WFG News
January 28, 2015

11 startups that are out to change the business of real estate

NEW YORK — Eleven real estate startups pitched their big ideas to the Real Estate Connect New York City crowd today. Here’s what they are up to: Rentity: Rentity connects renters who are moving out of a place, to those who are looking for a new place to live. The startup “brings the sharing economy…
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WFG News
January 28, 2015

Consumers will decide who is king of the online real estate mountain

NEW YORK — When Zillow closes its acquisition of Trulia, which Wall Street expects to happen any day now, the megaportal will square off with realtor.com operator Move Inc., which will be determined to unseat the king of the online real estate mountain. Both Zillow and Trulia already get more visits than…
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WFG News
January 28, 2015

Big data tools can have placebo effect

NEW YORK — Big data tools in real estate may be suffering from “shiny object syndrome,” according Todd Carpenter, managing director of the National Association of Realtors’ data analytics group. NAR Managing Director, Todd Carpenter Charmed by such systems’ promise to pinpoint prospective buyers and seller, some real estate agents…
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WFG News
January 28, 2015

Tool tracks listing performance on more than 70 international sites

Agents and brokers who advertise their listings through global syndicator Previsite are now tracking listing performance on more than 70 portals worldwide through a partnership with real estate software development firm ListTrac. Fourteen multiple listing services representing 210,000 agents have signed up for ListTrac’s free listing monitoring tool, which measures…
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WFG News
January 28, 2015

How to build a high-growth company

NEW YORK — High-growth companies may seem like anomalies born of luck, but the reality is that they follow distinct practices that any business can put into place. That’s according to Joanna Lord, vice president of marketing at 2-year-old real estate startup Porch and a keynote speaker today at Real…
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WFG News
January 28, 2015

ListHub general manager discusses Zillow syndication agreement

Ever since the Jan. 6 announcement that ListHub would not be renewing Zillow’s syndication agreement, real estate professionals have been seeking more information about exactly what this means to ListHub, Zillow and, ultimately, themselves. This is a story that affects everyone in the industry. Yesterday, I had the unique opportunity…
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WFG News
January 28, 2015

Brokers should focus on providing support tools to agents, not leads

NEW YORK — Today’s high-tech brokers often tout their ability to generate leads for real estate agents. But speaking onstage at Real Estate Connect, Robert Reffkin, CEO of New York City-area real estate brokerage Urban Compass, revealed that, rather than scaring up leads for real estate agents, the company’s robust technology…
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WFG News
January 28, 2015

Why Zillow reminds me of my ex-girlfriend

I run a boutique real estate firm called TREO Realtors in Cincinnati, Ohio. I get a call or an email about once a week from Zillow trying to upsell me on services and, ultimately, secure a direct listing feed of my listings to its site. I really like Zillow. For…
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WFG News
January 28, 2015

Zillow’s StreetEasy adding 3-D floor plans to some listings

Marking the latest advance of 3-D into online real estate, StreetEasy, a listing portal owned by Zillow that covers the New York City area, has begun adding interactive 3-D floor plans to some of its listings to help prospective buyers get a better feel for homes from their computers or mobile…
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WFG News
January 28, 2015

Barbara Corcoran backs real estate website provider

Barbara Corcoran, founder of New York City-brokerage The Corcoran Group and current “Shark Tank” investor, has given her seal of approval to real estate website provider Real Estate Webmasters, making an investment in the startup that values the company at $50 million. Real Estate Webmasters offers custom website development, marketing…
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