Anyone else get the TReND Terms of Service today?

So if you are like me, you paid a friendly visit to TReND MLS today and you got a great welcome gift - a fresh copy of the Terms of Service just waiting for you to give your consent. If you didn't (I am not sure what roll out schedule they are using) chances are good you will see one in the next few days.

You probably wished you had time to read it, but like the rest of us you were trying to get to some important data and the ToS was just a little roadblock in your way.

So I did us all a favor...I shot the ToS over to Barry and asked him to give his legal opinion. Hope this helps for you.

According to him, there are only a few changes - the MLS is still providing its core functions and you are still agreeing to be a member and pay dues and all that happiness. That said, there are two key changes I want to be sure to point out for your benefit.

#1 The language about password sharing has gotten even stronger. Basically TReND is letting you know that such sharing is verboten...and that you need to assign "delegate rights" to your people if you want them to log in as you. If you haven't heard already, they implemented "keystroke monitoring" systems months ago (that means it tracks the way you type passwords to determine if people with different typing styles are punching in the same code) and they are motivated to find users sharing accounts (or worse yet members sharing their accounts with consumers).

#2 The language about how members can use the data has been strengthened yet again. They are serious that they do not want members re-purposing the MLS data for web sites not permitted to show MLS data. I know about this one first hand, as they have come to me on several occasions to check the validity of certain sites. My advice; if you have a 3rd party web site contract, you may want to make sure (and make sure again) they are complying with MLS guidelines as it pertains to IDX and data sharing. If they are framing in your CBH agent site (or worse yet the CBH main site) they must stop. It is against the rules for any site to "frame in" listing data/search from somewhere else. If you think your vendor is not following the rules, let me know and I'll help you talk to them directly.

#3 This is actually not a new rule, but one I wanted to make sure I stress. TReND does not allow you to use other agents/brokers photos as your own. Please don't try to grab photos of an expired listing and use them as your own...trust me TReND will come down on you (as will the other broker) in a hot hurry. I have fielded these calls before too, trust me they are not very fun.

You would think I would end this with a paragraph about how the MLS is a big, nasty entity that is here to make your job harder...just the opposite. They are trying to protect you - by making sure less reputable entities out there can't grab your photos or use your data to make a quick (and cheap) sale. They really are working to uphold the integrity of the business. All I ask is that you hold up your end of the bargain and do what you agreed to do when you clicked that "I accept" button real quick earlier today.

A little more about the iPad

Over the course of the last few weeks there has been a great deal of discussion about the Apple iPad. Many offices of Coldwell Banker Hearthside are running an iPad giveaway program in conjunction with their open houses, and Mortgage Mobility is offering anyone who qualifies for a mortgage before April 1 (and who closes in 2011) an iPad at settlement.

A few people have asked me to talk more about the device itself, how it works and what the practical applications are for them. Because most everyone who reads this is in the real estate business, I am going to attack this from that perspective.

First let me say this is not going to be an in-depth device review. There are plenty of those out there already. One good one I found comes from Hubert Nguyen at ubergizmo - feel free to read his post as well.

In full disclosure I have to tell you I don't own an iPad. Many of my friends do, however, and I am going to base my post on my experiences using theirs and my thoughts about the real estate business. Feel free to disagree if you have one and feel differently.

So, in general the iPad is just a larger version of the iPhone many of you use. There are different versions - one uses just the wifi signal (the wireless in your office or the local coffee shop) and another uses the cellular signal to get to the internet. Obviously, costs differ between the units and the cellular one requires a data plan much like your cell phone does. If you are shopping, shop accordingly. [in case you are curious, the Mortgage Mobility and CBHearthside model being offered is the wifi one, not the cellular one.]

Because it is like an iPhone, the key to making it work is understanding just what "apps" are going to make your device ideal for you. Apple's iTunes library is enormous, and the number of iPad-specific apps is growing every day. That said, there are still some drawbacks of the iPad that need to be understood. The iPad does not run Flash, which (up until Apple said it wouldn't support it in their devices) was one of the building blocks of the internet. Without getting too techy, there is a big debate about how web sites are going to work without Flash (especially web video), so you have to know right away that your iPad may not do all the video/movie watching you want it to do. [Note, I just read that a Flash-enabling app has been released in the iTunes store but since I haven't read any reviews yet I am not prepared to say much else].

Browsing the web happens via Apple's standard browser, called Safari. If all you have ever used is Internet Explorer, you may find some challenges changing browsers but not much. I used the iPad Safari browser to scan a few of the sites we use regularly, and with the exception of ToolKit CMA (which only works on Internet Explorer) things seemed to work pretty well. Of course anything that requires you to save data to a hard drive isn't going to work as well, because the iPad isn't designed for sophisticated file storage. [it does have plenty of SD card memory but the file tree isn't that deep (in other words, there isn't a "my documents" folder with subfolders, etc)].

The other thing to be considered is that the iPad doesn't have a disc drive or even a USB port for inserting a flash drive (another function of the way the memory is designed) so you need to use a service like SugarSync to move data between your devices (don't know SugarSync? Check out this video Stefanie did just last week highlighting how it works).

So why is it so great? Think about the upsides for the real estate business. You can turn it on quickly (there is no "boot up" time for an iPad), you can access the internet pretty quickly and you can move between apps quickly. It is great when you want to just jump on quickly and answer a few emails or post a quick facebook status update - especially if you find the font size of your smart phone a challenge. With the Keynote app you can present Powerpoint slides easily (which is an even bigger hit if you are using a powerpoint listing presentation like the one offered from the revised ToolKit CMA program) and you can write contracts (with the exception of the soon-disappearing RealFast program) on the fly. As a mobile real estate professional I can see many features that can justify the cost.

Like I said earlier, however, I am interested in how the rest of you use your iPads, or the questions you have about how you could use them. Let's make this a discussion! I look forward to your input.

Why do we always forget Realtor.com?

You probably didn't know this but our company-wide contract with Realtor.com is getting ready to expire. No worries, the commitment has already been made to renew - but as we were talking to the reps from Realtor.com they threw some amazing stats our way...stats I want to share with you here.

Did you know?

That during the period from February 1, 2010 to January 31, 2011:

Our listings were displayed in Realtor.com results 17 MILLION times?

That consumers "clicked in" to view the details on our listings just under 1 MILLION times? (975,299 to be exact)

That more than 5,000 actions were taken by consumers to either 1) email the listing agent, email the company or visit the agent's web site?

That's pretty powerful in my opinion. I know for a fact (since I get a copy of most every email that comes in for property info) that no other channel we use produces this kind of result.

So why do we take it for granted all the time?

I am going to share a bit of a secret with you from our contract discussions. Don't tell anyone else, ok? I asked Realtor.com to tell me what it would cost if every CBH agent had to sign their own agreement with Realtor.com instead of us buying it for you as package. Want to guess? $257,669.44. Even if I do the most basic of calculations and divide by 500 people (our number fluctuates around there all the time) that means it would cost every agent $500+ for Realtor.com service.

17 Million views....5,000 actions....$500/person. Don't sleep on Realtor.com

Instead, please use the time to leverage the investment we are making on your behalf (yes, even when we renew the contract Realtor.com will still be free to you). Go in and make sure your profile is complete. Add your picture so people know who you are. You will be very glad you did throughout our new 2-year Realtor.com deal.

What is the story with RealFast?

So Tuesday afternoon I received the same email you did from RealFast CEO John Mayes. I know it has left many people confused about is happening with the company, and where we stand as RealFast clients. I know I sent a brief email to managers back in November when the news first broke explaining what I knew (which wasn't a whole lot at that point) but now I want to try to give a bit more insight.

First, some background. In PA the job of managing and approving the standard forms we use falls to the Pennsylvania Association of REALTORS (PAR) and their Standard Forms Committee. Careful scrutiny is paid to every nuance of the contracts to make sure the practitioners who use them are legally protected. That is why the legal hotline reports to PAR - as it is important that the legal rights of REALTORS in PA are protected.

Once the forms are approved, there is only one entity that is responsible for distributing them to REALTORS. That group is known as BSRE (Business Services for Real Estate). BSRE is the company who sells the printed forms some of us continue to use in our offices, and also contracts with the firms who are permitted to sell electronic contract software to us.

Currently there are four vendors authorized by BSRE - RealFast is one of them. At the Board of Directors meeting for BSRE the decision was made to drop RealFast, specifically because they continue to lose market share in Pennsylvania and because their technology does not allow for files to be moved between systems. Having considered leaving RealFast last September, I know how hard it is to move files in their current setup (it is impossible, BTW).

So BSRE decided not to renew RealFast, but realized that it could not hurt its own members by forcing RealFast out before they had earned the money already spent by firms like ours. So they said that RealFast can not sign up new contracts after March, 2011 and that all contracts must be completed by March, 2012.

For the record, Coldwell Banker Hearthside's contract with RealFast expires in September, 2011...well before the BSRE deadline hits.

What that means is that you will see no changes in your RealFast service. They will continue to support our product until our contract expires, with no trouble from BSRE. Obviously we will not be renewing with them when September comes.

Because we know we have to switch vendors we are already in the process of reviewing the offerings from the other three vendors. Our plan is to have a vendor selected by May and to have training in place for all of you during May and June.

Once the system is in place and we have done the training we will push very hard to have everyone using our new system by mid-June. That way any drafts you have in place will be on the new system well before September comes (remember, I said there is no data mobility in RealFast).

I will have much more information as we go, but I wanted to give you some insight. Of course if you have questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Oh Google...what were you thinking?

The folks at Google must have known I was about to send the revised ToolKit CMA presentation to the printer, that is why they went ahead and announced late last week that they were making big changes that impact real estate syndication.

Thanks, I guess, for saving me the embarrassment of having an outdated presentation before it ever was used.

I try not to get too techy in these posts; I know most of you are looking for the real estate implications of the tech changes, not real detail on the changes themselves. So I'll just say that last week Google announced that it is no longer going to accept real estate data feeds into its GoogleBase service, and it is also no longer going to present real estate listings on GoogleMaps.

All together now......Boo.

Google's answer for getting out of real estate is pretty simple; there are other players in the space who are doing it better. You can read their full post here (note that Coldwell Banker got a great shout out too). The truth of the matter is that they are right. Plenty of firms are doing a better job presenting real estate for sale than Google and plenty of firms have better, more accurate data than the GoogleBase engine has. The real estate data landscape has changed quite a bit from when they introduced the service way back in 2009.

I'm bummed for selfish reasons. Saying the word "Google" on a listing presentation was always a good starting point to talk about listing syndication. Even the most tech-resistant seller knows what Google is, so when you told them their listings were going to be delivered to GoogleBase and GoogleMaps it got their attention. Now that opportunity doesn't exist.

Certainly I believe that is justification for Google to continue the business, don't you?

So for all my CBHearthside colleagues I wanted to give my two cents on what the change means - feel free to offer other comments as you see fit.

1. It increases the value of Realtor.com - Google's move into real estate scared the number one player in the space...and they reacted. We have lots of great new tools as a result, and of course Google's disappearance only makes the site more relevant. Play up the fact that you have the Realtor.com Enhancement package when you start the conversation about listing syndication.

2. It makes single-property web sites even more important - Since Google will not be showcasing results on their map, and many sites that relied on their GoogleBase feed will have to find a new way to exist, the single-property web site may take a whole new prominence. Add to that a way-too-techy-to-post discussion of Google's latest algorithm changes and we may find those single-sites are very very important. Make sure you use them, promote them to your clients and sell the value they present. If we need to do a refresher, comment below.

3. It reinforces the value we deliver with our CBHearthside data feed strategy - You may not know this, but how the data gets to the sites is an important part of our business. Many of our competitors utilized tools that sent the data to GoogleBase, knowing that it would then get to many of the other sites by osmosis. We took a different approach, implementing site-specific feeds that brought data in from our web site and then farmed it out to the key players in the industry. While this is not a conversation you probably are going to have with your seller prospects, you can take comfort in knowing that the GoogleBase/GoogleMaps change doesn't have as big an impact on us as it may have on our competition.

4. It opens the door even wider for ColdwellBanker.com - You may not know this, but there was a big decision made about listing data at the National Association of REALTORS(R) meetings in Washington last May. NAR decided that franchise organizations (like Coldwell Banker) can now have IDX access to listing data, even though they are not a real estate broker. This paved the way for sites like ColdwellBanker.com to start sharing "all the listings, all the time" with consumers. Century21 just launched the first of the national sites to incorporate the IDX data, and ColdwellBanker.com is about to do the same through its iPhone and Android app. This is only my opinion, but knowing the amount of national media the big real estate brands use to push consumers to their sites the decision by NAR may have helped Google decide to get out of the business. Why would people go to Google Maps to get bad (often outdated) data when they can go to ColdwellBanker.com and get up-to-the-minute MLS data (and have it displayed on a map)? Could be an interesting few months watching this develop.

So it does mean the ToolKit revisions were delayed a bit...but no worry, when they come out they'll be up-to-date (or at least until something else happens).

Stay tuned....