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

The online CMA can be created in mere minutes and functions as its own unique, password-protected website. Property information includes full descriptions and details from the Multiple Listing Service, as well as all photos of the property, making it easier for clients to have a firm grasp of the market competition. Dynamic mapping shows positions of all comparable properties in relation to the listing.

Agents have the ability to add custom content, including recent sales, a biography, client testimonials, a customized marketing plan, and much more. The information is stored, thus avoiding the need to repeatedly recreate the analyses, saving agents a tremendous amount of time. Pages and sections can be added or removed as needed, and an expiration date may be added in order to stay current in a rapidly-changing market.

Sellers may refer to the CMA after a listing appointment from anywhere they wish. The entire CMA is optimized for viewing on a tablet computer, such as the iPad, but also works beautifully and seamlessly from a desktop or laptop computer as well.

“Off-the-shelf products didn’t address the dynamic aspects of the San Francisco marketplace. We envisioned a far more robust interface and content, so we spec’d, wrote, designed and developed this unique tool to address the specific needs of our agents and clients,” commented Melody Foster, Zephyr’s Director of Marketing and Web Development. “We are delighted by the enthusiastic response to this latest web tool and its efficacy for our community.”

About Zephyr Real Estate
Founded in 1978, Zephyr Real Estate is San Francisco’s largest independent real estate firm with $1 billion in gross sales in 2011 and a current roster of more than 200 full-time agents. In 2010, Zephyr launched its new website, which has earned three web design awards, including the prestigious WebAward for Outstanding Website from the Web Marketing Association. Zephyr Real Estate is a member of the international relocation network, Leading Real Estate Companies of the World; the luxury real estate network, Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate; and the local luxury marketing association, the Luxury Marketing Council of San Francisco. Zephyr has six strategically located offices in San Francisco, a business center in Marin County, and serves a large customer base throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information, visit www.zephyrsf.com.

Article source: http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/zephyr-launches-dynamic-new-online-market-analysis-tool-1742962.htm

San Ramon, CA (PRWEB) October 01, 2012

While most real estate markets in the United States remain a buyer’s market, this is untrue for San Francisco bay area. Homes are in high demand and sellers are receiving multiple offers in very short time frames.

When real estate markets are this active, home buyers need to be able to have reliable sources for the most current market conditions. Being first to properties coming on the market can sometimes be a huge advantage for a buyer. Buyers are frustrated when they review listings and become excited about a property only to learn that the information is out-of-date and the home has been sold. Buyers searching for homes in the San Francisco suburb of San Ramon can find current information by visiting Ehomesurf.com. Their data base is updated daily and they also email you when homes within your criteria come on the market.

Mona Koussa, the owner of Ehomesurf.com said, “Home buyers need to act quickly to be able to purchase the home they like the best. Today we are expiring record Low inventory of homes for sale in the San Francisco Bay Area. As of today, there are only 30 single family homes for sale in San Ramon, Ca, while the median sold price is $634,000 which is up 5% from last year. At the same time, we are experiencing multiple offers situation with most listings.”

Since Ehomesurf.com is a member of the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), data is updated within 24 hours of receipt. This insures that interested buyers always have the latest available data concerning. Koussa urges buyers to be prepared to act quickly when seeking to buy in San Ramon.

Says Koussa, “Buyers need to have a “Green File” ready. This file has all your important financial documents including:

• Financial statements
• Bank accounts
• Investments
• Credit card
• Auto loans
• Recent pay stubs
• Tax returns for two years

“Check your credit rating. Your credit score will have a huge impact on what type of home you can buy, and at what price. Anything above 620 is considered good.

“Be Careful With Your Finances. Now is not a good time to make sudden career changes or large purchases. You want to approach home buying from a position of financial stability.”

Buyers who have the best information and are prepared to finance quickly are in the best position to purchase a home in San Ramon. Frequently check Ehomesurf.com for the latest information on San Francisco Bay Area homes for sale.

Ehomesurf.com is owned and operated by Mona Koussa, who is a realtor specializing in the East Bay in Northern California. A seasoned, expert realtor — with over 13 years proven experience in successful transactions and over $270 million in closed sales. In addition to her years of experience in the real estate field Mona Koussa is a: Certified Short Sale Agent, Certified Foreclosure Agent and a Certified Home Retention Consultant.

Prudential California Realty

DRE Liscence: 01260089

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/10/prweb9847308.htm

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/business/prweb/article/Ehomesurf-com-Releases-New-Figures-that-Show-San-3910476.php

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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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

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Menlo Park is among the areas in Silicon Valley where the real estate market is “hot” and competitive. (Photo: Vignesh Ramachandran / Peninsula Press)

In a region known in the Bay Area for its high-profile IPOs and high-tech wealth, the competition for real estate is so intense that some homebuyers and sellers are opting for off-market sales.

This is all happening in a recovering market, which some Silicon Valley real estate agents say is causing a flurry of activity these days.

“When people ask me, in a word: it’s crazy,” said Keri Nicholas, a Menlo Park real estate agent at Coldwell Banker. She sold property worth over $100 million in 2011, giving her the top share for home sales in Menlo Park, a city on the Peninsula known to draw buyers because of its reputation as one of Silicon Valley’s prominent hubs.

When a house is ready to be put up for sale, a real estate agent will typically list it on the Multiple Listing Service database, or MLS. But with inventory low and demand high, some buyers and sellers are acting quickly before a house is officially on the market. Agents use their networks to conduct these “off-market” transactions, listings that are often left off the MLS database.

“What we’ll tend to do is say what we have coming soon, and we’ll send something out to most of the agents who we know are in the know and working hard,” Nicholas said. “And we will say ‘it’s coming soon,’ but we’re not ready to go to market yet.” But then, “your phone rings off the hook. You end up saying ‘we’re coming, we’re coming,’ and, boom, all of a sudden you have four offers in your hand.”

Nicholas said she does not represent a buyer and seller on the same transaction, a practice that is generally frowned upon.

Some sellers might also choose not to list their property publicly for privacy reasons – and in some cases to avoid paying the 6 percent real estate agent’s commission.

Loren Dakin, another agent at Coldwell Banker in Menlo Park, estimates that 10 percent of his sales “will never even hit the market this year,” “They’ll just be between talk between agents. And even though it doesn’t go to market, we’re still seeing multiple offers,” he said.

Comparing the months of March in 2011 and 2012, completed sales are up about 12 percent, while inventory is down 40 percent, according to MLSListings, Inc. This calculation includes MLS data in Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Redwood City and San Carlos. The average days a home is on the market in these cities is also down from 46 to 35 days. However, this data does not even include the handfuls of off-market sales, if an agent left these properties off the MLS.

Jed Smith, managing director of quantitative research at the National Association of Realtors, said “the market seems to be turning” throughout the country, but compared to Silicon Valley “the rest of the country is not experiencing that degree of enthusiasm.”

“It’s expected when an agent takes the property, that it will go on to the MLS to give it maximum exposure,” Smith said. “But obviously if it’s a really hot market it may very well be that, before it gets listed, it gets sold.”

Gautam Nadella, who works in management at Cisco Systems, Inc., said he and his wife bought their five-bedroom Menlo Park home before it went back on the market, after their agent told them it would be available.

“There is something to be said of taking uncertainty out of the selling process and the buying process,” Nadella said. “We were able to move quickly, calmly, with 100 percent confidence that the deal would get done, and as a result we did not have to go through the bidding process.”

Nadella admits they got lucky in a tough market, since he has seen plenty of friends who have placed offers on houses without success.

“There’s Facebook or LinkedIn or some money like that, that comes in where they’re just putting all cash down,” Nadella said.

Though this practice of off-market transactions is common in the area, there could be an issue of fairness, according to Tim Iglesias, an expert in housing and property law.

“The buyers who don’t get invited to be part of this are left out,” said Iglesias, also a professor of law at the University of San Francisco.

Since houses left off-market don’t provide an equal opportunity in the free market, Iglesias wonders if “there’s a risk that fair housing laws could be easily evaded in this context.” However, “nobody knows” if this is really the case, he added. Since off-market transactions are conducted more privately than a regular sale, he noted that it is nearly impossible to test whether the process is fair.

Iglesias explained the broker could consciously or unconsciously be inviting select people to participate, while screening out others who are members of protected classes. “Whereas in the open market, if this happens, there’s a possibility that this person, or the seller or the broker is going to be kind of called to account on this.”

Iglesias also questioned whether sellers and buyers are really getting the best price, when not every potential buyer can consider the property on the free market.

“In terms of sort of economic theory, this is not necessarily going to lead to the most efficient outcome, either for the participants, or for the market overall,” Iglesias said.

However, Iglesias added that those who participate in off-market transactions may be willing to make compromises for the privacy, certainty and speed.

A ‘Facebook effect’?

In early March, a fixer-upper house in Palo Alto generated buzz when it got 38 offers and sold for $450,000 more than the asking price.

“Now people actually have to come with money to the plate, in order to buy,” Dakin said. “So the buying is different because more people have to have more skin in the game.”

Following Facebook Inc.’s February announcement that it will go public, the press has sparked a conversation about how new millionaires could affect the area’s housing market. The social networking giant’s IPO valuation could reach as high as $100 billion. However, agents say high-tech wealth’s effect has been in the area for a while.

“What’s interesting is that it’s really not just Facebook,” Nicholas said. “We’re looking at companies between San Francisco and San Jose: there are 16 companies going public within the next 8 months.”

“It’s not just one company,” Dakin said. “It’s not just one part of the industry. It’s the Peninsula as a whole.”

Moving north

Considering the March 2012 median single-family-home sales price in Palo Alto was estimated to be $1.67 million, according to MLSListings, Inc., areas north of Palo Alto and Menlo Park are gaining

As some buyers get priced out of Palo Alto and Menlo Park, places like Redwood City become places to house hunt for more affordable options. (Photo: Vignesh Ramachandran / Peninsula Press)

traction with some priced-out buyers.

Val Vandervort, an agent with Coldwell Banker in San Mateo, said in the San Mateo market as well as in Belmont, San Carlos and Redwood City, house hunters “have probably explored a larger geographical area that would include Burlingame, Palo Alto, Menlo Park.”

“They’ve decided that for what they can get for their money in the mid-Peninsula cities, that they decide to focus in on these cities and stay away from Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Burlingame, just because they’re going to give up square footage, condition, something like that,” Vandervort said.

In Redwood City, the median single-family home sales price in March was $707,500 and in San Carlos it was $875,000, according to MLSListings, Inc.

Discussing the so-called “Facebook effect,” Vandervort said she thinks any effect would take at least 18 months and then would take a bit more time to ripple toward the area’s northern cities.

Another cycle

Vandervort notes a certain pack mentality in the market.

“It’s interesting how much you see the buyers move all at the same time,” Vandervort explained. “They all pull back at the same time. They all get in at the same time it seems.”

An Atherton-native, Nicholas has lived in the area her whole life and has been practicing real estate in her current office for more than two decades. She said she has seen every cycle and that there are “too many people who need to be here.”

“The fundamentals don’t change here. We just don’t have enough land, and we have too many people. And there is no new construction. There’s nowhere to build.”

Dakin said he gets clients from all over the country and world who want to be here.

“We have great weather. There’s a lot of new business here and people just keep flocking in,” Dakin said. “With limited supply in housing, the real estate market just tends to take off, and that’s what we continue to watch year after year.”

“Only here—nowhere else in America,” Dakin added. “Anywhere else in the world: I don’t know.”

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Article source: http://peninsulapress.com/2012/04/12/off-market-transactions-frequent-in-competitive-silicon-valley-real-estate-frenzy/