of the team and what they’ve acomplished with this new enhancement. Back in May of 2020 we launched Cloud CMA Live. Cloud CMA Live raised the bar for interactive digital presentations and also gave agents a new way to present remotely.

The Buyer Tour report in Cloud CMA has always been a hidden gem. With the new Live Buyer Tour we wanted to give Buyer’s agents a new tool that was mobile first. I know agents are going to love it. This new enhancement is free to all Cloud CMA subscribers and launched yesterday. Check it out and please feel free to share the quick video I made above.

Sponsored By MLS Reset