Trulia will provide special training and discounts on the listing portal’s marketing tools to 40,000 members of Lisle, Ill.-based Midwest Real Estate Data LLC (MRED), one of the nation’s largest multiple listing services.

MRED is the first MLS to partner with Trulia in the new “Shared Success Program,” which will provide guidance to agents on how to get the most out of Trulia’s local and mobile ads platforms and suite of membership plans. The program is being marketed to MLSs throughout the country.

“Our goal (with the program) is to help agents better understand Trulia’s free and paid services to help agents and brokers succeed and more effectively use Trulia’s tools to grow their businesses,” said Trulia spokesperson Ginger Wilcox.

In addition to MRED members receiving discounts for Trulia products, they’ll also receive training on how to use both Trulia’s free and paid tools and exclusive training webcasts.

As part of the deal, MRED will also use be able to co-brand training materials including videos, handouts and emails that market Trulia’s tools to its members.

“Trulia is delivering the online and mobile tools to help agents meet the expectations of today’s consumers, and agents who adopt those tools effectively will build a better business,” said Russ Bergeron, CEO of MRED.

MRED is one of several large MLSs that provide listings to Trulia. Others include the Houston Association of Realtors (HAR), Boston-area MLS Property Information Service Inc. (MLSPIN), Bay Area Real Estate Information Services Inc. (BAREIS) in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Connecticut Multiple Listing Service (CTMLS).

Trulia rival Zillow also receives listings directly from some MLSs, including HAR, MLSPIN, CTMLS, and the Corpus Christi Association of Realtors.

Some are noticing that partnerships like this are an indication that the portals and industry are in the beginning stages of figuring out how to work together.

“I tweeted last week from #Clareity that there seemed to be a subtle shift coming from portal bashing toward finding ways to partner and co-exist. MRED seems to be on the leading edge of that with this announcement,” wrote Amy Geddes, chief operating officer of real estate consulting firm Clareity Consulting, in a Facebook post yesterday.

Ron Stephan, CEO of Southeast-based real estate analysis firm Metro Market Trends, agreed.

“If its considered portal bashing to be concerned that some portals have inaccurate, untimely, illegal listings and repurpose MLS and broker data … then consider me a portal basher! Trulia, for one, has come a long way toward cooperation,” Stephan wrote in a comment on Geddes’ Facebook post about MRED and Trulia’s new partnership.

Finding industry partnership for the portals has been a bumpy road. This week, two Trulia execs with longtime industry experience and mandates to build relationships between the portal and the real estate world split ways with the company.

In December, Trulia hired iHomefinder founder Alon Chaver as vice president of industry services.

Zillow has been similarly focused on building relationships in the real estate industry. Last year, it hired prominent real estate broker Jay Thompson and longtime MLS exec Bob Bemis to beef up its industry rep. In January, former NRT LLC exec Chris Crocker joined the team at Zillow.

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Article source: http://www.inman.com/news/2013/03/7/trulia-providing-mred-members-with-training-discounts

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misstated the number of multiple listing services participating in the Zillow Partnership Platform. Zillow is not disclosing the number of participants.

Zillow will get listings directly from the 1,000-member Corpus Christi Association of Realtors, which has signed on to become the latest member of the Zillow Partnership Platform.

The Texas-based Realtor association joins the Houston Association of Realtors (HAR), Connecticut Multiple Listing Service (CTMLS), and Shrewsbury, Mass.-based MLS Property Information Network Inc. (MLSPIN) as members of the Zillow Partnership Platform. Like HAR, the Corpus Christi Association of Realtors operates the local MLS.

A Zillow spokeswoman said other MLSs are participating, but declined to disclose how many.

The Zillow Partnership Platform, announced last May, provides brokers and agents who belong to participating associations and MLSs with enhanced branding and other perks in exchange for direct listing feeds.

“We are very concerned about accuracy and freshness of our listings as they are displayed on public websites,” said Josh Ellington, director of MLS and technology at the Corpus Christi Association of Realtors in a statement. “We applaud Zillow’s efforts to increase accuracy by refreshing their database as often as every 15 minutes using the direct data feed from the Corpus Christi Association of Realtors.”

“The Zillow Partnership Platform strives to eliminate the confusion associated with stale data, lagging price changes and incorrect statuses,” said Bob Bemis, Zillow vice president of partner relations.

Listings fed to the Zillow program show up on the Zillow Real Estate Network, which includes Yahoo Homes, Google Now, and soon, HGTV’s FrontDoor.com

Unlike Realtor.com — which thanks to its ties to the National Association of Realtors gets listings directly from most of the nation’s MLSs — third-party portals get listing data from a variety of sources, including MLSs, brokers, agents and listing syndicators like ListHub and Point2. 

Zillow rival Trulia launched a program in 2011, in which MLS data takes precedence over other sources when discrepancies are found. Large MLSs providing Trulia with direct feeds include the HAR, MLSPIN, CTMLS, Midwest Real Estate Data LLC (MRED),  and Bay Area Real Estate Information Services Inc. (BAREIS) in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Trulia and Zillow launched programs last year that provide perks to brokerages providing direct feeds.

This week Zillow announced that Hunt Real Estate ERA is sending listings the firm represents in New York and Arizona directly to Zillow, bringing the number of firms participating in the “Zillow Pro for Brokers” program to 49.

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Article source: http://www.inman.com/news/2013/03/1/zillow-get-listings-texas-mls

Real estate search and marketing company Trulia is making strides in its push to cooperate with multiple listing services nationwide in order to better the quality of listing information online.

The company announced this week that it has signed up all five MLSs in the San Francisco Bay Area to its quality assurance system, Trulia Direct Reference, The system allows MLSs, brokers and agents to identify discrepancies between real estate listings from MLSs and listings on third-party syndication sites.

Trulia introduced the system last year. Participating MLSs provide Trulia Direct Reference with accurate data on factors such as list price and status. The system then automatically reports discrepancies back to the MLS, broker and listing agent. The agent then has the option to visit the third-party sources and correct the information. MLSs can participate in the system at no cost whether or not they syndicate listings to Trulia.

The five participating Bay Area MLSs are East Bay Regional Data Inc. (EBRDI), San Francisco Association of Realtors, MLSListings, Bay Area Real Estate Information Services (BAREIS), and Bay East Association of Realtors. MLSListings and BAREIS also syndicate listings to Trulia.

EBRDI was the latest to sign up. “TDR will ensure that our listings are accurately displayed and provide the highest quality exposure and experience for our members,” said Rosemary Scardina, CEO of EBRDI, in a statement.

With all five MLSs participating, “Bay Area homebuyers, sellers and renters will have access to high quality property information to help them complete their home search,” said Matt Dollinger, Trulia’s head of industry relations, in a statement.

Listings quality is a long-standing issue across the online real estate space. Some brokerages have cited listing inaccuracy as one of the reasons they’ve stopped syndicating listings to Trulia and other third-party sites. Trulia and rival Zillow have recently offered brokers incentives to feed the portals listings data directly and both companies say they prioritize listing information that comes directly from MLSs and brokers.

In a letter to brokers in May, Trulia CEO Pete Flint emphasized the company’s desire to partner with the industry.

“We know that direct data feeds from brokers drastically improve data accuracy. We ask for your help and support, and are committed to continue to work with the industry to improve data quality on all levels,” he said.

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Article source: http://www.inman.com/news/2012/09/28/trulia-working-with-more-mlss-listing-data-quality

Trulia and East Bay Regional Data Inc. Partner to Enhance Listing Data Quality

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Trulia, a leading online marketplace for homebuyers, sellers, renters and real estate professionals, today announced a partnership with East Bay Regional Data Inc. (EBRDI) to enhance listing data quality. EBRDI, the Bay Area’s largest Multiple Listing Service (MLS), will participate in Trulia Direct Reference (TDR), a quality assurance program by which MLS’s help Trulia uncover and correct data inaccuracies.

The new partnership gives Trulia 100% participation in the Trulia Direct Reference program by all five Bay Area Multiple Listing Service organizations.

“EBRDI’s partnership with Trulia further bolsters our commitment to serve as a leader providing top notch resources and real estate data to our community of users and subscribers in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties,” said Rosemary Scardina, CEO of EBRDI. “TDR will ensure that our listings are accurately displayed and provide the highest quality exposure and experience for our members.”

“EBRDI’s partnership represents a significant achievement for data accuracy in the Bay Area,” said Matt Dollinger, Head of Industry Relations at Trulia. “With all five Bay Area MLSs verifying data using the Trulia Direct Reference program, Bay Area homebuyers, sellers and renters will have access to high quality property information to help them complete their home search.”

As part of the partnership, EBRDI will provide current and ongoing property listings to Trulia, which will be compared against other data sources and matched for accuracy.

About EBRDI

East Bay Regional Data Inc. (EBRDI) is the regions largest MLS cooperative working to provide its subscribers the very best in MLS service.

EBRDI has been a leader in bringing greater resources and real estate data to its participants and subscribers. In addition to providing complete access to listings in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, participants and subscribers also have access to listings in 22 counties in Northern California.

EBRDI is comprised of five shareholder partners: Alameda Association of REALTORS, Berkeley Association of REALTORS,Delta Association of REALTORS, Oakland Association of Realtors and West Contra Costa Association of REALTORS.

About Trulia, Inc.

Trulia (NYS: TRLA) gives home buyers, sellers, owners and renters the inside scoop on properties, places and real estate professionals. Trulia has unique info on the areas people want to live that can’t be found anywhere else: users can learn about agents, neighborhoods, schools, crime, commute times and even ask the local community questions. Real estate professionals use Trulia to connect with millions of transaction-ready buyers and sellers each month via our hyper local advertising services, social recommendations and top-rated mobile apps. Trulia is headquartered in downtown San Francisco. Trulia is a registered trademark of Trulia, Inc.

Trulia, Inc.
Amanda Todd, 415-748-3719
atodd@trulia.com

KEYWORDS:   United States  North America  California

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS:

Article source: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/09/27/trulia-achieves-100-participation-in-data-quality-/

A San Francisco-based real estate brokerage is offering to help home sellers in California by advertising their home in the local multiple listing service, and providing tools to automate transaction paperwork and tasks normally handled by agents, at no charge.

Reaslo Inc., which does business as Reesio, intends to generate revenue by charging a flat fee for access to a dashboard that allows sellers to review, accept, counter and reject offers.

Reesio officially launched its seller platform, currently available only in California, on Aug. 21. The company says the platform includes every legal document, contract and disclosure required to complete a real estate transaction in California, autopopulating the documents based on seller input.

Reesio screen shot.

The 26 or so documents are presented to the seller in the correct order and can be signed electronically right from the dashboard via an API from e-signature company DocuSign. Reesio is a licensed California brokerage and obtains the documents from the California Association of Realtors.

“We’ve taken those detailed, painful questions from the CAR forms and turned them into nice, easy-to-understand questions on our site. Once the CAR form has been prepopulated, then the DocuSign comes into play. It’s a pop-up that appears,” said co-founder and CEO Mark Thomas.

Reesio screen shot.

The platform, which Thomas envisions as a “one-stop shop,” also allows sellers to create a listing and have Reesio post it to their local multiple listing service. Thus far, Reesio subscribes to the San Francisco Association of Realtors MLS (SFARMLS), which has reciprocal agreements with other Bay Area MLSs, including MetroList, MLS Listings, Bay Area Real Estate Information Services Inc. (BAREIS), and the Sutter-Yuba Association of Realtors MLS.

“We currently only subscribe to the MLSs here in the Bay Area because all of our listings so far are here. However, as soon as we get listings in other parts of the state, then we’ll be subscribing to those MLSs as well,” Thomas said.

SFARMLS sends the listing to Realtor.com, Thomas added, and he is listed as the broker of record.

Reesio also syndicates the listing to dozens of third-party sites such as Zillow and Trulia through listing syndicator ListHub at no charge. Also for free, Reesio will send a licensed real estate agent or broker to photograph a home, offer a broker price opinion of the property, and conduct an open house to attract buyers.

Reesio screen shot.

Offers on the property are submitted through the platform’s dashboard, and the seller does not have to pay anything until he or she is ready to review offers. At that point, the seller pays Reesio $250 to review an unlimited number of offers and pays the remaining $750 when the transaction closes.

Reesio also recommends, but doesn’t require, that sellers offer buyer’s agents a flat fee equal to 2 or 2.5 percent of the initial listing price, “so even if the price goes up you’re not paying more,” Thomas said.

Should sellers have questions, Reesio has two licensed real estate brokers on staff: Thomas and fellow co-founder Uyen Tran, the company’s chief operating officer.

Thomas, 34, is a serial entrepreneuer — this is his third startup — and he founded Mark Thomas Realty, a real estate investment and property management company, a year ago. Tran has more than 10 years’ experience as both a real estate and mortgage broker, starting out at a Century 21 brokerage and moving to Help-U-Sell before branching out on her own six years ago.

According to Thomas, Reesio was born at a dinner last November when Tran, jaded by dealing with a handful of “shady” agents and an archaic real estate process, proposed, “Let’s create a product that puts me out of business.”

The idea for Reesio “really stems from the pain that both Uyen and I have gone through both as a broker and as a buyer and seller,” Thomas said.

Both had a feeling there was a much more streamlined and cheaper way of handling real estate transactions that also put power in the hands of the seller and buyer, Thomas said.

“The paperwork of the process is super-painful. I just bought a condo. It was very, very painful,” Thomas said. He and Tran figured that “a lot of what agents do could be automated and a lot of that paperwork could be automated as well. There’s no reason why we couldn’t do it for a much cheaper price than what agents currently” charge in commissions, he said.

Reesio’s target audience is real estate investors and the 10 percent or so of home sellers who prefer to sell by owner.

“Real estate investors understand how the process of selling works already. They want something easy and quick and to get through the process fast and … save every penny. They’re always looking to maximize returns,” Thomas said.

Theoretically, Reesio users could avoid paying the company by dealing with offers outside of the platform, but Thomas said he doubts that will be a problem because that means users would have to go back to handling the transaction on their own, without Reesio’s live customer support and automatic document flow.

“It’s just that painful to go through all those things. If you really don’t like us that much and you’re willing to go back to the old way of doing things, that’s fine, but we feel you’ll love (our product),” Thomas said.

Users do have to sign a listing agreement with Reesio to sell their home through the platform, but Thomas said users can cancel the agreement at any time.

So far, the three sellers that have signed up for Reesio since its launch have been willing to pay to review offers, Thomas said. If in the future the company finds that sellers aren’t willing to pay to simply review offers, the company might change its pay model to require the full $1,000 payment once the transaction closes, he said.

Thomas and Tran, along with chief technology officer Jonathan Mui, founded Reesio in January and since then have built up a network of just over 300 real estate agents and brokers in California who will, for a flat fee, conduct the photography, BPOs, and open houses Reesio offers at no charge.

For photography, Reesio pays agents $50 per home; for a BPO, $75; for both, $100. So far, the company has been paying $50 for hosting open houses, but is considering changing that to zero because open houses are such a good buyer lead generation tool for agents that some have been offering to host them for free, Thomas said.

Reesio vets the real estate pros in its network to make sure they are licensed and requires samples of previous work before sending one out on an assignment. Assignments are determined by ZIP code. Although Reesio eventually hopes to automate the vetting and assignment process, for now interested agents and brokers can contact support@reesio.com to learn more about joining the network. The company also eventually plans to add a system for buyers and sellers to rate the agents in the Reesio network.

“We’re not trying to eliminate brokers,” Thomas said. “We’re simply saying that for the ‘do-it-yourselfers’ out there this product can allow you to do it yourself.”

In fact, Reesio’s main focus right now is the development of a broker product that it plans to release in the next two to three months, Thomas said.

The broker product will be similar to the consumer product, except it will allows brokers to manage the transaction process for their clients, he said. Real estate professionals will be able to set up a transaction, have clients sign a listing agreement, and invite them to the Reesio dashboard to fill out the appropriate paperwork at the appropriate time throughout the transaction process.

Unlike, say, DotLoop, a Web-based transaction management platform Reesio considers a competitor, the real estate professionals do not have to upload their own documents or dictate to their clients which document to fill out and when, Thomas said.

“We have really automated exactly what happens at every point in the process. With our product, (agents) just need to invite (their clients) into the system and it’s done,” Thomas said. “The agent’s not having to do any of that paperwork or explaining of the paperwork process.”

He likened Reesio to the consumer tax preparation product TurboTax.

“It’s really a self-serve tool,” Thomas said.

Buyers, sellers and agents will be able to track documents and see who has signed what at any time, and all documents will be stored in a transaction’s documents folder “forever and ever,” he said.

While the Reesio platform will check for blank and incorrect information, most documents will not require any particular question to be filled out to proceed with the process, he said.

Agents and brokers will be able to create and upload their own real estate forms, if they prefer. They will also be able to share offers with anyone they like, either by inviting them to the platform or through email. Reesio is also working on making documents available offline for when agents don’t have Internet access.

“There’s nothing that’s going to be happening the way (agents) don’t want it to happen,” Thomas said.

Agents and brokers will also be able to create a listing on the platform, post it to their MLS and syndicate it to third-party sites through ListHub. Reesio is currently trying to tackle the best way to make sure listings are updated in real time — likely by connecting the platform to local MLSs, perhaps through partnerships.

“It’s a little bit tricky, but we are working on it,” Thomas said.

An iPad tablet version of the broker product will likely be rolled out at the same time as the Web version, according to Thomas. A smartphone application is in the works and will probably be released in six to nine months, he said.

The company will be doing some testing this month to determine the eventual price of the broker product, but it will probably cost somewhere between $49 and $99 a month, Thomas added.

Thus far, Reesio has been completely “bootstrapped,” meaning the founders have been contributing their own money into the operation, he said. This week, however, an entrepreneur and angel investor wrote Reesio a check for $25,000. Thomas declined to give the investor’s name, but said that the company will be looking to raise about $1 million in funding total.

Reesio demonstrated their product at a technology conference, TechCrunch Disrupt, this week, and “I’m sure we’ll get some interest from there as well,” Thomas said.

Once the company gets funding, it plans to expand to five states it has determined have a lot of real estate investment opportunities as well as real estate agents: Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Georgia and Florida.

Thomas doesn’t anticipate Reesio will delve into the lending paperwork process, which he called “a whole separate animal.” Nevertheless, he said the company could potentially branch out to offer loan or home inspection referrals sometime in the future.

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Article source: http://www.inman.com/news/2012/09/11/flat-fee-real-estate-startup-automates-selling-process

A San Francisco-based real estate brokerage is offering to help home sellers in California by advertising their home in the local multiple listing service, and providing tools to automate transaction paperwork and tasks normally handled by agents, at no charge.

Reaslo Inc., which does business as Reesio, intends to generate revenue by charging a flat fee for access to a dashboard that allows sellers to review, accept, counter and reject offers.

Reesio officially launched its seller platform, currently available only in California, on Aug. 21. The company says the platform includes every legal document, contract and disclosure required to complete a real estate transaction in California, autopopulating the documents based on seller input.

Reesio screen shot.

The 26 or so documents are presented to the seller in the correct order and can be signed electronically right from the dashboard via an API from e-signature company DocuSign. Reesio is a licensed California brokerage and obtains the documents from the California Association of Realtors.

“We’ve taken those detailed, painful questions from the CAR forms and turned them into nice, easy-to-understand questions on our site. Once the CAR form has been prepopulated, then the DocuSign comes into play. It’s a pop-up that appears,” said co-founder and CEO Mark Thomas.

Reesio screen shot.

The platform, which Thomas envisions as a “one-stop shop,” also allows sellers to create a listing and have Reesio post it to their local multiple listing service. Thus far, Reesio subscribes to the San Francisco Association of Realtors MLS (SFARMLS), which has reciprocal agreements with other Bay Area MLSs, including MetroList, MLS Listings, Bay Area Real Estate Information Services Inc. (BAREIS), and the Sutter-Yuba Association of Realtors MLS.

“We currently only subscribe to the MLSs here in the Bay Area because all of our listings so far are here. However, as soon as we get listings in other parts of the state, then we’ll be subscribing to those MLSs as well,” Thomas said.

SFARMLS sends the listing to Realtor.com, Thomas added, and he is listed as the broker of record.

Reesio also syndicates the listing to dozens of third-party sites such as Zillow and Trulia through listing syndicator ListHub at no charge. Also for free, Reesio will send a licensed real estate agent or broker to photograph a home, offer a broker price opinion of the property, and conduct an open house to attract buyers.

Reesio screen shot.

Offers on the property are submitted through the platform’s dashboard, and the seller does not have to pay anything until he or she is ready to review offers. At that point, the seller pays Reesio $250 to review an unlimited number of offers and pays the remaining $750 when the transaction closes.

Reesio also recommends, but doesn’t require, that sellers offer buyer’s agents a flat fee equal to 2 or 2.5 percent of the initial listing price, “so even if the price goes up you’re not paying more,” Thomas said.

Should sellers have questions, Reesio has two licensed real estate brokers on staff: Thomas and fellow co-founder Uyen Tran, the company’s chief operating officer.

Thomas, 34, is a serial entrepreneuer — this is his third startup — and he founded Mark Thomas Realty, a real estate investment and property management company, a year ago. Tran has more than 10 years’ experience as both a real estate and mortgage broker, starting out at a Century 21 brokerage and moving to Help-U-Sell before branching out on her own six years ago.

According to Thomas, Reesio was born at a dinner last November when Tran, jaded by dealing with a handful of “shady” agents and an archaic real estate process, proposed, “Let’s create a product that puts me out of business.”

The idea for Reesio “really stems from the pain that both Uyen and I have gone through both as a broker and as a buyer and seller,” Thomas said.

Both had a feeling there was a much more streamlined and cheaper way of handling real estate transactions that also put power in the hands of the seller and buyer, Thomas said.

“The paperwork of the process is super-painful. I just bought a condo. It was very, very painful,” Thomas said. He and Tran figured that “a lot of what agents do could be automated and a lot of that paperwork could be automated as well. There’s no reason why we couldn’t do it for a much cheaper price than what agents currently” charge in commissions, he said.

Reesio’s target audience is real estate investors and the 10 percent or so of home sellers who prefer to sell by owner.

“Real estate investors understand how the process of selling works already. They want something easy and quick and to get through the process fast and … save every penny. They’re always looking to maximize returns,” Thomas said.

Theoretically, Reesio users could avoid paying the company by dealing with offers outside of the platform, but Thomas said he doubts that will be a problem because that means users would have to go back to handling the transaction on their own, without Reesio’s live customer support and automatic document flow.

“It’s just that painful to go through all those things. If you really don’t like us that much and you’re willing to go back to the old way of doing things, that’s fine, but we feel you’ll love (our product),” Thomas said.

Users do have to sign a listing agreement with Reesio to sell their home through the platform, but Thomas said users can cancel the agreement at any time.

So far, the three sellers that have signed up for Reesio since its launch have been willing to pay to review offers, Thomas said. If in the future the company finds that sellers aren’t willing to pay to simply review offers, the company might change its pay model to require the full $1,000 payment once the transaction closes, he said.

Thomas and Tran, along with chief technology officer Jonathan Mui, founded Reesio in January and since then have built up a network of just over 300 real estate agents and brokers in California who will, for a flat fee, conduct the photography, BPOs, and open houses Reesio offers at no charge.

For photography, Reesio pays agents $50 per home; for a BPO, $75; for both, $100. So far, the company has been paying $50 for hosting open houses, but is considering changing that to zero because open houses are such a good buyer lead generation tool for agents that some have been offering to host them for free, Thomas said.

Reesio vets the real estate pros in its network to make sure they are licensed and requires samples of previous work before sending one out on an assignment. Assignments are determined by ZIP code. Although Reesio eventually hopes to automate the vetting and assignment process, for now interested agents and brokers can contact support@reesio.com to learn more about joining the network. The company also eventually plans to add a system for buyers and sellers to rate the agents in the Reesio network.

“We’re not trying to eliminate brokers,” Thomas said. “We’re simply saying that for the ‘do-it-yourselfers’ out there this product can allow you to do it yourself.”

In fact, Reesio’s main focus right now is the development of a broker product that it plans to release in the next two to three months, Thomas said.

The broker product will be similar to the consumer product, except it will allows brokers to manage the transaction process for their clients, he said. Real estate professionals will be able to set up a transaction, have clients sign a listing agreement, and invite them to the Reesio dashboard to fill out the appropriate paperwork at the appropriate time throughout the transaction process.

Unlike, say, DotLoop, a Web-based transaction management platform Reesio considers a competitor, the real estate professionals do not have to upload their own documents or dictate to their clients which document to fill out and when, Thomas said.

“We have really automated exactly what happens at every point in the process. With our product, (agents) just need to invite (their clients) into the system and it’s done,” Thomas said. “The agent’s not having to do any of that paperwork or explaining of the paperwork process.”

He likened Reesio to the consumer tax preparation product TurboTax.

“It’s really a self-serve tool,” Thomas said.

Buyers, sellers and agents will be able to track documents and see who has signed what at any time, and all documents will be stored in a transaction’s documents folder “forever and ever,” he said.

While the Reesio platform will check for blank and incorrect information, most documents will not require any particular question to be filled out to proceed with the process, he said.

Agents and brokers will be able to create and upload their own real estate forms, if they prefer. They will also be able to share offers with anyone they like, either by inviting them to the platform or through email. Reesio is also working on making documents available offline for when agents don’t have Internet access.

“There’s nothing that’s going to be happening the way (agents) don’t want it to happen,” Thomas said.

Agents and brokers will also be able to create a listing on the platform, post it to their MLS and syndicate it to third-party sites through ListHub. Reesio is currently trying to tackle the best way to make sure listings are updated in real time — likely by connecting the platform to local MLSs, perhaps through partnerships.

“It’s a little bit tricky, but we are working on it,” Thomas said.

An iPad tablet version of the broker product will likely be rolled out at the same time as the Web version, according to Thomas. A smartphone application is in the works and will probably be released in six to nine months, he said.

The company will be doing some testing this month to determine the eventual price of the broker product, but it will probably cost somewhere between $49 and $99 a month, Thomas added.

Thus far, Reesio has been completely “bootstrapped,” meaning the founders have been contributing their own money into the operation, he said. This week, however, an entrepreneur and angel investor wrote Reesio a check for $25,000. Thomas declined to give the investor’s name, but said that the company will be looking to raise about $1 million in funding total.

Reesio demonstrated their product at a technology conference, TechCrunch Disrupt, this week, and “I’m sure we’ll get some interest from there as well,” Thomas said.

Once the company gets funding, it plans to expand to five states it has determined have a lot of real estate investment opportunities as well as real estate agents: Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Georgia and Florida.

Thomas doesn’t anticipate Reesio will delve into the lending paperwork process, which he called “a whole separate animal.” Nevertheless, he said the company could potentially branch out to offer loan or home inspection referrals sometime in the future.

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All rights reserved. This content may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News.
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Article source: http://www.inman.com/news/2012/09/11/flat-fee-real-estate-startup-automates-selling-process

A San Francisco-based real estate brokerage is offering to help home sellers in California by advertising their home in the local multiple listing service, and providing tools to automate transaction paperwork and tasks normally handled by agents, at no charge.

Reaslo Inc., which does business as Reesio, intends to generate revenue by charging a flat fee for access to a dashboard that allows sellers to review, accept, counter and reject offers.

Reesio officially launched its seller platform, currently available only in California, on Aug. 21. The company says the platform includes every legal document, contract and disclosure required to complete a real estate transaction in California, autopopulating the documents based on seller input.

Reesio screen shot.

The 26 or so documents are presented to the seller in the correct order and can be signed electronically right from the dashboard via an API from e-signature company DocuSign. Reesio is a licensed California brokerage and obtains the documents from the California Association of Realtors.

“We’ve taken those detailed, painful questions from the CAR forms and turned them into nice, easy-to-understand questions on our site. Once the CAR form has been prepopulated, then the DocuSign comes into play. It’s a pop-up that appears,” said co-founder and CEO Mark Thomas.

Reesio screen shot.

The platform, which Thomas envisions as a “one-stop shop,” also allows sellers to create a listing and have Reesio post it to their local multiple listing service. Thus far, Reesio subscribes to the San Francisco Association of Realtors MLS (SFARMLS), which has reciprocal agreements with other Bay Area MLSs, including MetroList, MLS Listings, Bay Area Real Estate Information Services Inc. (BAREIS), and the Sutter-Yuba Association of Realtors MLS.

“We currently only subscribe to the MLSs here in the Bay Area because all of our listings so far are here. However, as soon as we get listings in other parts of the state, then we’ll be subscribing to those MLSs as well,” Thomas said.

SFARMLS sends the listing to Realtor.com, Thomas added, and he is listed as the broker of record.

Reesio also syndicates the listing to dozens of third-party sites such as Zillow and Trulia through listing syndicator ListHub at no charge. Also for free, Reesio will send a licensed real estate agent or broker to photograph a home, offer a broker price opinion of the property, and conduct an open house to attract buyers.

Reesio screen shot.

Offers on the property are submitted through the platform’s dashboard, and the seller does not have to pay anything until he or she is ready to review offers. At that point, the seller pays Reesio $250 to review an unlimited number of offers and pays the remaining $750 when the transaction closes.

Reesio also recommends, but doesn’t require, that sellers offer buyer’s agents a flat fee equal to 2 or 2.5 percent of the initial listing price, “so even if the price goes up you’re not paying more,” Thomas said.

Should sellers have questions, Reesio has two licensed real estate brokers on staff: Thomas and fellow co-founder Uyen Tran, the company’s chief operating officer.

Thomas, 34, is a serial entrepreneuer — this is his third startup — and he founded Mark Thomas Realty, a real estate investment and property management company, a year ago. Tran has more than 10 years’ experience as both a real estate and mortgage broker, starting out at a Century 21 brokerage and moving to Help-U-Sell before branching out on her own six years ago.

According to Thomas, Reesio was born at a dinner last November when Tran, jaded by dealing with a handful of “shady” agents and an archaic real estate process, proposed, “Let’s create a product that puts me out of business.”

The idea for Reesio “really stems from the pain that both Uyen and I have gone through both as a broker and as a buyer and seller,” Thomas said.

Both had a feeling there was a much more streamlined and cheaper way of handling real estate transactions that also put power in the hands of the seller and buyer, Thomas said.

“The paperwork of the process is super-painful. I just bought a condo. It was very, very painful,” Thomas said. He and Tran figured that “a lot of what agents do could be automated and a lot of that paperwork could be automated as well. There’s no reason why we couldn’t do it for a much cheaper price than what agents currently” charge in commissions, he said.

Reesio’s target audience is real estate investors and the 10 percent or so of home sellers who prefer to sell by owner.

“Real estate investors understand how the process of selling works already. They want something easy and quick and to get through the process fast and … save every penny. They’re always looking to maximize returns,” Thomas said.

Theoretically, Reesio users could avoid paying the company by dealing with offers outside of the platform, but Thomas said he doubts that will be a problem because that means users would have to go back to handling the transaction on their own, without Reesio’s live customer support and automatic document flow.

“It’s just that painful to go through all those things. If you really don’t like us that much and you’re willing to go back to the old way of doing things, that’s fine, but we feel you’ll love (our product),” Thomas said.

Users do have to sign a listing agreement with Reesio to sell their home through the platform, but Thomas said users can cancel the agreement at any time.

So far, the three sellers that have signed up for Reesio since its launch have been willing to pay to review offers, Thomas said. If in the future the company finds that sellers aren’t willing to pay to simply review offers, the company might change its pay model to require the full $1,000 payment once the transaction closes, he said.

Thomas and Tran, along with chief technology officer Jonathan Mui, founded Reesio in January and since then have built up a network of just over 300 real estate agents and brokers in California who will, for a flat fee, conduct the photography, BPOs, and open houses Reesio offers at no charge.

For photography, Reesio pays agents $50 per home; for a BPO, $75; for both, $100. So far, the company has been paying $50 for hosting open houses, but is considering changing that to zero because open houses are such a good buyer lead generation tool for agents that some have been offering to host them for free, Thomas said.

Reesio vets the real estate pros in its network to make sure they are licensed and requires samples of previous work before sending one out on an assignment. Assignments are determined by ZIP code. Although Reesio eventually hopes to automate the vetting and assignment process, for now interested agents and brokers can contact support@reesio.com to learn more about joining the network. The company also eventually plans to add a system for buyers and sellers to rate the agents in the Reesio network.

“We’re not trying to eliminate brokers,” Thomas said. “We’re simply saying that for the ‘do-it-yourselfers’ out there this product can allow you to do it yourself.”

In fact, Reesio’s main focus right now is the development of a broker product that it plans to release in the next two to three months, Thomas said.

The broker product will be similar to the consumer product, except it will allows brokers to manage the transaction process for their clients, he said. Real estate professionals will be able to set up a transaction, have clients sign a listing agreement, and invite them to the Reesio dashboard to fill out the appropriate paperwork at the appropriate time throughout the transaction process.

Unlike, say, DotLoop, a Web-based transaction management platform Reesio considers a competitor, the real estate professionals do not have to upload their own documents or dictate to their clients which document to fill out and when, Thomas said.

“We have really automated exactly what happens at every point in the process. With our product, (agents) just need to invite (their clients) into the system and it’s done,” Thomas said. “The agent’s not having to do any of that paperwork or explaining of the paperwork process.”

He likened Reesio to the consumer tax preparation product TurboTax.

“It’s really a self-serve tool,” Thomas said.

Buyers, sellers and agents will be able to track documents and see who has signed what at any time, and all documents will be stored in a transaction’s documents folder “forever and ever,” he said.

While the Reesio platform will check for blank and incorrect information, most documents will not require any particular question to be filled out to proceed with the process, he said.

Agents and brokers will be able to create and upload their own real estate forms, if they prefer. They will also be able to share offers with anyone they like, either by inviting them to the platform or through email. Reesio is also working on making documents available offline for when agents don’t have Internet access.

“There’s nothing that’s going to be happening the way (agents) don’t want it to happen,” Thomas said.

Agents and brokers will also be able to create a listing on the platform, post it to their MLS and syndicate it to third-party sites through ListHub. Reesio is currently trying to tackle the best way to make sure listings are updated in real time — likely by connecting the platform to local MLSs, perhaps through partnerships.

“It’s a little bit tricky, but we are working on it,” Thomas said.

An iPad tablet version of the broker product will likely be rolled out at the same time as the Web version, according to Thomas. A smartphone application is in the works and will probably be released in six to nine months, he said.

The company will be doing some testing this month to determine the eventual price of the broker product, but it will probably cost somewhere between $49 and $99 a month, Thomas added.

Thus far, Reesio has been completely “bootstrapped,” meaning the founders have been contributing their own money into the operation, he said. This week, however, an entrepreneur and angel investor wrote Reesio a check for $25,000. Thomas declined to give the investor’s name, but said that the company will be looking to raise about $1 million in funding total.

Reesio demonstrated their product at a technology conference, TechCrunch Disrupt, this week, and “I’m sure we’ll get some interest from there as well,” Thomas said.

Once the company gets funding, it plans to expand to five states it has determined have a lot of real estate investment opportunities as well as real estate agents: Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Georgia and Florida.

Thomas doesn’t anticipate Reesio will delve into the lending paperwork process, which he called “a whole separate animal.” Nevertheless, he said the company could potentially branch out to offer loan or home inspection referrals sometime in the future.

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Article source: http://www.inman.com/news/2012/09/11/flat-fee-real-estate-startup-automates-selling-process

With the addition of BAREIS MLS®, the majority of the MLSs in the Bay Area are now working with Trulia. Trulia already receives direct feeds from MLSListings, Bay East and Contra Costa MLS, meaning Bay Area homebuyers can have an extremely high degree of confidence that the data they see on Trulia is correct. As part of its alliance with Trulia, BAREIS will also participate in the Trulia Direct Reference program, under which Trulia notifies listing agents and brokers about any discrepancies between the data provided by the MLS and information from other syndicators.

Listings from BAREIS MLS® will now be seen by the more than 23 million* serious home-buyers and sellers coming to Trulia each month to get the inside scoop on real estate they can’t find anywhere else. BAREIS MLS® will syndicate all of its listings unless the listing is not approved for the internet.

“Our membership is dedicated to providing the most accurate data on the internet to buyers and sellers working with the real estate professionals in our region,” said Jim Branscombe, President and CEO of BAREIS MLS®. ”There is an explosion of data and a great deal of that information is not accurate or kept up to date. Building strategic alliances with major real estate portals like Trulia will ensure the best data is available to the public and support the efforts of our real estate professionals to list and sell property. BAREIS MLS® has operated its own public site for 14 years, and this relationship we are forging with Trulia is similar to the relationships we have with other public internet sites we have worked with in that we are providing all active listing data approved for internet display.”

As part of the agreement, Trulia will abide by the guidelines established by the Trulia Data Pledge for listing syndication that launched in January 2012.

“By syndicating listings for its members, BAREIS MLS® will ensure that it provides an extremely high level of data accuracy. This will help its members connect with more buyers and sellers to close more transactions,” said Mark Weiss, Trulia Director of Business Development. “BAREIS MLS® understands that connecting Trulia’s audience with the most up to date and accurate information provides its real estate professionals with the best opportunity to close deals.” 

*Omniture, April 2012

About Trulia Inc.
Trulia gives home buyers, sellers, owners and renters the inside scoop on properties, places and real estate professionals. Trulia has unique info on the areas people want to live that can’t be found anywhere else: users can learn about agents, neighborhoods, schools, crime and even ask the local community questions. Real estate professionals use Trulia to connect with millions of transaction-ready buyers and sellers each month via our hyper local advertising services, social recommendations and top-rated mobile apps. Trulia is headquartered in downtown San Francisco and is backed by Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital. Trulia and the Trulia logo are registered trademarks of Trulia, Inc.

About Bay Area Real Estate Information Services, Inc. (BAREIS MLS®)
Bay Area Real Estate Information Services, Inc. is an independent MLS created on October 22, 1997. The organizations that founded BAREIS MLS® are the Marin Association of REALTORS®, Napa Association of REALTORS®, Northern Solano Association of REALTORS®, Solano Association of REALTORS® and the Sonoma County Multiple Listing Service. The Mendocino County MLS joined the effort in 2001 and the Coastal Co-op MLS in 2005. BAREIS MLS® now serves approximately 8,000 members in five key counties: Marin, Mendocino, Napa, Solano, and Sonoma.

Article source: http://www.constructiondigital.com/press_releases/residential-real-estate/bay-area-real-estate-information-services-announces-direct-syndication-to-trulia