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The Latest News from WFG National Title Company
ryantate
134
WFG News
February 12, 2015

Trulia shines spotlight on ‘highest-ranked’ real estate agents

Trulia is publicizing the “highest-ranked, most successful agents” on the popular search site. The rankings, which are promoted on Trulia’s homepage, are based on the client reviews, client ratings and the number of transactions completed in 2014 that have been added to real estate agents’ profiles. Less than 2 percent of agents…
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ryantate
175
WFG News
February 11, 2015

Gary Keller on how to think about the portals, the Internet and online leads

Gary Keller, in a 157-minute presentation on the economy, the housing market and the state of the real estate industry, drilled down on portals, the Internet and how to think about these leads. The video below captures that part of his presentation. The post Gary Keller on how to think…
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ryantate
167
WFG News
February 10, 2015

Real estate agent reviews catching fire on Zillow

Consumers have posted more than 1 million reviews of real estate professionals on Zillow.com in the last four years — nearly half of those in the last year alone, an acceleration in growth that points to the growing importance of agents’ profiles on listing portals. More than 780,000 agents have…
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ryantate
203
WFG News
February 10, 2015

NAR continues to hype realtor.com in new national TV spot

Despite global media giant News Corp.’s acquisition of realtor.com operator Move Inc. in November, which lost NAR a seat on Move’s board and an ownership stake in the company, the trade association remains committed to promoting the realtor.com brand in a big way. NAR aired a 33-second TV ad during the Grammy Awards…
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ryantate
135
WFG News
February 10, 2015

Matt Holder: ‘The most critical thing I’d fix today is unlocking listing data’

Director of Product, Trulia Time at Trulia: Three years What he does: “My role as a product manager is to bridge the gap between the agent world and the tech world by talking with agents about their problems, irritations, and feedback for our products then producing new features or better functionality…
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ryantate
183
WFG News
February 6, 2015

Zillow gets book buzz, realtor.com sees boost in traffic

Real estate is not about location, location, location, but about future location, future location, future location. That’s one of the many real estate insights Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff and Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries offer up in their 288-page book, “Zillow Talk,” which came out Jan. 27. With the book, its play…
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ryantate
168
WFG News
February 6, 2015

Consultant: One-size-fits-all is wrong approach to portal listing feeds

A model agreement hammered out by industry players representing listing portals, MLSs and brokerages in the hopes of standardizing the terms under which listings are provided to big search sites like Zillow, Trulia and realtor.com should be viewed as a floor, not a ceiling, says a prominent real estate industry…
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ryantate
168
WFG News
February 6, 2015

How to beat portals at the lead game

Leads are life to Realtors. That’s obvious. Yet to anyone who’s looked to buy, sell, or rent online, it’s pretty obvious Zillow and Trulia own leads online. Seriously, is there a major market in the United States where these two are not on the first page of Google? (If there…
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ryantate
200
WFG News
February 4, 2015

How listings will flow to Zillow, other portals

Industry players representing listing portals, MLSs and brokerages have finalized a model content licensing agreement that could help Zillow obtain more direct listing feeds before its contract with syndicator ListHub expires this spring. The model agreement seeks to standardize the ground rules under which real estate brokerages and MLSs provide…
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ryantate
191
WFG News
January 30, 2015

Chief economists mostly bullish on 2015 housing market

NEW YORK — Four chief economists from some of the nation’s most popular real estate websites are optimistic about the housing market this year, citing an expected increase in home sales, and low mortgage rates and oil prices leaving more money in consumers’ pockets. Still, low inventory, decreasing home affordability…
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