May. 16, 2012 - CMLS Brings it to the Table - Midyear 2012 - My Notes

I attended the Council of MLS meeting in Washington DC on May 15, and following are some of the highlights.

What Does the Consumer Expect?
John Heithaus, CMO, MRIS + Consumers

There were four consumers on this panel and while interesting anecdotally, the views of the panelists may not reflect uniform consumer views.

Would agent ratings be valuable (like Yelp?).

• "I wouldn't trust what I see on the internet because everyone likes something different - the same thing gets one star and five stars online."
• "I do treat Yelp the same way because you find someone who goes to a restaurant on a bad day and then someone writes a review. But I do like to look at reviews - I can tell if people are blowing off steam or have a legitimate concern."
• "If we were in an area where we didn't know anyone it would be more helpful." (Note that so much of RE buying is local....)

How did you decide what websites to use, before your agent set you up with the MLS?

• "I used Google and it gave me Trulia and Zillow when I searched for a home in Bethesda."
• "I used Realtor.com for the San Diego house."
• "I have the Realtor.com app on my phone and also Zillow. One has a better interface - usability."
• "We did look at Realtor.com, then used Weichert - which had all the MLS listings. Their site was well set up."
• "Sites that show their own listings first aren't good. Weichert didn't do that."

Other notes:

• "Short Sales should be called Long Sales" They can take so long to close.
• "24 hours is too long a day to refresh listings on the public site."
• Consumer: When using Zillow and Trulia, our listing agent would have to let us know when some listings we had found were unavailable - the feed via my agent set up from MRIS everyday was accurate - so then I stopped looking at Trulia and Zillow.
• "Advice and negotiating skills were the primary things my agent offered. The information is all out there."
• "I love mobile real estate information - to see a house while traveling and be able to find out how much it costs."
• Did you consider listings with no photos? "I didn't look at listings that didn't have photos - why wouldn't they show photos of a property they want to sell? What's wrong with it? I don't have time to look at listings without a photo."
• John: This is the generation we've been told doesn't need or want professional wisdom. This panel disproves that.
• Consumer: "We loved eSignatures" John: "It's the only premium product I have that's making any money."

Anticipating the Demands of your Consumer

Who Is the Customer

Russ Bergeron, CEO, MRED: We have several levels of customers - the people that pay you (agents), brokers that provide the inventory, vendors that we see as partners to deliver product and services - but the consumer is the ultimate customer for all of us.

MLS Public Websites

Bill Dermody, SVP, Coldwell Banker (MLSPIN)
My personal opinion, I think the MLS is the starting point for information and it will flow to consumers but I'm not sure it should flow directly. It should flow to our website to the consumer.

Todd Shipman, Lakes Sotheby Int'l Realty (Northstar MLS)
I'm an agent and I want to sell a house - I don't care where the information is coming from - an MLS website, a broker, me - I want good tools to enable the consumer to buy something. So, I'm not opposed to an MLS website.

FSBOs in the MLS

Todd: We have an active FSBO enabling broker in our market. But eventually they turn into listings for an agent. Let them work through their frustration before they end up with an agnet.

Bill: In our MLS we allow limited services "MLS only" - there are a few of them. Eventually the consumer turns into a listing with a full service broker.

What does consumer want from RE pros?

Todd: The misnomer is that they have MLS access. We could do them a service by clearing up that confusion. The consumer wants accurate information fast. I want agent and consumer centric mobile tools - as timely as possible. It's got to be quick, it's got to be mobile, and it's got to work.

Comparison of pro and consumer mobile

Todd: Our mobile tools are accurate. Zillow and Trulia are conflicted over content and availability and what listing belongs to who. Consumers are going right back to the listing agent.

Bill: Wikipedia says that the "MLS has hundreds of fields are determined by real estate professionals" while public sites have only a subset of data. Consumers want accurate timely information and that's what the MLS provides.

Russ: It was good to see that the consumer panel was interested in expertise, versus the data.

Todd: I want my MLS to innovate and provide tools and research.

Art Carter, CEO, CRMLS: In the good market the broker said not to provide agent tools. In the bad market they want us to do so and take off some of their costs. Where's that line?

Bill: NRT wants to work in cooperation with the MLS - but we have a lot of tools because of our size. But we want the information from you for our partner websites.

Can MLSs keep up in this world, where Zillow & Trulia gets 10s of millions of dollars from IPOs?

Russ: The biggest problem with competing is that they have rules while we're a regulated industry - and self regulated. We're defining social media and Zulia doesn't have to do that. We can't put out a PR when Michael Jordan sells a house through the MLS. Brokers will put listings on Zulia as a "necessary evil" but not an MLS website. We don't have the same level of press - it's hard to compete.

Art: Where's the Zillow & Trulia achilles heel?

Russ: The brokers are going to have to step up and ask themselves if they will continue to feed these guys.

Where are MLSs going right and wrong?

Michael Hayes - VP, Homes Media Solutions:The role of the MLS - cooperation and compensation - is very important. That's what MLSs are doing right. Where they are missing out is not enforcing their own rules. We worked really hard to play by the rules but we have to compete with companies that don't follow the rules.

Bill: Compensation is a very important piece of this - help me sell my inventory and I'll sell yours. It's unique to our industry. The honda dealer doesn't take you to the toyota dealership. Without MLS it would turn into the wild wild west.

Todd: MLS does a lot right - they are the core of our business. The enforcement of rules - the consumer doesn't understand that - they need to be educated on the rules and code of ethics.  The MLSs might support that role of the Realtor associations. Improve education - how to use the tools and social media and communication. Leverage social media tools to educate members.

Too many rules in the MLS?

Russ: I'd love to re-write MLS rules so they are on one page. Data rules are different.

Art: We could do that, but in really little type.

Bill: Our MLS does a good job of enforcing rules for members. In the past members would try to sneak things in - our MLS is doing a better job to enforce those rules.

Todd: We do a great job enforcing rules. It's a great opportunity for staff to engage with the agent. We're happy when rule violations go down.

Greg: Homes.com - let us know your model - what's unique in how you work with MLSs. You work directly with MLSs.

Michael: I think it would be silly to tell this room why we want MLS data. We use that, broker data, franchise data - but MLS data trumps all the other feeds. We're different from competitors - our goals are our advertisers - brokers, agent, and franchisors. If the data's not up to date and accurate ... we believe that the MLS should be branded. The MLS should be communicated from the MLS and that's a trusted source. The consumer should know the data came from this MLS and maybe there's a date/time stamp.

Bill: I don't think it would be horrible... to have a timestamp and the source. But that's just a knee jerk reaction.

Todd: We have to educate consumers about this business to business tool, about what the MLSs really are.

What should we do with social media regulation?

Todd: We're overregulated in social media. I have to deliver that content and context to the consumer. The consumer needs the information. Someone's going to have to violate the rules or fix the rules. Brokers rely on commission income - brokers need to find a new way to make money beyond that. If brokers can leverage those eyeballs during the day... I just want my listing to sell, and my duty is to the consumer.

Bill: Our concern is that it will go on social media sites and they will try to sell it back to us.

Future of MLS

Russ: It's not going to change. All the tech innovation - the "deal" has not changed.

Bill: Not much has changed since the 1800s but instead of meeting in an office ... now we do it via the Internet. It's still the basic stuff - sitting with the consumer and getting them into a home.

Todd: The consumer needs our core services and good advice. I do think the revenue model has to change.

Michael: I don't see a lot changing. Jim Sherry once said, "Internet, Sminternet". The technology will evolve and agents will need to learn how to work with the "kids" we saw up here. As long as this group continues to build partnerships and learn from each others mistakes, I don't see it changing.

How big should MLSs get?

Todd: You have to respect regional boundaries - that's where it's common sense.

Russ: MLSs focus on data. The databases can be as big as you want to make them. But the local service area remains the same. But all the MLSs could form a common database. But the service aspect is not going to go away. We are the local experts on the data.

Richard Renton, Triad MLS: Cooperation and compensation has adapted and the role of the MLS has expanded to accomodate the demands of the customer - our customer has changed over the years and we have to acknowledge that. The consumers are going to places that are not broker sites.

Russ: The definition of MLS core services have evolved considerably ... it's different than it was 20 years ago.

Bill: We have to educate the consumer on that. That's what I'm looking to you for.

SourceMLS

Amy Geddes, COO, Clareity Security
Greg Manship, CEO Intermountain MLS
Shelley Speccio, CEO, NNRMLS

SourceMLS says to consumers:
1. Listing data bearing the mark came directly from an MLS data feed.
2. Listing data bearing the mark is refreshed a minimum of every 24 hours making it current.

Amy worked on criteria:

We were worried about "more accurate" because of liability. So the two criteria [above] lay out what it is - and what it isn't.

SourceMLS Participation Criteria:

• Available to MLS organizations with an active membership in CMLS
• Particpating broker, agent, public sites owned and operated by participating MLS, or other publisher site eligibility TBD by each authorized sourcing MLS.
• Only listings that come directly from an authorized MLS feed would be eligible to display the mark
• Listings on the displaying site must be updated a MINIMUM of 2 hrs and a date/time of refresh must be displayed
• The website operator/publisher indemnifies the data content provider
• The mark will link to sourcemls.org for descriptive information. Source may be each MLS or CMLS or a combination (TBD).

Best Practices for Data Content Providers (for agreements)

• Data Content Provider (DCP) does not transfer ownership rights over the data to publisher
• DCP licenses data for use and display on publisher's website and other forms of electronic display of content including mobile (all screens)
• DCP license restricted to display of authorized listings only (active or off-market - up to local)
• Publisher must expunge all photos and property descriptions within 10 days of the listing being removed from active status (unless authorized to display off market data)
• DCP expressly forbids the licensed data from being re-licensed or otherwise provided to any third party.

How it would work:

• Data identified as SourceMLS and meeting the criteria would be identified with a mark.
• Only listings that come directly from an authorized MLS feed would be eligible to display the mark.
• Mark will link to sourcemls.org for descriptive info (as before)
• Consumers would learn to recognize the SourceMLS mark.

From here:

• Review survey information
• Suppport MRED pilot
• Feedback from this group
• Trademarking process initiatied
• Finalize marketing and communication to drive adoption - marketing to MLSs and also brand/value recognition for consumers.

Why ten days to take off market listings down?
Amy: I don't disagree that more timely would be ideal.

Matt Cohen (Clareity): Let's be really clear about what 24 hours really means - it should be 24 hours after information is changed in the MLS - not just downloaded every 24 hours.

Who protects the trademark?
Shelley: CMLS.

How will marketing be accomplished?
Shelley: CMLS will work to market through MLSs and eventually consumers will recognize value. That will take time and money. If a third party adopts the criteria, then when someone clicks from there to SourceMLS, that helps build the brand.

John Holley (NTREIS): CMLS will own this and create a license agreement and we as MLSs would have a sublicense. Is it similar to that? Could we look at a master agreement from CMLS? Is there a charge from CMLS contemplated?

Amy: The goal is that a participating MLS would license the program from the CMLS with local options and there would be a standard recommendation for your data license agreements - standard best practice language so people are in compliance. The MLS will sign an agreement with CMLS and then you will incorporate these requirements into your existing requirements to implement it.

Michael Bustamante (SWMLS): Regarding third parties - are they open to this mark?

Greg: We want to visit with them and see if they have an interest in this set of criteria.

Amy: You can find the full criteria on the website - the slides shown aren't all the criteria. It was built on IDX but didn't recreate the IDX rules.

Lloyd Graves (Trulia) - We are very supportive of this whole process.
 

Homes.com - We would step up behind this effort.

Tom Hurdlebrink (NWMLS) - This isn't restricted to IDX/VOW but MLSs could use for syndicated listings as well? Our group would be concerned that any 3rd party would have rights to this mark at all. We thought the idea was to make the consumer know the member website was accurate and trusted. How did this get to non-members?

Amy: That's the most significant area of disagreement. Where we got to it was to have a compelling argument for giving them something because there are three or four similar initiatives where they can put their own badge on their website - MLSCertified, MLSTrusted ... they can do this now without us. Maybe it should start with brokers and agents, but let's be realistic about where the traffic is.

Shelley - Third parties don't have to operate under any rules - this, if you chose to use it for third parties in your market, they would have to meet the criteria and operate under tighter rules.
 

Marilyn Wilson - broker and consumer perspectives on the SourceMLS badge: Is there value of "MLS" to consumers, determine interest and revelance, and where should it go?  Consumers: 48% very interested, 35% somewhat, 11% not sure, 6% not at all.  Brokers: Interest in your MLS participating: 17% extremely interested; 22% very interested 43% somewhat interested, 17% not at all.
Concerns: won't promote effectively. too little too late. consumers' don't get what MLS means (contrary to consumer survey). not sure it will make a difference.
 

David Charron - I echo other concerns about making it available beyond brokers and agents. What about the badge connoting some % of inventory as part of the definition?

Amy: That was the difference between a site seal and a listing basis. The challenge comes in when they have 7 MLS feeds and 3 MLSs participate in the program and 4 don't.

Brokers: what sites should the badge be on?

• 87% brokers, 69% mls, 69% agents, 46% realtor.com, 37% third parties. (101 agents+)
• 90% brokers, 79% mls, 74% agents, 61% realtor.com, 44% third parties. (all respondents)

CMLS Initiatives

- Create affinity groups to share best practices: technology, communications, consultants, finance & business operations (FBO), and business partner/vendor (BVP), Executive, Law & Policy, LP (Leader Plus) for volunteer leaders in the MLS world who want to be engaged with CMLS activities.
 
- MLS Executive Certification - similar to NAR's RCE certification but for MLS. Ownership, governance, best practices, technology trends, legal trends, financial management, data, syndication, data licensing, rules and enforcement ... Goal is to launch in January of 2013.

- License Agreements & Patents - provide samples for MLSs to help them understand legal issue and provide at least clauses or full license agreements for syndication, idx, website terms of use, etc. Process will involve collecting current licenses, pulling the best parts, releasing to CMLS members.

- Legal Hotline and Knowledge Database for MLSs and their legal counsel - note there would most likely be a charge for the hotline on a per call/email basis. How to avoid anti-trust? And regional differences?

MLS Policy

This was covered during the recent webinar, materials from which are available here: http://councilofmls.com/cmls-webinar-files-posted/

Registration for CMLS 2012 in Boston is now open - www.cmls2012.com



 

Apr. 20, 2012 - Real Estate Data Standards - Exciting Things Afoot in 2012-2013

The RESO / RETS meetings in Chicago were exciting and there were some important takeaways.

The first is that the effort to create a functional standards organization is coming to fruition. The organization is incorporated, it's raised $300k in the first three months of 2012, and hopefully soon can start staffing and spending the money needed to move standards forward faster and more reliably than volunteers could on our own.

The new process for getting things done will be as follows:

 - Projects submitted & vetted through R&D Workgroup
 - Board of Directors Sets Priorities
 - Volunteers solicited
 - Workgroups chartered
     * Purpose outlined
     * Scope defined
     * Deadlines set
     * Board Liaison
     * Volunteer Lead
 - Deliverable open for comment
 - Ratification by Board of Directors
 
There are two huge projects which I'm very excited about: The Data Dictionary and the New Transport.

The Data Dictionary addresses one of the most common criticisms of RETS - "How can there be a data standard when every MLS has such different data and developers have to figure out all the custom MLS fields when they go from MLS market to MLS market?" Finally, there is a very robust set of common field names and values that MLS technology providers can "map" the local fields into, and the vendor can easily move their sofware from market to market without so much effort. The latest version is here: http://rets.org/cms/files/RESO%20Dictionary_757%20Fields_2-22-2012.xls - but note that some changes are still in progress - we were talking about lots of little changes just this morning. It's expected that this new dictionary will be approved very soon. Rob Larson lead that effort, and he and the rest of the workgroup did a fabulous job.

The goal of the New Transport is to make RETS much, much easier to program for, using common technologies (HTTPS POST method, OData protocol, REST interface, and JSON data format) and to create a "light weight" way to move the data that will make a lot more sense for mobile devices. I'm not going to get into the technical details here, especially since a lot of them are still up in the air - some high level goal setting was done during the RETS meetings and the workgroup is just getting started and it will settle a lot of the details. 

Another important effort to look forward to is that a new compliance checker will be built, so that compliance with standards can be monitored. That will be especially needed as NAR and RESO push for adoption of the new versions of the RETS standard so people can start taking advantage of all of the improvements.

This is really exciting stuff, if you're a real estate technology person anyway.

Remember, for this to succeed, RESO needs support. If you haven't yet signed up to support RESO, you can do so here: http://rets.org/cms/files/Membership%20packet-%20all%20categories.pdf
 

Apr. 18, 2012 - VOW and IDX Rules – Security Compliance in the Trenches

As a consultant often called on by MLSs for help with VOW and IDX compliance audits, I also serve as a subject matter expert for Clareity Security’s SAFE Syndication product. And, as someone who is always pushing for improved information security in the real estate industry, I love that information security is featured prominently in the VOW rules, section 19.5: “A Participant’s VOW must employ reasonable efforts to monitor for, and prevent, misappropriation, ‘scraping’, and other unauthorized use of MLS listing information. A participant’s VOW shall utilize appropriate security protection, such as firewalls, as long as this requirement does not impose security obligations greater than those employed concurrently by the MLS.” The last part of that rule is also reflected in optional IDX rule section 18.3.14. Auditing these rules has allowed me to help many brokers improve their VOW and IDX security and reduce the risk of an information security incident.

I’ve already written about guidelines for anti-scraping and monitoring and, although anti-scraping is a constantly evolving challenge, that article provides at least a baseline for evaluating VOW rule compliance.

But, what else should MLSs be looking for when evaluating VOW and IDX security?

First, as specifically mentioned in the rule, appropriate firewall protection must be established. When I audit a VOW, I look to make sure that there are only a few specific network ports open on the server – 80 and 443 as needed for the web server to function, and ports needed to provide a secure method of server administration, such port 22 – or 989 and 990. If ports like 21 and 3389 are open and actually used to administer the website, it should be a big compliance red flag because they are common security incident causes – and issues I see the majority of the time when auditing a VOW or IDX site.

Second, you want to verify that all the web server software is up to date and properly configured. That means checking the web server (IIS, Apache, etc.) version, the operating system version (when possible) and the platform (.NET, JSP, ColdFusion, WordPress, etc.) version, making sure that those are the most current versions or that newer versions don’t have fixes for significant security vulnerabilities. You might think that keeping systems patched would be second nature for a technology provider, but in my experience it seems not to be the case.

Third, you want to evaluate any externally obvious security misconfigurations of the server and platform. Every server and platform has its own security configuration guidelines and it’s reasonable to expect that obviously poor configurations should not be visible to an external evaluator.

Fourth, and probably the most complicated part of evaluating VOW security, you want to evaluate application security – at least the OWASP Top 10 Vulnerabilities: Injection, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), Broken Authentication and Session Management, Insecure Direct Object References, Cross-Site Request Forgery, Security Misconfiguration, Insecure Cryptographic Storage, Failure to Restrict URL Access, Insufficient Transport Layer Protection, and Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards. I usually evaluate Information Leakage and Improper Error Handling as well. Some of these items can’t be easily validated externally (i.e. Insecure Cryptographic Storage) though I’m always glad to hear that a web developer has encrypted the passwords and so cannot technically be compliant for VOW rule 19.3b. (“The Participant must at all times maintain a record of the name, email address, user name, and current password of each registrant.”). I’ve seen every one of these OWASP vulnerabilities while auditing VOWs and many times there are half a dozen issues on a single VOW.

If you’re a staff person at an MLS and a lot of the preceding read like gobbledy-gook to you or you don’t know how to audit security, you may want someone like me auditing VOWs and IDX sites for you, or at least auditing the security and anti-scraping related portions. It’s easy to split the audit responsibilities if your MLS is a Safe Syndication customer. It has been a blessing for the industry that the VOW and IDX rules give MLSs the opportunity to ensure that at least some reasonable security best practices are in place for VOW sites. I’ve had brokers tell me they were actually grateful someone was keeping an eye on their technology provider in this area, since they lacked the capacity to do so themselves and just figured that all appropriate measures had been taken.

Please keep in mind that website security is the smallest portion of overall brokerage security. Taking appropriate steps in terms of policies and contracts, physical security, account management and password controls, internal networking and computing, mobile device security, and internal web applications are all important. The NAR sponsored security workshops and security articles and blogs that I write, and which many MLSs and Associations reprint, are helping me reach some brokers and agents – but it’s a very difficult task to try to improve information security in this industry and I hope that I can count on my readers to act as security allies and spread the word.

Apr. 4, 2012 - Negotiating for a Successful Website and Other Technologies

As a long time real estate industry analyst, I've seen many brokers and agents that are unhappy with their websites and other technologies, even when first delivered, and who are at a loss to explain how they got into that situation without a way out. I am not an attorney, but as a business consultant I understand my clients' needs and am always glad to collaborate with my client and their attorney to negotiate a technology contract - because the contract is where it usually all goes wrong.

I've noticed that many real estate brokers and agents, while quite smart about their clients' contracts, are less so when it comes to negotiating their own technology contracts. Sometimes they have consulted an attorney, but if the attorney didn't fully understand the business requirements, those end up being unaddressed in the contract. Obviously, understanding what you are negotiating for is a critical step to successful negotiation.

Let me provide an example to make it clear. I get called on by MLSs to evaluate their brokers' Virtual Office Website (VOW) compliance with MLS rules and sadly, it is exceptionally rare that the site is compliant when I review it. Often the developers are not even aware of the MLS rules and think they have complete design freedom. Some developers even charge the broker to bring the site into compliance. It's almost inconceivable to me that a broker would hire a developer to create a VOW for them and not have it say somewhere in the contract that the VOW will comply with all MLS VOW rules and that, if the MLS deems there to be a compliance problem, the developer will use commercially reasonable efforts to address the problem at their own cost. If that kind of language was negotiated into the contracts, I think that developers might take the time to review the relevant MLS rules and create more compliant solutions from the start. But even if not, at least the broker wouldn't get caught in the middle between their MLS and the developer.

I could go on and on about the business requirements brokers and agents have for the websites and other technologies they contract for - specific steps taken toward search engine optimization, availability and performance, optimization for bandwidth, mobile capabilities, compliance with standards, liability for patent infringement and other issues, information security, process and costs for ongoing customization, and so much more.

The first step toward a successful technology project and forming a great relationship with a technology developer is being able to articulate the business requirements that the developer is expected to provide and ensure that those requirements are spelled out contractually. I want my real estate professional clients - and my software development clients - to be successful together. A good contract sets good expectations, and that's an important basis for a happy long term relationship, profitable for everyone.

A note to my MLS/Association clients - you may want to pass this article on to your brokers and agents via social media - or reprint it in your own newsletter. Feel free to do so with attribution and link back to the original article. Thank you!

Image Credit: Idea go

Mar. 15, 2012 - Trulia adds Estimates - Agents Get Ready!

Trulia has joined Zillow in offering estimates of property valuation. Anecdotally, looking at my own home, I found Trulia's valuation to be at least 10% high, and looking at a nearby recently sold property, I found their valuation to be over 50% too low.  I'm sure, like Zillow, they will get better at their estimates over time, but even 5-10% can be significant, and real estate agents can expect yet more sellers coming to them with pre-computed selling prices that may or may not be realistic, and buyers asking them to put in offers that are too low, based on the automated valuation they found online. Agents that are prepared to respond will look great.

I think the best approach to this was designed by Greg & Dan for their Cloud CMA product. The idea of it is that the agent puts together a list of a few comparable properties that have very recently sold but haven't yet had the sale price reported to Trulia and Zillow, look up the valuations on Trulia and Zillow, and calculate what percent the automated valuations are "off" from the actual sale price.

If an agent is prepared with that information - a table with just a few columns and rows (obviously more than the two comparables I used for illustration) - they can easily show that the automated valuations don't track exactly to the list or sale price - and they'll look great doing it.

Spread the word to the agents ... be prepared!

Mar. 7, 2012 - Expanding Agent-Client Collaboration in the MLS

Agent-Client collaboration inside the MLS has mostly been stalled since 1998, when MLS systems first started providing an area for clients to view agent-saved searches and suggested listings and provide listing ratings back to the agent. Since that time, some systems have added minor enhancements, such as built-in messaging and for the agent to be able to share a document with the client. But mostly, it's been the same story: Buyers interacting with agents around listings.

For the past few years I've been advocating with MLS vendors to both expand both buy-side collaboration and add something for the people writing the checks that drive everything - the sellers. During Clareity's 11th Annual MLS Executive Workshop I took this idea right to the workshop participants, and now I'm bringing it to the blog. This won't be as detailed as the workshop presentation and will be much less detailed than when I'm talking with vendors - but hopefully I'll get the main point across and drive readers to ask for these types of features.

When it comes to collaborating with buyers, sure, agents need to interact online as they do today around listings. But they also need a more robust search and search result content - otherwise it drives the client back to the advertising portals. I'm talking about neighborhood info, school info, public records info, and Walkscore. I'm talking about enhancements like lifestyle search. Relevant market trends and statistics for the client search areas (DOM, Inventory, List/Sell Prices, etc.) would also be compelling content. Messaging is also important and having proper alerting options, including email, text-message, and phone is key to help ensure agents provide timely response to questions. I'm all for the collaboration portal offering a way for agents to provide documents to their clients, but I think that these documents need to be more collaborative - for example, financial worksheets need to be interactive and provide alerts in both agent and client directions when a new version is created by "cloning" an old version for editing. Open houses visit planning, note-taking, and feedback should either be built in or deeply integrated. There's so much more - this is just a starting point of how agents and buyers could be collaborating. And don't forget that this needs to be mobile-device-friendly.

What do I look for when it comes to agent collaboration with sellers? Obviously, there is messaging, open house activity and feedback, seller-oriented market statistics and updates (i.e. new similar listings and price reductions), interactive and collaborative financial worksheets, and and an agent activity log - the flip side of the buy-side functionality. There could be a reverse prospecting tool with "what if" capability - allowing the agent and seller to explore what happens if improvements were made or price was changed. There can be an interactive marketing plan and materials, including where the listing is on advertising portals and metrics for advertising effectiveness inside and outside the MLS. One thing I definitely would love to see is the provision of CMAs, AVMs, and associated financial worksheets that allow for easy change and new versions over time as the market and comps change over the life of the listing.  Again, everything the seller needs to know and all of the service the agent provides the seller needs to be accessible from ONE mobile-friendly client collaboration portal.

As Bill Chee once said to me, "The consumer is the lion coming over the hill." By making MLS systems truly collaborative, MLSs can both help improve agent service to their clients and improve MLS system core value. I know, to those that thought that features like built-in CMA and prospecting would be the death-knell for broker competition, this seems like yet another "level the playing field" move. But please, look back and note that the world didn't end more than a decade ago when those features were added to MLS - it won't end now either.
 

Feb. 2, 2012 - LPS Tax Division Sale: Nothing to do with MLS or RPR

There was some confusion in MLS-land today about an announcement regarding LPS. Here's the real scoop from LPS: 

Yesterday a private equity firm announced that they had acquired the LPS wholly-owned division called LPS Tax Solutions, Inc (http://www.lpsvcs.com/LPSCorporateInformation/NewsRoom/Pages/20120201a.aspx). This is a business that provides data and services to lenders and mortgage service providers regarding servicing and collecting property taxes. This announcement created some confusion in the MLS community, as it was misinterpreted to suggest that LPS may be divesting assets that provide Public Record Data including property characteristics, sales history, mortgage history, foreclosure status, etc). In fact, LPS remains very committed and continues to heavily invest in the aggregation and delivery of public record data to provide our real estate professionals with the competitive edge they need in today’s market.

So, all is well. Status quo.

Feb. 1, 2012 - Why I love working at Clareity

• When I meet with clients, they can learn from me but I can also learn from them, and that lets me help other clients increasingly better. I love continuing to learn.
• Clareity does well enough that I have the freedom to perform pure research (not paid for by any client) when I think it's important for my industry - and Gregg backs me on it. Again, I love continuing to learn.
• When I facilitate strategic planning, I help organizations act and use their resources effectively and strategically and build a better future for stakeholders.
• When I perform an MLS/Association survey, it helps them work better for their members.
• When I help with selection of MLS, TMS, website or other systems, it ensures organizations get the system that best meets member needs.
• When I help organizations cooperate or merge, it helps them provide services for members or customers more efficiently.
• When I help negotiate a contract, it creates win-win relationships that are better equipped to stand the test of time.
• When I write a paper or blog or speak publicly on a variety of subjects, I help people think about and solve problems and make things better for everyone.
• When I perform a security audit or speak on that subject, I help people reduce their business risk.
• When I help recruit new talent for an organization, the new person is more likely to be a long term contributor.
• When I perform a survey for a vendor, it helps them work better for their customers.
• When I help a vendor with their product direction, I get to see my ideas come to life.
• I get to dream up cool new services for helping my clients.
• There's no "Why I hate my job" list.

I love my clients,  colleagues, and job. Life is awesome.

Jan. 17, 2012 - Have you Reviewed the NAR's Data Security and Privacy Toolkit?

I'm going to be presenting later this week at the SANS Security East 2012 event. I consider this a huge honor and am very excited about it! In honor of that, this week on my blog, I want to provide a high level summary of the NAR's "Data Security and Privacy Toolkit". You can access the full document on Realtor.org, but note that requires a login.

If you've never set aside a few hours (at least) to review your organizational security, I strongly advise you do so and consider the further efforts needed to implement an organizational security program.

Based on the Federal Trade Commission model, the program boils down to five steps:

1. Take stock. Know what personal information you have in your files and on your computers. Understanding how each state defines "sensitive" and "personal" invitation is your starting point. It's not just credit cards that are sensitive. People may be using the same username/email and password to log into your system as they do their bank. Of course social security numbers and birth dates are sensitive. If you're a broker, you may have financial account numbers being sent to you by consumers on checks. And there's more - so much more - described in the Toolkit's information inventory checklist. How do you get this information? When most people think about "information security" they translate it to "I.T. security", and that can be a problem. Look not just on your computers, website, and emails, but all of the "offline" ways you get this information. Think about how it's transmitted to you, where you store it, and who has access to it along the way. Only once you understand what you have and how you receive and store it can you begin to think about protecting it appropriately.

2 Scale down. Keep only what you need for your business. That's pretty self explanatory - only collect and keep what you need.

3 Lock it. Protect the information that you keep. The Tookit breaks this down into four areas: The first is Physical Security - locking up and limiting access to sensitive information. The second is Electronic Security - understanding where sensitive information is stored, encrypting that information in transit and storage, using anti-virus, using and protecting strong passwords, warning employees about social engineering, protecting laptops and other mobile devices, and implementing a firewall, including an intrusion detection system and monitoring practices. Finally, as I've discussed in other articles (for example, "Contracting for Security in Your Mobile App") use contracts to ensure contractors and service providers follow security best practices.

4 Pitch it. Properly dispose of what you no longer need. The first part of this step is to understand federal and state retention laws and creating a document retention policy that reflects them. Then that policy can undergo legal review, employees can be trained on it, and policy and compliance can be reviewed on an ongoing basis.

5 Plan ahead. Create a plan to respond to security incidents. Write up your data security program (the Toolkit has a sample) and be prepared with a plan for what to do when or if a breach should occur. Your plan neds to reflect the breach notification laws of your state, as well as the states of those employees, clients, etc. from whom you receive or for whom you store sensitive information. Knowing who you are going to call, in terms of law enforcement and computer forensics (if needed) is key.

The Toolkit goes deeper into each of these areas, but even the toolkit is just a starting point. If you've attended one of my NAR-sponsored half-day long information security workshops or read any of my security articles you know there's a lot of detail beyond the Toolkit. And if you've had me in for a security audit - during which I spend at least a week just assessing your situation and making sure you have the right policies and processes in place - you know there's a whole additional level of detail needed to take all the reasonable steps, especially for the "Lock It" phase. But understanding the NAR's "Data Security and Privacy Toolkit" is an important first step toward taking stock of your information security program and understanding whether you've at least started down the right path. If you haven't taken a few hours to review it, I strongly suggest you do so.

Jan. 4, 2012 - Listing Use Tracking Recommendation From 2004

I tried to get our industry ready for data syndication and its current problems dealing with data 'in the wild'. Really, I did:

Dec. 29, 2011 - Mobile Device Security: Best Practices and Tools

Most real estate professionals own a mobile device that stores contacts and emails, and that provides access to social media and other online accounts. However, some real estate professionals may not realize that the documents they receive via email as part of the closing process are more sensitive than they think. Mobile devices create an information security risk that needs to be addressed. There are two basic categories of risk management when it comes to mobile devices: practices and tools.

The first practice is to physically protect the device. Information on the device is sensitive; don't leave it sitting around unattended and unprotected. But that's not a reliable practice – according to a 2010 Symantec study, 62% of us have lost a mobile device or had it stolen. So, additional care is required.

The second practice is to require authentication (login) to access the phone – a password or difficult-to-guess "swipe." Most mobile devices have this capability now. Keep in mind that a dirty screen makes it easy to see a swipe pattern, so get in the habit of running your palm over the screen after you log in to your device.

The third practice is encryption, where the data is scrambled and requires a code or login to unscramble, so a thief can't read the data off your device's memory card. On some devices, encryption is the default, on others you have to turn it on, while on still others you have to use optional software, which I'll come back to later in this article. Research your device carefully for encryption options.

The fourth practice is limiting Bluetooth, a capability that lets you add a wireless headset to your device but can also be very hackable. Set Bluetooth to "hidden mode" on your device, and disable it when not in use.

The fifth practice is limiting installation of third-party "apps." If you download lots of apps from untrustworthy sources or written by companies you don't know and trust, you may be installing dangerous software on your device. Take care, because you can't depend on "app store" managers or website owners where you download software to be cautious for you.

Many tools are available to help you secure your mobile device in a variety of ways, including providing antivirus, encryption, and firewall-like features. They let you remotely lock and wipe data from the device, take a picture of the person using your device, sound an alarm (useful when you can't find your phone, too!), and display information on the screen to help someone return a lost device. The following list is by no means comprehensive, but includes some of the better known and most trusted companies and products on the market.

Kaspersky (kaspersky.com): On the Windows Mobile, Symbian, Blackberry, and Android platforms, Kaspersky provides a tool which includes antivirus, lets you wipe data remotely, and lets you find your missing device on a Google map. This tool can provide encryption for Windows Mobile and Symbian.

McAfee (wavesecure.com): McAfee's WaveSecure product, which works on Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Phone, Java-based devices, and iPhone, provides a wide variety of features varying by device. It lets you back up and restore your data, lock your phone remotely, sound an alarm, wipe your data, see where your phone is on a map, and display a message to prompt someone who has your device to return it. It can also send a text message alert if someone tries to put a new SIM card (memory) in your phone to try to prevent you from finding your phone. And it has a feature to prevent someone from un-installing the security software. On the iPhone, the features are limited to data backup and restoration and tracking the phone location.

AVG (avg.com): On the Android platform, AVG provides a tool which includes a phone locator, remote lock and data wiping, and antivirus, and even helps protect you when you surf the web by blocking pages it determines contain dangerous scripts or malware.

Norton (www.norton.com): Their Mobile Security product is usable with Android only, but is very full-featured. It provides antivirus/antimalware protection, blocks known fraudulent (phishing) websites, and lets you remotely locate, lock, and wipe data from your phone, display a "lost" message, grab a picture of the person using your device (if the device has a webcam), and sound an alarm.

Trend Micro (us.trendmicro.com): On the Android platform, this tool blocks known fraudulent (phishing) websites, allows you to locate, lock and wipe data from your device, and sound an alarm. If the SIM (memory) is taken from the device, it automatically locks the device and displays your customized "lost" message.

Security tools on the iPhone and iPad are limited because Apple has not cooperated very well with security vendors. Some security capabilities are built right into the Apple devices, especially if you add the optional MobileMe service, which allows you to find the device and remotely lock and wipe the data from it. But available third-party tools are fairly limited and new, and most haven't been thoroughly reviewed by the security community. However, you may want to consider tools like Webroot SecureWeb Browser (itunes.apple.com), which attempts to block malicious websites, and GadgetTrak (gadgettrak.com), which can send you the device location and pictures of whoever is using it. If you have Intego (intego.com) VirusBarrier on your Mac, you can also use it to scan for viruses on your Apple mobile devices.

New threats and new security tools are emerging all the time, and mobile device security is really the new frontier of information security. If you follow the practices outlined above and continue to evaluate your mobile security tool options, then the mobile world should be a safer place for you, your data, and the data which others entrust to you.

Nov. 16, 2011 - MLS and International Buyers

International buyers are an increasingly important part of the residential real estate market.  According to NAR, regarding purchase of existing residential real estate, "Total purchases by foreign or foreign-born buyers were $82 billion [in 2011], up from $66 billion reported in 2010." However, MLSs are not currently optimally positioned to help brokers serve international buyers and make it easier for those buyers to inject their money into the local real estate market.

I gained a more thorough understanding of this when I met with various practitioners, including brokers that focused on international relocation and other international clients, at the recent NAR meetings in Anaheim. I try to spend a lot of time with brokers and agents at these meetings - it helps inform my product consulting work, both when I work with MLSs and with vendors. I had a lot of new ideas for MLS features, but this blog post focuses on the international angle. One international-focused broker was especially articulate - "Why can't we translate comments from English to other languages? And not having metric measurements on reports makes it very difficult to serve my clients." I explained why comment translation was troublesome, both from a technical perspective (you think agents write their comments in English, do you?) and likely from other perspectives (e.g. translation may change a meaning and misrepresent the home, creating liability for the MLS). But the conversations inspired me to think more about these brokers' problems.

The way some MLS systems handle internationization today is to allow the agent to specify their own language preference and for easily translatable field names and enumerated values to be displayed in that language. Metric measurement units, if available at all, are sometimes specified at the MLS level as an additional field - cluttering up reports for those who do not care about them. The agent experience is one thing, but the brokers in question were more concerned with the poor buyer experience. So, I considered how MLS might be designed to address this issue.

What I came up with is that MLS users should be able to specify two or three preferences when they set up a client record in the MLS: language, measurement type (U.S., metric, or both), and possibly currency (U.S., specific foreign, likely both). It would not be too difficult for a well-designed MLS to display client-associated reports and the client collaboration portal defaulting to those preferences. Currency is tricky because it is always changing - it would require a real-time integration with a provider of currency exchange rates and all reports would need to be date-time stamped and include text regarding the nature of constantly changing exchange rates. But optimizing those client-facing aspects of the MLS system based on client preferences shouldn't be all that difficult.

As MLS systems continue to evolve to focus more on the relationship and collaboration between agent and client, continued evaluation of how the MLS can improve on that focus will be needed. I believe that, at least in some markets, MLSs should strongly consider how to improve internationalization features, to serve existing international buyers and to try to make it easier for brokers and agents to attract new international money to the local economy. If you believe so too, you should talk with your MLS vendor, and with the providers of your other real estate technology platforms.

 

Nov. 10, 2011 - MLS Certified Listings and Websites

A few weeks ago Clareity was invited to participate in the CMLS branding workshop and I put my head down to help my colleagues who could attend and present.  My focus was on the development of ideas surrounding two different approaches: MLS certified listings and MLS certified websites.

Taking a step back, why create these certifications? At the certified listing level, it help consumers differentiate between MLS listings - presumed most accurate - and others. At the website level, it would provide another tool for MLSs to leverage to promote additional rule adherence and "industry friendliness". I'll come back to that point.

The first idea, MLS certified listings, would involve branding the listing content based primarily on accuracy criteria. That's the most straightforward approach, and is one some non-MLS organizations have been proceeding on.

The second idea would be to provide an “MLS Seal of Approval” assigned primarily to members and MLS public websites. Only brokers and agents who are members are eligible for the seal, which would require compliance with all IDX/VOW rules and display of last data refresh date. The seal could also possibly be provided to other sites that meet criteria beyond listing accuracy - sites that are industry friendly, following Clareity's Syndication Bill of Rights or some variation to be determined.

Clareity’s Listing Syndication "Bill of Rights" (short form):

1. Listing firm contact info
2. Links to source
3. Clearly identify agent/firm contact info
4. Ensure data accuracy and freshness
5. Display freshness and provider of data
6. IP rights belong to source provider of the data
7. Re-syndication requires consent of data provider
8. Provider aggregate traffic stats to data provider
9. Prevent screen scraping
10. Publisher is responsible for sites they syndicate to

For more information on the Syndication Bill of Rights, see http://www.callclareity.com/SyndicationToRealEstatePortals.pdf

What about what's happening today, with non-MLSs creating certifications? While I appreciate them doing something while MLSs have been slow to move, I think there needs to be one certification, controlled by an organization of MLSs. If not here's an illustration of the dangers:



Why would MLS put up with a fragmented brand for, and significance of, certified listings? It's bad for MLS and creates consumer confusion.

The rest are tactical details - creating a brand and seal, creating requirements for dynamic logo size and placement, creating a tracking API so MLSs get statistics on listing views and other activities (likely coordinated with the RETS "Activity Payload" being defined), building a certification organizational and technical infrastructure, etc.

I think there's a lot of good that can come out of MLS certification and seal development and look forward to further discussion.

Signing off for now ... boarding for Anaheim!

Nov. 4, 2011 - Benchmarking MLS System Performance

MLS operators should have the capability to measure MLS system performance in meaningful ways, and this paper points the way for them to do so.  Setting meaningful benchmarks allows MLS staff to monitor MLS system performance, to respond better to members’ performance-related questions and concerns, and to work more effectively with MLS vendors to resolve performance issues.

Clareity's latest paper provides useful methods and guidelines for MLS performance benchmarking and includes a study of nine of the leading MLS vendors.

The paper is available from the Clareity Consulting website:
http://www.callclareity.com/Benchmarking-MLS-Performance.pdf

Oct. 31, 2011 - Guest Post - Cameron Paine: "We Need One MLS Website"

By: Cameron M. Paine, CEO, Connecticut MLS

The purpose of this white paper is to raise awareness that the MLS industry needs one national MLS public website to be competitive online.  While there has been some debate over the years, the evidence supporting the benefits of MLS public websites has become overwhelming for even the most hardened skeptics. Still, there are flaws in both the idea and the execution by MLSs (including mine) that limit the potential of MLS public websites to truly compete – and win – in the search engines of Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.

However, when considering this issue one question kept coming up: “Why would banks continue to invest millions into Zillow when Zillow has yet to turn a profit?”  According to Zillow, by August of 2007 they had $87 million in funding. According to CNN Money, in the IPO earlier this year Zillow sold 3.46 million shares – trading today (October 26, 2011) at $25.59. Here comes the interesting part: Again, according to CNN Money, the underwriters of the IPO were Citigroup, Allen & Co., Pacific Crest Securities, ThinkEquity and First Washington Corp. The answer may be that the bank’s interest isn’t just in the public website - it’s the MLS subscription model. Remember, we’re 800+ MLSs, with no real capacity or leadership to mount a coordinated response to a common threat. Yet, with more than 1 million subscribers nationwide paying a monthly/bi-annual/annual fee of [insert your MLS fee here] we are a big, fat, tempting target. 

Don’t think for one second that the wealth potential has been missed by Wall Street; for anyone who thinks a national MLS is too big to work  consider the fact that several non-broker/non-MLS national sites already accept direct listing entry. If I were them, I’d cut a deal with the large parent corporations that own many of the top nationwide brands to “reverse the stream” by mandating listing entry directly into the national site then passing data downstream to the MLS. It makes the broker/agent life easier because they have one listing entry regardless of how many MLSs they might belong to. Brokers, in turn, save time and money by having one common data feed for their national brokerage websites. The fact is that national sites already have as much or more information than many MLSs and my guess is that the national site(s) would provide some sort of profit sharing or subscription fee split with participating brokers. Ultimately, the only question remaining for brokers and agents will be, “Why do we pay for an MLS?” 

The most obvious flaw in the MLS public website presence online is that with more than 800 MLSs (probably half of which have public websites) we are too diffuse to have any real impact on the national scale. Think 800+ people in a gigantic war canoe all paddling in different directions and you will have some idea of our industry’s online effectiveness. There are a few notable exceptions like the Houston Association’s HAR.com, but they have local success because they were early to market and were funded aggressively. HAR was able to establish dominance before the entry of Zillow, Trulia, Yahoo, etc., into their market and has done a good job of maintaining local dominance. For MLSs not in HAR’s position, it’s an uphill climb against well established, very well-funded competition. 

We are the source of the data, the most accurate real estate information on the planet. Why aren’t we winning?  

We need to stop paddling in different directions and take concrete steps towards improved cooperation within our industry. Consolidation is part of the answer, but I think cooperation needs to come first. We need to take a hard look at our future and realize that while we’re arguing, the competition has been eating our lunch. Think about the vast amounts of collective money being spent by every MLS that built and now maintains their own individual MLS public websites. There are 800+ MLSs, maybe 400 of which have public websites. Let’s say the public websites average $10,000 a year in expenses, that’s a total of $4 million a year being spent on 400 different MLS public websites. What if we were instead spending $4 million a year to convince the public to visit one MLS public website that we all share? 

When you Google “CT homes for sale,” 6 of the top 10 organic search results are non-broker or MLS websites. Assuming that most users never look past the first page of search results, it is clear that non-brokerage/non-MLS companies control fully 60% of the lead traffic in Connecticut. To anticipate the follow-up question, yes, Google searches for specific towns have similar results; I will bet you that your town’s search result is the same.  

The Connecticut MLS recently completed a total redesign of our website www.CTreal.com. We’ve done some very cool things and we did them for less than $40,000, which is pretty inexpensive. I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished, but I would trade it in a heartbeat to be more competitive with the non-MLS/non-broker sites currently dominating our market – I hope that every MLS would be eager to do the same. The point is simple: Separately, MLSs don’t have enough resources to compete successfully with the Zillows, Trulias, or Realtor.coms of the world. 

How can we possibly compete…? 

The way we’re doing things today, we can’t. We can continue to tread water, cheering our few success stories as shining examples of what could have been done – if we had been as smart, as convincing, and as early to the market as Bob Hale. Sadly, it is just a matter of time before even those limited successes will be swamped by the sheer quantity of money available to non-MLS/non-brokerage sites. 

I propose the creation of a single national MLS public website that participating MLSs would fund instead of their own individual sites (alternatively, the few MLSs that DO dominate their market area could do both, with the cost for participation in the national MLS site at a reasonably affordable $10,000). The combined resources would go much further and the combined traffic would significantly benefit organic search results. CTreal.com earns around 20,000 visitors per month, so assuming the 400 other MLS public sites average out about the same (some are better, some are worse), we’re talking about 8 million visitors per month. Now that’s a number we should be able to get behind. 

There are many details that need to be addressed, specifically: Who controls the site, how much would it cost to participate, how would it accept data, what would it be called, the web address, and many more. I have opinions on some and have a rough outline prepared, but it’s the “big idea” the MLSs need to sort out first, before getting in the weeds. The best organization suited to begin this discussion may be the Council of MLSs - but only if they can overcome the tired, old-guard impulse to try and crush anything that isn’t the status quo. Otherwise, we will find that while we’ve been arguing about whether or not we should start talking, the decision will have been made for us.

Oct. 21, 2011 - IDX Policy - Interview on Vendor Alley

Greg Robertson video interviewed me regarding the IDX policy recommendations made by the NAR Presidental Advisory Group (PAG).

Here's the link: http://www.vendoralley.com/2011/10/20/interview-with-matt-cohen-on-new-idx-policy-changes/

Besides reviewing some of the points from my previous blog post, one of the discussion points is how amazingly difficult it can be to create policy that is broad enough to be future-proof, yet specific enough not to be open to multiple interpretations, especially where those cause pain for brokers that subscribe to multiple MLSs. How difficult is it to interpret a principle-based document where the intent is to have it last over time? Well, look at all the difficulty we have with the U.S. constitution - and for that we have the Supreme Court to help deal with it.

Obviously, I think it's okay to criticize the policy and policy recommendations - having these discussions will result in a better end-product  - but I want to recognize that the PAG is doing yoeman's work!

Oct. 18, 2011 - Comments on the new IDX PAG Recommendation

I'm going to assume that anyone reading this has read the 2011 IDX PAG Report (password protected on Realtor.org). It's not clear that I'm allowed to re-print the report. I have four main comments:

1. There's no surprise on the franchise rule – the recommendation is to rescind the previous inclusion of franchises under IDX rules. Thank goodness. That had opened the door to IDX data feeds to other non-participants, which is non-optimal. This recommendation, if adopted, fixes that problem at least.

2. Social media is handled generally by adding "and on others' websites where displays are controlled by participants" to rules regarding the participants own website; also "participants must give the MLS access to social media sites used by participants." This makes sense to me, though MLSs are obviously going to want members to register those other sites with the MLS for compliance purposes. This could result in a much higher compliance burden for the MLS. There will be other emerging questions, such as how comments on social media that includes listings are dealt with, especially where there has been seller "opt-out" of commentary.

3. RSS is mistakenly treated as a type of display. It is actually a mechanism for the transport of structured data, more similar to RETS - but unlike RETS, RSS does not require authentication.  If the PAG recommendation is adopted, RSS would be covered by policy, and MLSs are supposed to be given access to it for compliance purposes, yet there are no specific rules for its use, or what constitutes misuse, described. Theoretically, under this rule, it looks to me like I could provide the whole MLS database via RSS with no authentication, in XML format for re-compilation for other purposes. I hope that sanity prevails and that RSS is struck from the policy before adoption and that a goal is set to create a smart RSS policy recommendation for midyear.

4. "Apps" are not covered by policy. This is a gap that needs to be addressed in future policy ASAP.
 

Oct. 11, 2011 - Seven Samurai of the Real Estate Industry

Organized real estate always seems to feel like it's under attack. Maybe it is - or maybe we're just too insecure. Either way, this post is a tribute to folks you rarely, if ever, see up on stage at conferences that we're lucky to have on our side in that fight. This isn't a list of the usual cast of industry leaders - Bob Hale (with Taqi Rizvi), Mark Lesswing, Russ Bergeron, Gregg Larson, Mike Audet, Brian Larson and others. These are some people I admire that you might not know about:

1. Claude Szyfer is an attorney from the firm of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan. No offense to Brian, John, and Darity - but when I want to get another good legal perspective on industry issues, this is the guy I would call. Not only is Claude incredibly smart and in the loop on our industry, but he pulls expertise from a firm with 750 employees. Remember how Thomas Brown recently blew everyone away at CMLS by providing a big perspective? Well, Claude does the same thing but even more so. You won't have met Claude at any industry conference but I'm hoping he gets more involved in our industry in the future. We need him.

2. Paul Stusiak is a technical consultant specializing in RETS. I have the deepest respect for his technical opinions when it comes to standards. He understands the big picture transformations that an improved RETS standards can enable and the interests of stakeholders as they relate to that transformation. He has proven himself as a great facilitator at RETS meetings for years, and isn't afraid to dive in and get work done. He has the respect of many in the community. Paul has a deep-seated passion for RETS and for the industry in general. Like some of the other folks on my list, he's not any lists of the most influential people in our industry - but the industry would be far poorer without this one person.

3. Ed Newman is John Mosey's tech guy at Northstar MLS. He keeps things running smoothly locally, but he also focuses on things that could make a difference industry-wide. For example, he created a database driven rules based listing compliance checker and would give it away to other MLSs. He's spending a lot of time making sure the new association management system from RAMCO works, which has some exciting new features in it (which I'll leave for another post to describe). These are things that will improve our industry in general. Thank goodness Ed's in the back room getting things done!

4. Rob Larson is the CIO at CRMLS, the largest MLS in the country. Rob keeps it running smoothly and with great efficiency, both in terms of staffing and hardware. He has great operational experience and judgement. I like getting a call from Rob - I know we're going to have an awesome conversation. He's funny and creative, but not many people would know it because he's pretty quiet. But, I'm sure we're going to see more of him on the national stage as time goes on.

5. Rob Overman is the VP of New Technology at LPS MLS Solutions. I've pulled him up onto a few stages before, but most people don't have regular contact with him. He's been part of the engine of innovation at LPS and, going back, at REBIG, Homeseekers, Terradatum, and Virtual Information Systems. This guy's intellectual DNA is everywhere! The interesting thing about Rob is that the most famous failed endeavor he was involved in - REBIG - gave him great perspective on our current data licensing and syndication issues. But have you seen anyone draw on that perspective? Maybe not enough. I'm looking at Rob to speak up more, and for us all to listen hard to what he has to say.

6. Ethan Bailey is one of the co-creators of the InnoVia MLS product and is Sr. Director of IT at CoreLogic MarketLinx. He's not just a geek's geek, but has his MBA - he's a double threat! What I respect Ethan for most is his long-term view of technology. While everyone else was running around creating separate codebases for web, PC, mobile, etc., Ethan kept the faith on standards - resulting in manageability and low expenses for his platform. His perspective is invaluable, and he's an all-around nice guy and straight shooter. Just ask any InnoVia customer. We don't see enough of him online and at industry conferences - I hope that changes in the future.

7. In Kurosawa's Seven Samurai movie there may have only been six samurai to start, but surely seven by the end (Kikuchiyo). Who is YOUR seventh industry samurai and why? Remember, I'm asking for people who don't normally grace the stage at conventions.

 

Oct. 8, 2011 - Council of MLS 2011 Conference Recap

Merri Jo Cowen led a fabulous CMLS 2011 Conference, hosted by the wonderful staff of the Tucson Association of Realtors, led by Phil Tedesco and joined by Wes Wiggins, who left to run Regional MLS in Florida earlier this year. The event was held at the Westin La Paloma, which was nostalgic for me, since it's where Clareity Consulting held its first conference, "Law and Order in Information Commerce", back in 1998.

I dislike conferences where we talk and talk and talk but there's nothing practical for my clients to do, so I was pleased that this conference had some good takeaways, both big and small:

Consider a board of directors not based on geography, rather one that is lean and mean, whose members bring reason, passion, and specific knowledge. Consider outside directors. Other suggestions that I was somewhat less keen on but merit consideration were to include consumers, paying board members and having a stock purchase requirement.

Thomas Brown Esq. suggested that our current industry status as a "consortiums of competitors" is untenable. We're not going to get an exemption like Major League Baseball, and can't continue to keep butting heads with the government and pay the "antitrust tax" like BMI, ASCAP, and others. We should learn from companies that solved that problem for themselves such as Visa, MasterCard, Star, NASDAQ, and the NYSE. Options include diluting the influence of the board of directors, creating diluted public ownership or true public ownership. Otherwise we will continue to be a litigation target. The question is, who will lead this governance change, and will anyone follow?

Several speakers were on the data standards bandwagon. Rebecca Jensen was just wonderful in talking to that point. Brian Boero wants to see a 'data socket' to all MLS data in one place. Innovation plugs in to that socket, with royalties going back to MLSs (and possibly back to brokers) for value provided. That's an interesting vision. I certainly agree that data standards can fuel innovation and efficiencies. MLSs should participate in RESO (rets.org) and adopt the most current data standards. Too many MLSs are still using RETS 1.5 - a version created back in 2003 - rather than the current version. Important changes in the standard are afoot - keep up!

A number of speakers urged further consolidation and collaboration of MLSs as a key to provide the funding needed for innovation and to improve service offerings at lower cost. I'm sure the trend of consolidation and collaboration between MLSs will continue.

A number of speakers seemed to have a misconception about what the MLS is. One said that "Zillow is 2 fields away from being from being an MLS." MLSs are not a database of listings, they are companies that field a wide variety of technologies and provide extensive services - too numerous to get into in this post. I believe we need to combat this misperception - among ourselves, members, and beyond.

Listing syndication was discussed. Intermountain MLS sends data to Trulia for "Direct Reference" under strict contract and got report back about the sources of bad data. Carl Demusz from NORMLS created RETS Genie, which normalizes and syndicates MLS data. Kurt von Wasmuth (Portland) said, "We're not doing enough to educate the brokers" regarding syndication - something I agree completely with. More information about listing syndication can be found in Clareity's white paper, "Syndication to Real Estate Portals: Problems and Solutions" http://shar.es/b3vNq

MLS public websites were discussed. Cool website features to look for include home values, price reductions search, Walkscore, lifestyle information, lots of photos, video, and statistics back to brokers/agents showing the value of the website. MLSs advertise their site on Zillow, Facebook, Google, sports events, radio, vehicle wraps, and billboards. Thank you, Bob Hale, for pointing out how crazy it is that as an industry we still have to sell the value of public websites in 2011.

We discussed the MLS IDX policy. The NAR PAG recognizes social media as a fact of life and that policy needs to admit it exists - but details aren't done yet, or at least weren't discussed at CMLS. At this point the PAG thinks that brokers should opt-in or out to franchise display like they do for any other third party. Basically, the current policy should be rescinded, so franchisers are not a part of IDX. This is 100% in line with my thinking. Dealing with complaints about IDX rules violations has been a material expense for most MLSs.  Medium and large MLSs have IDX and VOW compliance managers and even compliance departments that deal with multiple aspects of data quality. My sister company Clareity Security is putting out some cool compliance tools, complementary to the IDX and VOW compliance services that I currently provide some of my MLS clients. There were lots of other IDX topics - new compliance tools, mobile IDX, social media and RSS. There's a lot left to work out.  There are some ideas for new ways to distribute data but changing the way hundreds of IDX vendors and thousands of brokers get their data may be tricky and I hope everyone developing such methods works with the newly formed RESO organization on any new way to transport data.

There was a legal session and some key points were as follows: Regarding listing syndication: data is going to places the brokers don't think it should be going and the data isn't good - so a broker could get tagged by a state agency for inaccurate/outdated data. What is the standard of care? There's no easy answer. John Rees said that when negotiating with a syndication channel (or a vendor) understand allocation of risk in contract and monitor the contract. John suggested that MLS executives go to realtor.org to look for the legal toolkit dealing with IP rights. I think there's a lot missing from that boilerplate - but it's a great starting point.

We talked about MLS conversions. My second favorite quote of the conference came from Wes Wiggins: He told his staff: "Best case scenario: this is going to totally suck." It's hard to account for how everyone uses the system - features are missing or moved in a new system. Wes suggests having end users try performing their daily tasks before conversion to find issues before cutover. Tim Ford suggests vendors carefully working with staff - suggesting a 2-3 month parallel period where users USE the system to find issues (as per Wes' comment). Setting a timeline for the conversion in the contract and monitoring it closely is key - communicating regarding delays as quickly as possible. Don't launch if the new system isn't right. I believe that one of the most critical area to take care, unmentioned by the panel, is in data distribution - ensuring brokers and their vendors have plenty of time and support to get the new data feeds squared away prior to cutover.

My favorite quote from the conference came from Brian Larson: "We're an industry with too many nightmares and not enough dreams." Thank you for that, Brian!

There was so much more - but I want to keep this post reasonably short. I'll be writing other posts based on and responding to other CMLS Conference content over the coming weeks and months.

I would encourage my readers to visit the Council of MLS website and join, if not already a member. Visit http://councilofmls.com

If you're an MLS Executive, please don't forget to sign up for the Clareity MLS Executive Workshop - we've only sent out one marketing email and the event is more than half full. When we send the next email out, the event may fill up. More information is available here: http://www.callclareity.com/MLSWorkshop/

 UPDATE: for a complementary post covering the conference, visit Vendor Alley!

Aug. 15, 2011 - Video: Intro to real estate information security

I've created a 20 minute video - an Introduction to Real Estate Information Security. This is a very quick snapshot of content from presentations that I usually provide in one, two and a half, and four and a half hour versions.

Introduction to Real Estate Information Security from Matt Cohen on Vimeo

I know that I've left out lots of great content - mobile device security, cloud computing, etc. - but one can only do so much in a twenty minute version!

For more information on the longer info security workshops Clareity is providing and articles on the subject (that MLSs and Associations are welcome to reprint) please visit http://www.CallClareity.com/security

For information on Clareity's security audit services, please contact me directly.

Other security-related articles I've released recently include:

• Contracting for Security in Your Mobile App (8/3/2011)
• Stopping Data Theft via Screen Scraping (6/29/2011)
• Secure Computer and Mobile Device Disposal (2/15/2011)
• Encryption for Real Estate Professionals (2/6/2011)
• Reducing WordPress Blog Hacking Risks (1/24/2011)
• You Use Cloud Computing - Is it Secure? (10/5/2010)