Many of these startups have great ideas, solid engineering and a thirst for growth. But few seem to have a grasp on the greater real estate industry – the ecosystem in which relationships grow, technology connects and politics governs.

As someone who genuinely wishes to see more innovators succeed in real estate, this cribsheet came to mind. Think of it as a primer on the basics.

First, let’s talk data:

RETS

This acronym stands for Real Estate Transaction Standard. The name is somewhat misleading. There is of course no “standard” for real estate transactions. RETS is a protocol for delivering data from MLSs to brokers, software developers or other MLSs. It is an attempt to make life easier for brokers and software developers who want to access data from more than one of the nearly 900 MLSs in the country, each of which may have different data fields and naming conventions. A “patio” in New York may be a “lanai” in Hawaii, for example.

RESO

Short for Real Estate Standards Organization, RESO oversees RETS and continues to push for uniform MLS data standards. It is an open community of volunteer real estate business people and tech vendors.

Syndication

Syndication is the name given to the delivery of real estate listings data to websites for marketing purposes. Many brokers choose to syndicate their listings to sites like Zillow, Trulia and many other smaller websites that attract consumers interested in property. This is different from IDX, which is broker-to-broker listings sharing and display (see below).

IDX

Short for Internet Data Exchange, IDX is the name given to the sharing of listings among brokers for the purpose of website display. It is also known as Broker Reciprocity. IDX is a way for brokers to maximize the exposure of their listings (their listings appear on all other brokerage websites) and enables them to give consumers a complete home search experience on their own websites (they display virtually all the listings in their market, not just their own). IDX is managed market by market by local MLSs.

VOW

A Virtual Office Website aims to extend the relationship a broker would have with a consumer in the offline world, online. This means that a broker can show MLS data that goes beyond IDX to consumers via their website provided the consumer registers and accepts the broker’s terms of use. This additional data may include sold properties and sale prices, withdrawn and expired properties, and other status changes and data fields not available outside the VOW context.

RPR

Short for Realtors Property Resource, RPR is a national database of information on every parcel of property in the U.S. It’s a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Association of Realtors, and is intended for Realtor use only. RPR was envisioned by NAR as a means of enhancing the Realtor value proposition, but has been fraught with difficulty since its launch in 2009. (Read more about RPR here.)

MLS alphabet soup

COVE

COVE stands for MLS Cooperative Venture, and is a group of large MLSs that promotes the ability for MLSs to share knowledge and create data standards. They’re a significant player in the whole RETS initiative.

CMLS

The Council of Multiple Listing Services is a group that brings together MLSs in the interest of cooperating and sharing information that will better the MLS industry. They talk about technology, legal and organizational issues faced by MLSs across the country. They also hold a well attended conference each year.

A legal note

What is RESPA?

This stands for Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. You’ll hear a lot of talk about it in the industry because this law governs affiliate business relationships, which are the lifeblood of most brokerage businesses. Kickbacks are highly scrutinized by regulatory agencies and carry stiff penalties. Today, RESPA is policed by new the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Franchisors, brokerages and industry groups

Realogy

Realogy is the largest real estate company in the world. This publicly traded corporation owns Sotheby’s, Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Better Homes and Gardens, ERA, NRT (see below) and large title and relocation businesses. Realogy is both a franchisor and owner/operator of real estate offices.

NRT

NRT stands for “National Realty Trust” and is owned by Realogy. It is the largest residential brokerage company in the U.S., and owns companies that do business under the Coldwell Banker, Coldwell Banker Commercial, ERA, Sotheby’s, and Corcoran brand names. These are Realogy’s “company owned stores” (as opposed to most of their offices, which are franchised).

HomeServices of America

HomeServices is the second largest brokerage company in the nation. It operates largely through regional or local brands, and has historically positioned itself against national franchises. Edina Realty, Long Realty, and Koenig & Strey are just a few of the local brands owned by HomeServices. HomeServices is a Berkshire Hathaway company. The company launched a franchising arm in 2013 called HSF affiliates (see below).

HSF Affiliates

A franchisor owned by HomeServices of America which franchises the Berkshire Hathaway Home Services and Real Living brands. HSF Affiliates is owned by HomeServices of America and Brookfield Residential Properties, a multibillion-dollar Canadian conglomerate (confused yet?).

The Realty Alliance

The Realty Alliance is a network of leading independent (as opposed to franchised) real estate companies throughout North America. They’re worth knowing because their members tend to control a lot of market share. In fact, there are probably fewer real estate transactions that they don’t touch in some way than ones they do.

Leading Real Estate Companies of the World

Leading Real Estate Companies of the World is an international network of over 500 independent real estate companies. It essentially gives brokerage companies not affiliated with a franchise (e.g., RE/MAX, Century 21) some of the benefits of a franchise. This includes a relocation network (referring people who are moving out of market to another real estate company), a national convention, training and technology.

Realtor.com, Move, Inc., and the National Association of Realtors

Move, Inc. and Realtor.com

Move is the publicly traded parent company of Realtor.com and other holdings, including Top Producer, ListHub and TigerLead Solutions. Realtor.com is the national listings site Move operates under an agreement with the National Association of Realtors. It includes listings from over 800 MLSs across the country and competes with Trulia and Zillow.

Trade media and publications

Real Trends

Real Trends is a publishing and consulting company that produces regular reports and newsletters on industry trends. It is largely focused on brokerage executives and staff and has been a respected voice in the industry for more than 20 years.

RISMedia

RISMedia is a trade publication covering real estate news and marketing. They offer content online and in a print magazine, and produce several industry events. They are perhaps best known for their Power Broker Forum, which brings together industry leaders during NAR’s annual EXPO.

Inman News

Inman is an real estate news service that was founded by Brad Inman, a former journalist and serial entrepreneur. Inman is known for its biannual Real Estate Connect conferences in New York and San Francisco, and for its close eye on upcoming technology in real estate.

Swanepoel Trends Report

This is an annual report tracking emerging trends in real estate, technology and consumer behavior. It is published by author, speaker and entrepreneur Stefan Swanepoel and is read widely within the industry.

Events

Real Estate Connect

Real Estate Connect is the leading real estate and technology event. It has been in existence for 16 years. It is held twice each year – New York in January and San Francisco in July. It attracts real estate related tech startups, the established online real estate companies, brokerage and brand executives and some real estate agent.

NAR EXPO

This is the largest real estate trades how on the planet. The National Association of Realtors hosts the Expo every year in November, rotating locations. While it’s not a great place to network (think football stadium-sized tradeshow), the NAR Expo is a nice intro to the people who work in real estate day in and day out, and the vendors that serve them.

NAR Midyear

The NAR Midyear conference takes place in Washington, D.C., in May every year. The event is smaller than the association’s annual expo, but includes a tradeshow and is a great place to network. This event is also where many important policy meetings take place.

Gathering of Eagles

This is an event produced by RealTrends, usually held in Denver in May, where you’ll find top executives from all the franchise companies, large brokerage companies, and tech vendors. It offers limited sponsorship and exhibiting opportunities.

Final note

The real estate industry is a complex maze of business relationships, data-sharing policies and federal regulations. This list is by no means definitive. If there’s an entity or acronym you feel any entrepreneur new to the industry should not go one more day without knowing, please add it in the comments below.

That’s the sentiment expressed in the comments in Brian’s post on the new home search app from Chase.

The idea is that brokers don’t pay attention to where their listings are syndicated, even though they have plenty of tools to do just that, and then complain when they show up somewhere unexpected.

I don’t buy it. That thinking just doesn’t sit well with me.

See, we work with lots of really smart brokers here at 1000watt. People who work hard, day in, day out, to do right by their clients and their listings. People who get the web. Smart people who make smart business decisions and who are conscious of all the tradeoffs involved.

So I was happy to hear from the folks at ListHub last week, who reached out to me to preview a new report (PDF link) that they are releasing today in conjunction with NAR’s Midyear conference.

The findings, which were compiled from a survey of more than 200 broker-owners and principal brokers, are pretty resounding:

• 83% were aware that they had subscribed to all of the publisher websites available in the ListHub network (there are about 500 publishers in the ListHub network, big sites like Trulia and Zillow and lots of smaller ones like Vast).

• 90% want maximum exposure for their listings.

• 85% want maximum exposure for their clients.

Bottom line? Brokers do have a clue.

Now, of course, the majority of respondents wanted publishers to follow broker rules on listings management and most want reports on how their listings were fairing online. This only make sense.

But, suffice it to say, they all see exposure of their listings as a good thing.

I call these folks the silent majority. They are mostly the people too busy selling real estate to get into online flamewars about the pros and cons of listing syndication. They just want to get a home sold. But the problem is, they are largely drowned out by the puff and bluster put out by a vocal minority of listing syndication alarmists.

Thankfully, ListHub has given these people a voice. (Granted, they have much to gain from promoting this point of view).

But here’s the thing. We should all be striving for Marc’s vision of listings ubiquity.

Because as the world moves rapidly towards a mobile, interconnected Internet of Things, and the long, slow demise of IDX and listing search on brokers’ websites accelerates – it’ll be the silent many that will ultimately be proved prophetic.

This is a smart move by Trulia

Trulia has always been perceived, accurately or not, as Zillow’s plucky little brother. Even with a successful IPO and impressive revenue growth (if not profits), the company seemed to be playing a supporting role in Zillow’s movie.

They needed to make a big move, and did. You have to admire that.

The combined Trulia/LEDR has 45,000 paying subscribers. Zillow has 34,000. And whatever you think about Market Leader’s software, Trulia can now offer agents a fuller suite of products than Zillow can.

So, good move. Too expensive? Maybe. But still good.

LEDR shareholders should be very happy

Market Leader’s stock has performed really well over the past two years, and revenue has increased significantly. This was driven by a number of things (a pivot to SaaS from lead-gen, inking deals with big brands, housing market improvement) but significant profits eluded the company and, indeed, always had. There were only so many more big brand doors to knock on and selling to and retaining agents as customers is a bear.

In other words, I was never really sure about their long-term prospects.

LEDR shareholders sold while the selling was good.

Why did Zillow pass?

Looking at this from the other side, one must wonder why Zillow didn’t make this same move.

I don’t know why, but here are a couple of guesses:

First, while the large majority of Zillow’s revenue comes from selling ads and software to agents, they clearly have a broader, and very ambitious, strategic vision. They’ve already started to monetize their mortgage marketplace, have invested heavily in their rentals marketplace (acquiring two companies in this category, RentJuice and Hotpads), and launched a home improvement marketplace earlier this year.

Yes, Trulia has its toes in these waters, too. But Zillow is pursuing them more aggressively. So a big acquisition in the Realtor software business may not have been strategic for them at the moment.

They seem to be focused on going wide, whereas Trulia just went deep.

Zillow may also think they can build better software than Market Leader. LEDR’s product, while solid, is showing its age in places. There’s a lot of engineering talent at Zillow. Perhaps they’re working on something homegrown.

End-to-end platform versus the App Economy

For the past two years, Market Leader has positioned itself as a complete real estate software suite, offering a “click-to-close” solution that Market Leader CEO Ian Morris has compared to Microsoft Office. They’ve been seeking to bring order to a real estate software market they characterized as “fragmented” and “mom and pop.”

I buy that, but there’s also risk here that Trulia just absorbed.

In 2001, Move (then Homestore) bought Top Producer, the leading real estate software company of its day. The strategy here was the same: create a deeper relationship with the agent and broker customer by moving beyond advertising and marketing.

Twelve years later, Top Producer represents just a small percentage of Move’s revenue and has been seriously challenged by a decade of new entrants that are not as “complete” but offer agents and brokers more choice.

So while Trulia does get a nearly comprehensive software product, it is far from inevitable that it will achieve and maintain market leadership.

Realestate.com

Market Leader bought Realestate.com from IAC last year, and the brokerage licenses that came with it. They then set up the site as a national search play powered by the IDX data to which those licenses gave them access, even though they didn’t actually broker homes.

They were, as I said at the time, a “paper brokerage” – a provocative move.

Interestingly, though, Market Leader’s poor execution with Realestate.com probably saved them from serious industry backlash. Many brokers I talked to thought the company would never make the site into something worth worrying about, and they were probably right.

But Trulia on the other hand… these people know how to build a portal. They kill at user experience and built an audience of 30 million uniques through scrappiness and lots of SEO smarts.

So, some people have reacted to this deal with something like “OMG, Trulia now owns Realestate.com, is now a broker in all 50 states, and has access to IDX nationwide!!”

This is true. But I think the folks at Trulia are too smart to do much of anything with the domain, the licenses or the IDX access. I suppose an IDX-based portal is a “nuclear option” Trulia now has in its back pocket if listings aggregation via syndication ever truly blows up (I don’t think it will), but I think Realestate.com is a non-issue.

Interesting energy

This is admittedly fuzzy, but both of these companies have suffered from something I will simply call “bad vibes” in the industry (yeah, I know, incisive analysis!).

I’ve been in this business since 1997. And you hear things. Opinions. Rumors. Rants. And I’ve heard more of these types of things about Market Leader over the years than just about any other company. I’m not certain it was ever justified, but it was in the air.

Trulia has been dogged by this too. Some in the industry fear Zillow. Some resent Realtor.com. But a lot of people I know always felt suspicious of Trulia. I think part of this was taken care of pre-IPO, and it seems to be getting better, but, again, it’s there.

Of course, a few bad vibes didn’t stop either of these companies from getting where they are today, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

A rising tide 

All publicly traded real estate technology stocks have been lifted by the housing recovery. Zillow’s staggering valuation draws the oohs and ahhs but everyone’s done well. And that’s a positive. Because it makes deals like this possible. And deals like this drive activity, innovation, investment and change.

All good things in my book.

Today, the company launched a “Home Value Estimator”. It’s a public-facing CMA tool, more or less.

A consumer puts in their address, or the address of a home they are interested in buying, adds comps (or removes the comps suggested by the tool) and gets a value estimate along with a side-by-side comparison of the subject property and comps.

It’s basic, but well executed.

Every brokerage in America should have something like this on their website. But every brokerage in America’s agents would scream bloody murder.

If I were a broker/owner, I’d let them scream. There’s too much at stake.

…

I would be overstating things only slightly by saying that The Greater Chattanooga Association of Realtors just might have the best home search site in the industry.

Yes, The Greater Chattanooga Association of Realtors.

They launched a new website this week that is fully responsive. In other words, it looks great no matter what sort of device you’re viewing it on. No separate “m.gcar.com” site. No need to play the insane app store optimization game. Just one simple site.

If you look at it on your desktop screen, shrink and expand the browser window to see the fluid grid in action.

The site was built by Solid Earth, an MLS software company.

There are lots of things that could be improved (stop that home page animation!) but this is a really nice effort from an unexpected place. Kudos.

…

Move bought Doorsteps this week. Good vibes all around. I like to see smart people win, and Michele is one of those.

If you’re not familiar with Doorsteps, it’s an online tool buyers (and, if they want, their agents) can use to better navigate their home buying journey. Experience is a better word for it, though. Doorsteps makes a process that is often daunting, confusing and sloppy feel better.

I’d argue that the consumer homebuying experience has in fact become more complicated and less empowering in the past 20 years – internet, Zestimates and all notwithstanding. We’re going to see more companies like Doorsteps try to make it better.

…

Speaking of sloppiness…

I am going through my 4th, and perhaps final, refinance. And while I generally resist the urge to let my personal real estate experiences color my work, I have to say this:

The mortgage process is a shitshow.

Seriously.

This has got to get better. Because most real estate transactions will always require borrowing. And right now, borrowing is messed up.

Because I am a “savvy consumer”, I went to the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace and contacted three lenders. Two never responded and one responded with information about a loan program I hadn’t asked about.

I then called a well-known direct lender known for low rates and fast closings and was bait-and-switched.

Finally I hooked up with a local mortgage broker, even though I knew this was not the most cost-effective option. Four weeks, three redisclosures, two creepy appraiser visits and innumerable emails later, I am still waiting.

Oh, and the loan processor I am dealing with uses brown comic sans is all her emails. Not kidding. I can only hope that the CFPB bans it.

Enjoy the weekend.

He processes the charge for the ride.

With the receipt and pen tucked in his grip, he passes me the clipboard and says…

“Now is a great time to buy a house.”

“You an agent”? I shoot at him.

Thinh’s face bursts into a wide, disarming smile. “No, no, no – I’m a cabbie. But it is a good time to buy.”

We’re curbside at the Honolulu airport. Last thing I expect after spending four days at the AREAA conference is to find myself captured inside a taxi and lead generated by an animated, Vietnamese cabbie.

Thinh continues to tell us his perception of the local market. My wife pays more attention than I do.

I sign the receipt.

Take a GeniusScan of it for my records.

And slip into a dream…

Real Estate’s Vanilla Sky

An “Explore Hawaii” video rolls on a screen as I lean back in the seat of the cab. It is 2015.

It drifts to real estate. Lush footage of properties perched on black rock next to blue sea. Rooms that flow into the surrounding paradise.

It’s visual candy served up to a world with a real estate sweet tooth.

My retina activates the gestural interface in the plexiglass divider. A map renders. I select the Home Listings category and pins begin to overlay. Details appear. Images, social commentary. Context.

One home grabs my wife’s attention. She flashes me a look that requires no words.

I send the directions up to the driver’s screen, and within five minutes we’re parked in front of the home. It’s looks like a place we can grow old in.

I trigger the I’m Here app on my phone. Think Uber for real estate. It locates five Realtors within three miles of the property. I check out their relative sales performance and ping one of them.

Linda responds. I explain how I’m parked outside a home I’d like to see now. Can she help me?

She’ll be there in five.

While the cab waits, we tour the home.

In my dream, listings are everywhere

They’re ambient.  Like the air and sunlight. They flow like water.

Cab companies, banks, hotels, hardware stores, mortgage companies and others showcase MLS listings in the 2015 of my dream. On their websites. In their apps. You can see them in digital interfaces inside their locations.

These are brokers’ new partners – entities deeply vested in the health of the housing business.

Home Depot provides the building blocks of the homes you sell.

Banks’ billions enable your customers to buy them.

Cabs and hotels move and host the people who live in them.

They all share real estate listings in my dream.

Each of them is a channel in a 24/7 network called real estate. They feed our industry leads. Their customers are easily transitioned to brokers and agents through their use of home listing data.

Listings ubiquity is something the real estate industry fought for decades.

But here in 2015, industry folks chuckle over their folly.

Win, win

I’m now back in 2013. And what I know is that the real estate business is a sales business. List it. Sell it. Deposit check. Do it again.

Hoarding listings in the interest of protecting them seems at odds with that reality.

Think of all the time and energy spent worrying about Zillow. Yet the industry hasn’t lost a single sale to them. Or Trulia. Or Realtor.com.

That’s because they don’t sell real estate.

Instead, they get homes for sale in front of people everywhere sales agents aren’t.

Think about it this way: wherever there are listings, a conversation about real estate is happening. I think we can all agree that that is a good thing.

Amen

A friendly cabbie in Honolulu recited the industry’s mantra. And I actually believed it.

If I buy, I won’t hire Thinh.

He’s a cabbie.

I’d hire an agent.

Just like I always have.

First, a full disclaimer: The grades I’m assigning have absolutely no scientific basis to them.

Zillow

Zillow announced that it will be the first publically traded company to take questions from investors via Twitter and Facebook. It also re-launched its mobile apps, moving all the search options under the “hamburger” icon and integrating its Mortgage Marketplace into the experience.

Grade: B+

I think Zillow’s openness on social media has done wonders for its brand and I like the new design… but I don’t love it. Somehow it feels like it has lost a bit of its personality. Maybe I miss the green from the new all-blue look. (Too Trulia for them, perhaps?) Also, I’m really beginning to think that the map is not the best view for real estate listings on mobile. More on that in another post, though.

Trulia

Trulia’s suite of consumer products, its website, mobile apps and iPad app all got facelifts too. Photos got bigger. The design got flatter. And in the case of the search results page on their website, they lost the left rail altogether and moved to a two-column layout.

Grade: A

I like the direction that Trulia is taking its design. Deep-sixing that left rail of refiners is like a blast of fresh air across the page. Trulia was the last holdout of the major portals on this front. Vendors and brokers, if you’re still desperately clinging to that wall of dropdowns and form fields on your website, do yourself a favor and move on.

Realtor.com

Realtor.com released school search in its iOS and Android apps this month. The feature lets you quickly find properties within specific school districts or boundaries with a quick tap. GreatSchools ratings are integrated, as are important data points like teacher/student ratios. Parents everywhere rejoice.

Grade: A-

I love all the innovation coming out of Move on the mobile front. They were first out of the gates with a draw-to-search feature, which still feels like magic. School search is a such a no-brainer and their execution here is fantastic. I love the speed and responsiveness. My only hesitation in awarding them an A grade this month is that the app itself is starting to look a little tired, with feature upon feature being piled on. I think this is an app that is screaming out for a UI refresh.

Redfin

Redfin pushed out a major design overhaul of the company’s website a few weeks back. They buried the previous design’s “cadaver blue” and splashed the walls Dexter-like with Redfin red (#A02021). The company’s tree logo also got felled. A quick survey of the comments on the blog post announcing the change shows people were none too happy with the change. Haters gonna hate.

Grade: B+

The new identity and red makes a ton sense. After all, the color is in the company’s name. I really like the cleanliness of the new site too, but their mobile apps still look like they’re the walking dead. On the upside, I never understood the tree logo. I always thought the man reaching towards the house could be interpreted as a thinly veiled Garden of Eden inference… maybe Redfin was real estate’s Original Sin?

Cheerleading Facebook doesn’t give me a thrill.

The app du jour bores me terrifically, too.

Real estate thrives on yesterday’s news. People nuzzle up to those who evangelize it.

Products and apps launch and become mainstream. Then start fading. That’s about when real estate picks them up, fascinates upon them for a half a year, and moves on. Think blogging, social, video, QR codes.

This is not a sustainable strategy. It’s digital dilettantism, a mode of distraction that keeps companies from moving forward.

I want to take you on a different journey.

Into the future

On March 21, 2013, Apple warned its developers: Apps not optimized for the iPhone 5 or Retina displays will be rejected from the app store.

Apple could care less about its developer partners’ issues. Apple cares about progress. Change is inevitable. To be a part of Apple’s future, developers need to be present in the here and now.

What if this were the mantra for real estate brokerages? Imagine issuing your sedentary technology partners a similar edict: Update your products to 2013 standards. 

Or else.

I get the obvious Apples-and-oranges objection. And I know the land mines you’d set off if you unplugged the bandaged, hackneyed software your vendor refers to as a solution.

But your alternative seems even drearier. Walking into the future with solutions created years ago cripples you. It costs you connections, leads, conversions, time and money. It costs you business.

You can’t progress forward when your best offering to agents and their customers is a tangled mess of old ideas.

It’s time for ultimatums

Seriously. I know that sounds dramatic. But how else can you guarantee that the experience you offer consumers will be commensurate to their expectations?

Consider the potential struggles users will experience browsing your site in 2015 if it’s built to 2008 sensibilities. Suddenly, your stacked content elements, links stuffed tight between gobs of copy, lack of images and video are more than just annoying to visitors – they’ve rendered your site impossible to use.

Your site will look about as unusable and antiquated as this site does today. Unless you do something.

Here are three things that are perfectly reasonable to demand from a digital vendor in 2013:

1. Mobile competency

At least half of your website traffic this year will be from users on a tablet or other mobile device. The days of thinking about “mobile” separately from your website are over.

Your mobile user experiences need to be every bit as usable as your desktop experiences. Responsive, adaptive, web, native – there are many means – but the end is the thing. It’s got to be excellent.

2. Speed

Did you know a one second delay in load times will decrease your conversions by 7%? There are hundreds of studies that dish up tidbits like that. The bottom line: slow kills.

Too many real estate tech vendors sit on Clinton-era code bases. Or they’re skimping on infrastructure because that’s something clients will never see.

Pay attention. Test. And demand that that SLA isn’t just about uptime.

3. Real-time publishing

If your website vendor can’t provide a real-time, SEO-friendly content management solution that enables you to publish content as you wish, then it’s time to have a talk. Every company in 2013 needs the ability to publish their own content on their own terms whenever they see fit. This is a reality of modern-day business.

There are more, of course. But these come up all the time in our work with brokerage companies. There’s a lot of work to be done here.

The state of things to come

The days of a brokerage’s life are mired in business issues. Recruitment. Revenue. Profitability. An ever-growing ad spend. Training. Wrapping your heads around marketing in this new age.

Your bandwidth is limited – tied up grappling with the realities of your current platforms that were built on the past.

I get it. But nothing in your world will change if you remain anchored in yesterday’s technology or today’s shiniest freebie.

I feel your pain, but sympathy is a wasted emotion. Dealing with advances years after they trend is a never-ending cycle of scrambling that creates opportunities for others outside the business to compete with you.

It’s time to put your foot down, Apple-style.

Companies are mining data to predict what I’ll do and when. As I’m sure you’ve heard, “Big Data” is kind of a thing.

Yet we haven’t seen much of this sort of data mining and predictive analysis happen in real estate. But we should, and soon.

In an industry where the majority of consumers only participate once every 5-10 years, and brokerage brand loyalty is weak, knowing things about a consumer’s life trajectory is more than just handy information. It could be lifeblood.

Imagine you know when your past clients are ready to sell or refinance. You know when their kids will be buying their first homes. When they may look to downsize or buy a little pied-a-terre. When they’ll be struck by the vacation home bug.

Imagine you know just the right moment to send them an informational email about relocating to another state. Or when to hit them up with enticing photos of bigger homes in their area because they’re expecting another child.

Creepy? Maybe. But indeed powerful.

After all, great marketing is just as much about timing as it is about content.

This may sound like idealistic dream talk, but this very sort of predictive targeting is already happening. Look at Facebook’s announcement this year that they would begin enabling advertisers to target consumers on their platform based on those consumers’ offline shopping behavior.

One company that we know of, SmartZip, is trying to analyze and predict consumer behavior for real estate. But it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

For a real estate company, leveraging predictive analytics in this sort of way requires a long-term strategy. We’re talking years here, which sounds painful. But hear me out.

You’re probably already collecting a fair amount of data from your website –  email at the very least, and search habits for the more advanced. You may even be using drip campaigns right now to try to keep a connection going with past clients and prospects.

But do those drip campaigns really work? In most cases, no. (Think back to the “turn your clocks back” message I brought up in my last post.)

You have to take your data collection and mining practices to the next level. Establish connections between business units (brokerage, mortgage, title, warranty) track that data, and map it to email campaigns that take place over several years.

One simple way to start would be to create an exit survey for all your clients (yes, if you’re a broker this is tough; if you’re an agent it’s a no-brainer) that captures some basic information about their potential future home-buying plans. Instead of pounding them with weekly emails about the market right after they bought their house, save it for when they’ll be more apt to pay attention to it.

Put all your recent buyers on a 1-year new homeowner campaign that speaks to them as if they’ve just bought a house (because they did!). Send them things about homestead exemptions, taxes, home warranties, refinancing, home improvement. Don’t send them new listings or “It’s a great time to buy” messages – they just bought a house, remember.

Another way to tackle would be to really use your local knowledge to make some predictions.

For example, where I live in Oakland, it’s common for people to move because of their children’s school choices. People often will move into a neighborhood that has a good elementary school, but you can expect they will be looking to move again when their child hits middle school age.

Bottom line

Your customer data is just as valuable as your listings data. Maybe even more so, if you can crack the code on how to match it to marketing messages and timing.

Behavioral data is already pushing other industries forward. Spray-and-pray no longer works in advertising or marketing. Now, it’s all about targeting and context. And the only way to do that effectively is to know more about the people you’re talking to.

This is the type of data that is pushing other industries forward. Are you game?

Wow. A home search app from Chase.

Filled with broker listings used to drive mortgage business to Chase.

Put that in your pipe, smoke it, and inhale deeply.

Two things could be happening here:

1. This is powered by the active but largely unexplored “grey market” for real estate listings.

2. This is powered through Point2 or ListHub, in which case brokers willingly gave up the goods.

I guess we’ve chilled out on that whole banks in real estate thing? And, yes, the whole syndication debate can indeed get more perverse.

Nor, I should disclose, do I have any interest in downloading Home or pre-ordering an HTC First. I’m not a heavy user of Facebook, and find the service borderline creepy and distasteful.

But, admittedly, I am not Facebook’s demographic. I am staring down 40, have two small kids and consider any evening when I can get into bed before 10 o’clock a pretty “epic night” these days.

So I’m definitely not who Zuckerberg and crew had in mind when they built Home.

That said, I do think they’ve built something ambitious and unique.

Ambitious because they envision a world in which every personal interaction we have digitally is piped through Facebook’s platform (shudder) and unique because they had the foresight and courage to re-imagine themselves as more than just a “website”.

What struck me as truly novel was how they stripped Facebook down to its component and core parts and rebuilt it from the ground up for the mobile user. Not every company would be so bold.

Mobile first

Mobile first doesn’t just mean trying to cram everything into a 640 x 1136 pixel display. And to date, that’s mostly what we’ve gotten in real estate.

Even Zillow’s app, which was just re-launched yesterday, is basically its website shrunk down to size.

Rather, mobile first means radically reconsidering how a mobile user interacts with the data underlying your service. It assumes constant connectivity and should begin to recognize context.

Facebook Home does this. Google Now is another good example.

Home brings forward all of the must-see content (in Facebook’s case, the photos and updates) and subsumes all other features and actions, revealing them only when necessary or when the user specifically asks for them. Navigation is done through a series of intuitive gestures. The end result is that it looks, and presumably feels, like you are interacting directly with the content.

The closest equivalent to this that I can think of in real estate is Move’s drawing feature on the Realtor.com app (which Zillow now offers, too).

More recently, companies like Homesnap and Keyzio also have begun to tackle some real estate problems with mobile first thinking.We’ll see more more of this.

Facebook Home points the way.