There’s a proposal for NAR to change IDX policy to include a link back to a listing brokerage’s website within every IDX listing display. This has been suggested and supported by Redfin’s Glenn Kelman and WAV Group’s Victor Lund. References: Geekestate by Drew Meyers Notorious by…

I’ve been seeing a lot of questions about the direction and makeup of the Broker Public Portal and its relationship with Homesnap. I have no direct influence or investment in either group, but plenty of interest. Let’s clear the table first—some of these questions come…

We don’t spend a lot of money on real estate marketing, but Facebook is one place where we dabble in ads. For those of you in the Real Geeks platform or those considering it, they just released a new feature that really improves the Facebook…

I posted an update to my employment profile on LinkedIn recently. Shortly thereafter, I received a nice message from a past work associate: “Congrats on the new role! Hope you’re doing well!” I quickly thanked the sender. Seconds later, another message came through: “Congrats on the new role!…

I went to Zillow’s Premier Agent Summit in Seattle this week. It was a focused and well-run event, one that smartly ties in with the company’s current strategy of developing uber-Zillow-agents as its core following and revenue stream. I’ll get back to that in a…

Google announced a new mortgage shopping product in late November. Partly powered by Zillow, it’s an advertising tool for lenders and a product comparison tool for consumers. Zillow already has the products, interest rates, and reviews of nationwide lenders across its mortgage shopping system. It…

Zillow is acquiring DotLoop. Fires are burning in real estate social media. Let’s get this out of the way. There are tons of brokers and agents who dislike Zillow. Call them what you want. They’re here. I’m a regular critic of the company when they (regularly) make…

It’s perplexing how often real estate industry questions are referred to social media for answers.  Some of the most basic questions of brokerage model, pay structure, technology tools, and marketing systems lack a unified research database where brokers and agents can begin their searches on an objective playing…

(Note: This post is about industry-wide brokerage profitability in an IDX scenario vs a syndication scenario.  It’s  not about an individual broker’s profits or decision to use IDX/syndication.)   We’re hearing more often that IDX and listing syndication are essentially the same (via Rob).  From a…

Real estate media is all about traffic right now.  Broker sites, agent sites, and the national portal websites are battling for SEO, ad placement, and brand recognition. Those of us in the SEO-centric crowd focus a lot on domain names, and how much value they…