October 11, 2024 • 30 mins
Discover the revolutionary shift in MLS systems as we challenge traditional norms with Chris Lumia from Stellar MLS. Have you ever wondered what the real estate world would look like without compensation structures tied to MLS listings? Tune in to learn about the innovative steps Stellar MLS is taking to prepare brokers and agents for this transformation, and why MLS remains an essential pillar for real estate professionals, offering more than just compensation.
Navigating the intricate world of third-party IDX feeds within MLS requires precision and care. Chris shares valuable insights on the compliance protocols that safeguard data integrity and protect brokers and agents from potential risks and liabilities. Understand the shared responsibility in upholding these standards and learn why reporting violations is critical for maintaining a fair and trustworthy platform. We emphasize the importance of vigilance and adhering to these guidelines to prevent serious consequences and preserve the integrity of the MLS system.
Maximize your real estate potential by leveraging MLS's expansive resources and strategic opportunities. With Stellar MLS's vast network across Florida and Puerto Rico, agents can tap into powerful referral systems and exploit niche markets for enhanced success. Discover how tools like MLS Match, Hurdler, and specialized training sessions can enrich your business strategy and boost your credibility in the competitive real estate arena. Join us as we share personal stories and announce upcoming learning opportunities that promise to elevate your expertise and grow your real estate business.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody and welcome back to the Charles
Ruttenberg Reality Podcast.
I am here with my cohort, Amir.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hey, hey, how's everybody going?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
I'm doing great and we have a very special guest
with us today.
We want to just jump right intoit and thank you so much, Chris
, for being with us today.
We have Chris Lumia fromStellar MLS joining us today.
Guys, Chris, what is going on?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Oh, I'm happy to be here.
It's been a happening year inthe MLS world, but we're really
excited at Stellar.
We think that there's somegreat things coming to this
industry.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah, you know, we had a guest on last week and he
was an appraiser and I jokinglysaid it's been kind of a quiet
year in real estate hasn't it?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Oh, never, never, yeah, we quiet year in real
estate hasn't it?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Oh, never, never.
Yeah, we had a few changeshappen this year, right, just a
few, just a couple, and you knowStellar's uh.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
You know I got to commend you guys.
You guys have been, you know,uh, with uh, the videos that
you've put out, or Mary Jo, uh,mary Jo Cohen has put out, um,
you know, throughout the removalof compensation, the addition
of concessions and then theremoval of concessions.
I think the videos you guyshave been putting out were
really instrumental with gettingthe agents on board with
(01:14):
exactly how we were going tomove forward, and so kudos to
you guys for doing that.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Well, thank you, and we tried to stay on top of
things.
So even long before the caseeven went to trial, we were
meeting with our brokers, wewere getting feedback, we were
having these conversations.
So we really tried to make itso that this was not a surprise.
But of course it was a majorchange and we were really
impressed with the amount ofagents and brokers who attended
all of our sessions and whoreally just got on board with
(01:41):
the new way of doing business.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
There was no other option.
Right, absolutely, we pay ourdues, we want to do business, so
we pay attention and try tofind that good way forward.
So, just talking aboutcompensation and being that it
has been removed from the MLS asof August 6 of this year, we
(02:06):
get questions all the time fromour agents.
You know, here at CharlesRuttenberg we have close to
2,300 agents, so you know, we,we, we have a a big voice there
and so I take a lot of thosecalls and you know I, I back you
guys up as much as I can.
But I get this common questionof hey, compensation is being
removed, what's the value of theMLS now?
(02:30):
What should I say to them?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Absolutely, and we occasionally get that question,
but what we're seeing is it'skind of interesting.
So, even though the MLS ischanging within the United
States, globally, there is thisnew interest in these countries
that have absolutely no MLS ororganization in the real estate
markets to form MLSs.
And as these countries arelooking at the value of the MLS
(02:54):
and they're deciding whether ornot they want to create one,
compensation has nothing to dowith their decision.
So if you look at certainmarkets, especially in Europe
and Asia and different countries, you have these portals and
owners can enter their ownlistings in the portal.
Real estate agents can enterlistings directly and there are
no exclusive listings, so youcould have the same property
(03:18):
listed five different times atfive different prices.
So it creates a nightmare forconsumers to try to navigate
this information and then thinkabout that way as well.
If you have to enter, if there'smultiple websites within the
country and you have to enteryour listings directly, when
anything changes, you have toremember to go in and change it
in all those places as well.
(03:38):
And how many people are going toremember to do that in every
place they have the listing.
So now you have inconsistentinformation across these sources
.
You don't have any real-timedata on the market, you don't
have exclusive relationships,you don't have an ecosystem
where buyer representation caneven occur.
So through the MLS, regardlessof whether or not there are
offers of compensation, you haveall these other benefits Just
(04:01):
having that single source ofcomprehensive inventory, having
the real-time publishing andreal-time information, the data
standardization and dataintegrity, the idea that MLSs
follow data standards, that youcan feed the data back into your
broker back office feed orother software the agent might
subscribe to that we have checksin place to make sure the data
(04:23):
is correct and accurate.
So those are all the benefitsof the MLS and why an agent is
going to want to belong to theMLS, regardless of whether or
not there are compensationoffers in there.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, it's still the greatest marketplace we could
possibly ever have.
You know, to put one listingand it does get some feeds out
of there to some third-partyportals, as we know that, the
Zillows and realtorcoms thatwe're aware of.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, no, and that's along the same lines of what I
tell people.
You know you want to have, youdon't want to have the wild,
wild west out there.
You know you need to have thatcentral location that you're
putting the properties into.
They are doing their checks andbalances on stuff.
Otherwise, you know you'regoing to have, like you said
you're going to have, you know,one website saying one thing and
(05:11):
another website saying anotherthing.
And where is we're in such welive in such a litigious society
that you know if, oh my gosh,this one changed five minutes
ago and this one didn't, and oh,but I have the printout here
that says you know, then all ofa sudden you get a lawsuit
because it was invalidinformation.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
So, having that one dedicated search engine, if you
will, and even the major portalsthey draw directly from the MLS
.
So Zillow and Homescom actuallyare powered as brokerages and
they have IDX feeds, and thenRealtorcom has a data feed.
But when you enter a list inthe MLS and you make a change,
the change flows directly tothose sources.
(05:52):
So once again, it's allaccurate data that flows from
the MLS.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Right, right.
No, that's good stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So along those lines sorry, I didn't mean to jump in
on you, amir Along those lines,how is it going to affect?
Listen, the one thing you guyshave that's amazing is the data.
You have the data about thetransaction down to the detail
for appraisers and for appraisalpurposes and for the agent to
(06:20):
really go out and do a fair CMA.
You know, we knew exactly whatthe concessions were and what
the commissions were Now goingforward.
By the way, we do know that youguys wound up pulling seller
concession field out of there,not to.
You know, brag a little bit,but we're going to brag a little
.
Amir and I have been tellingagents for three months that was
(06:41):
going to happen.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
And all of a sudden we wake up.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
one day, Actually I was over at the convention and I
get a text from Amir that saysyeah, we were right 68 days ago
that seller concessions arecoming out, but along with that,
I want your thoughts on theseller concession field coming
out.
Now you have really no dataabout compensation.
How is that going to affect thepeople that are drawing off of
that, that need it?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
So here's the good news the seller concession
fields were only removed foractive listings with the idea
that there was just too muchconfusion around those fields.
And now we do allow in thepublic and realtor remarks for
statements to have to do withjust general credits,
concessions, allowances, thatcan't make any mention of
(07:23):
compensation.
But there are ways that you canjust make a general statement.
You know seller is willing tooffer a $5,000 closing credit to
the buyer or whatever theamount might be, but there can't
be any tied compensation.
But when you close out alisting there is a field it's
actually a required field calledseller paid buyers costs and
(07:46):
that field, when closing alisting, you include the
aggregate of any credits,allowances and concessions given
from the seller to the buyer.
And that field can be added toa results grid and can be used
by appraisers to see the totalamount of credits and allowances
that that buyer received.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
So when you guys are aggregating that data now or the
third parties are aggregatingthat data from you, the only
thing if I'm right here, correctfollowing you the only thing
that won't be accuratelydocumented would be in the event
that the buyer themselvesactually paid their agent
outside of closing and it wentright to the brokerage.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
That would not be documented.
If brokers share compensationwith each other, that would not
be documented.
But in the seller paid buyercost field that would be all
costs given, all credits givenfrom the seller to the buyer, so
that could include.
Some of that might becompensation, Some of it could
just be a general concession, itcould be the roofing allowance,
but the whole idea there is.
(08:47):
It still helps the CMA process.
It helps appraisers see okay,even though it's sold for this
amount, the seller then creditedthe buyer this amount for
whatever it was for.
We don't know what that's for.
We don't want to know, Becausewhat we do not want is to have a
field where it's reporting.
Oh well, this seller providedthis much compensation.
Because we can't have any datain the MLS that speaks to
(09:09):
compensation and that helps setcompensation rates or anything
along those lines.
But by having a field just forgeneral seller-paid buyer's
costs, we know exactly how muchthe seller gave the buyer and
what really the true sellingprice of the property was.
And what the buyer did withthat is kind of their own
business isn't it really?
Yeah, that's the buyer's ownbusiness.
The buyer negotiates with theiragent how much that agent
(09:32):
expects to be paid.
They receive credits from theseller and then they can do
whatever they want with that.
They can use some of that topay their agent.
They can use it for otherthings and that's none of our
business at the MLS.
But we just want to make surethat we have data to help with
valuations.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, and just to digress for a second, because
that seems to be what I dosometimes is a really bad idea
for broker to brokercompensation.
You're not saying that, I'msaying that.
We've been out saying that fora long time.
Uh, it just doesn't make anysense for the broker to be, uh,
the third party handling themoney between the seller and the
and the buyer's broker.
It just doesn't make any sense.
(10:04):
Yeah, you know, we've been.
We took a lot of heat for that.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
We did I mean, I know whether you know it or not,
chris, but we came out a littlewhile before the settlement.
Well, just after the settlementhappened, and we said at
Charles Ruttenberg we're notgoing to share compensation
anymore.
It's going to come directlyfrom the seller if the seller
wants to.
Otherwise, it comes from thebuyer.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
And what's nice about one thing that's a good thing
about the settlement, andespecially nice from the the MLS
end, is that now thatcompensation is removed from the
MLS, we can be completely outof the business compensation.
We can focus on what we do best.
We provide the clean, accuratedata and we let brokers make
those decisions, and everybroker can now make the decision
on how they want to do businessmoving forward.
Now, of course, there could besome more changes coming down
(10:49):
the pike from other sourcesSounds that way, doesn't it?
But right now the MLS can justfocus on what we do best and let
the brokers decide how theywant to operate business-wise.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah, that makes sense.
How do you guys feel about overthere how you just arbitrarily
got drug into the settlement andbeing the police force of this
third-party aggregate sites andstuff like that?
I mean they kind of task youwith a job that's almost
impossible and threaten to sueyou if you don't do it properly,
(11:20):
correctly.
Am I accurately conveying thatmessage?
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Stellar MLS.
As this is all very new, we aretaking a very cautious approach
in terms of how we enforce therules.
We're enforcing the rules quitestrictly and we've got some
attention on that.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, we know Some viral social media posts.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
But really the idea is to take our role very
seriously, and we know too, it'snot just us, but it's all the
brokers who subscribe to Stellar.
We want to make sure that weare doing our part to be in
compliance.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
How are you guys going to address this
third-party IDX aggregate feed?
That seems to me to be thebiggest challenge you guys would
have.
I'm assuming I'm going to beway above my pay grade here.
There's some kind of algorithmthat could see Because I sign
license agreements daily aroundhere for agents to form a site
with GoDaddy or whoever, and allof a sudden they want an
(12:11):
agreement with you guys.
I've got to sign off on it.
I'm thinking I hope they're notdoing something bad with that
IDX feed.
Is that going to come back onme to the agent?
How are you going to find it,Am I?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
going to jail what's happening?
So there are very strict rulesthat anyone who receives a data
feed from the MLS cannot usethat MLS data to power a site
that aggregates offers ofcompensation from multiple
brokers.
So brokers can augment the feedfrom the MLS.
So if you want to add on yourown listings additional
(12:41):
information for your listingsfrom your office only, that's
fine.
But the minute someone takes afeed from the MLS and starts to
create a site that aggregatesoffers of compensation from
multiple brokers, that's a bigproblem.
How are you going to?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
find it.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
One thing that we've learned and, if you think about
it this way, the brokers who arefollowing the rules, the agents
who are following the ruleswhen they find out that someone
else is not, and they're gettingan unfair advantage from not
following the rules they tell uspretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Gotcha.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
And not only that.
We have processes where we doall the IDX sites.
There's other things as wellout there.
There are other mechanisms, butusually something is happening
like that we get notified withinminutes.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, Is there a protocol of what you guys would
do in place?
Would you shut them down?
Would you find them immediately?
What would you do?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
And this is a little beyond the scope of what I do,
and so far, to my knowledge, wehave not really seen a lot of
issues.
But pretty much what Stelmansays we're supposed to do is
we're supposed to shut down thatfeed until the issue is
resolved.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
So if we find out there's an issue that feed gets
cut off.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah yeah, absolutely Just cut off, Don't pass go,
not kicked out of Stellar oranything, the punitive side of
it.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
That's still.
There's still a lot there thatthe settlement's kind of vague
on, but I think the feedbackthat we're receiving, to our
understanding, is that we haveto cut off the feed until the
issue is resolved.
Gotcha, if someone is amultiple offender, that could.
Oh yeah, I'm sure they're goingto lose their license with
(14:22):
Stellar at some point.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Have you heard of any nationally other than you guys
that have had an issue with thisyet?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
I have not Now.
That doesn't mean that therehaven't been cases, but so far I
think that people understandthe stakes are high, because not
only are they in risk of losingtheir feed and not just for
themselves but, for example, ifa broker is licensing data for
multiple agents, if one agent ismisusing that data, everyone
(14:51):
gets cut off and you know so.
The consequences are high.
But not only that, it's openingthemselves up to other types of
liability and scrutiny fromother places outside the MLS.
So so far we have not seenanyone misusing MLS data to
create a site that aggregatescompensation.
Now whether or not that'shappened elsewhere, I don't know
.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Sure sure.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
So 100% clarity here for me, moment of soberness here
, Any one of my agents ismisusing that data, there's a
threat that the whole brokeragecould get shut off.
You would come to me becauseobviously I'm responsible for
the agent.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
It would depend on how it's licensed, but like it
could.
So if you're licensing feedsfor your agent's websites and
then there's misuse somewhere,somehow and it's all from the
same feed, it could impactmultiple people.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
And is that just shut off the feed to their website?
Speaker 3 (15:47):
or does that shut off the agents and the brokerage
from using Stellar MLS?
Well, in this case, it would bethe data feed, just the data
feed.
The data feed would be shut offGotcha gotcha.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
So they still have access to the MLS.
We still have access to the MLS.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
So if I offered them up on a platter to you and the
attorneys and everything you'dgive attorneys and everything
you give Charles Ruttberg reallya little grace.
But the idea for everyonelistening do not use your MLS
data fee to aggregate offers ofcompensation.
I think.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Mike and I are both telling you this together.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
The MLS side from your broker side.
Do not do that.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
No, no, no no.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Do not test the consequences, don't be the first
one to see what happens.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, you don't want to be that first one.
I know we had one agent thatwhat was it?
Left a word compensation in thefield and they got hit with
that $500 fine, really quickFirst day, like the 18th or
something.
It was crazy so we knew Stellarwas serious about it.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
We did, and as you should be.
They task you again with a verytall order, being the police of
this, and you guys are justtrying to run a business out
there.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Well, not only that, but just also to make sure that
all of our brokers, that there'snothing the MLS can create
liability for.
Not only the MLS, but all thebrokers want the MLS.
Yeah, no, it's definitelyimportant.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
So, Chris, as practices are changing due to
both the settlement and othermarket forces, what are some new
ways agents can leverage theirMLS to increase the value they
provide to their buyers andsellers?
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Yeah, and there's so much.
And a lot of times we think theMLS is a very transactional
system.
Oh well, I have a buyer.
They just gave me the criteria.
I can go set up a search or Ican go enter my listing that I
already have into the MLS.
But if you really just think ofall the different ways you can
increase your business, there'sso much in the MLS Number one
because Stellar has such a widecoverage area and we were
(17:26):
talking about this before thepodcast.
But we serve about 20 realtorassociations in Florida plus
Puerto Rico, so we're in abouttwo dozen counties and really we
have listings in 65 out of the67 counties in Florida, but we
are the primary MLS for about 20counties.
It's a referral network.
(17:51):
So if you have a seller here inthe Tampa Bay area who's moving
to Orlando, who's moving toSarasota, you can use the MLS to
see, hey, who sells the typesof properties or who works with
buyers of those types ofproperties, and I can make an
informed referral.
Now we just launched a newproduct called MLS Match to help
with the referral process.
So the MLS is a referralnetwork, hyper-local stats and
that word is a mouthful.
(18:13):
But thinking of the MLS and MLSdata, not just to say, oh well,
in Pinellas County, this manysingle-family homes sold this
month, but to really drill down.
Go into the neighborhoods whereyou sell.
In this specific zip code or inthis subdivision in Pinellas or
Pasco County, homes with poolsin this size range sold for X
(18:37):
amount of money.
Homes without pools of the samesize sold for this amount of
money.
So you can now start to givevery specific stats to a seller.
Hey, you have a pool.
You know that pools on averagebring X amount of dollars to a
sale and get very micro with it.
Yeah, exactly.
And just use MLS data.
You know four bedrooms versusthree bedroom homes.
What does a four bedroom go forin this neighborhood versus a
(18:57):
three bedroom?
And use that in your marketingas well.
You can create hyper-focusedmailing lists through our tools,
either through the Matrix,public record search, through
Realist, through IMAP, and youcan now mail all the owners of
four-bedroom homes in thisneighborhood with that stat hey,
your fourth bedroom brings thisamount of value to your home.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I was at the board that they asked me over there on
Tuesday to talk to the neworientation people, and that's
exactly what I told them.
I said listen, when you havebad news to tell to a seller,
let the data do it.
Don't you be the bearer of badnews Like, hey, here's the
information and look at it andyou tell me what price you
(19:37):
should reasonably come up with.
Use the data.
But also good news.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
And sometimes, especially like a lot of times,
if know, use the data, but alsogood news, you know, yeah, and
sometimes, especially like a lotof times, if you look at the
aggregate stats, it doesn't tellthe whole story, because right
now, especially here in PinellasCounty and Tampa Bay, we have
some areas that were justravaged by storm surge and the
way that markets can behavemight be very different the more
the inland areas that arehigher up and we could, you know
(20:02):
, the data can really starttelling very specific stories.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I had as you were walking in.
I was clearing out email and Ithink I had 42 notices from MLS
about expected closing date notmet due to this little storm
that just blew through on us.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yeah, but you know, I agree, mls does have a lot to
offer, you know, and people I.
One of the common themes that Isee with some agents out there
is they just don't know aboutthe extra products and services
that you get with stellar MLS.
I mean, you know, take, forinstance, riz Media.
Yeah, I mean that's a great wayto keep an eye on what's going
(20:40):
on in the real estate market andyou get that free with well,
not free.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
it's included in your membership, but that's $199
value.
So to subscribe on your own,it'll be $199.
Then you have RE technology,which would be another I can't
remember a couple hundreddollars.
And we have Hurdler, afinancial tracking system.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
That's wonderful yeah .
Speaker 3 (20:57):
You can actually track your finances, your
expenses, your mileage to aspecific listing or to a
specific buyer and see, hey, Iwork with this buyer two
counties over, but by the time Ifactor in my gas and all these
other costs, this is how much Inet from the transaction.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah, you start making better business decisions
, exactly, and that's includedin your MLS subscription Lead
generation tools.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
So through a down payment resource that's a
product I love, where you canactually see for any listing the
down payment programs thatmight qualify for.
There's a tool.
You get your own custom linkwhere you can share with
potential buyers first-timebuyers, military buyers,
anything along those lines wherethey can see which down payment
programs they might qualify forand you get a lead.
Oh wow, I didn't even knowabout that I did not know that,
(21:40):
absolutely that is super cool.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Can you take like two minutes and tell us about the
new product, MLS Match?
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, so MLS Match.
I mentioned the MLS as thatreferral network.
So not only are we in so manycounties in Florida, we're also
the MLS for Puerto Rico andthere is actually a lot of
movement between parts ofFlorida and Puerto Rico.
We have a data share with FirstMLS in Georgia, gulf Coast MLS
in Alabama.
Plus, we have a reciprocalaccess agreement with Omni MLS
(22:06):
in Latin America.
So there's a huge network outthere.
Through MLS Match, you're ableto.
It's almost like a LinkedInmeets, a transaction management
platform where you can findagents in these areas and you
can line up a referral throughthe platform and it even has.
You can even set up thebrokerages to transmit the
(22:28):
referral fees to each other.
Right, do it?
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Got the documents for you the referral agreement and
everything in there.
It's a pretty extensiveplatform.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
But once again, it's this whole idea of thinking
beyond the box, using the MLSnot only when you have a buyer
or a seller, but also looking isthere an additional source of
revenue by making a referral?
And to me, I think so manypeople lose out on that because
they sell a home.
The person's moving to Atlanta.
Well, why not?
We have the data, we know whothe agents are in Atlanta who
(22:55):
are working with buyers inwhatever city they're moving to.
Why not make a referral andincrease our revenue stream?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Absolutely.
Yeah, you know we run into thatall the time.
Where you know an agent, theyget a lead, whether it's a buyer
coming in from Atlanta or goingout.
But mostly when they're comingin, hey, you have a house to
sell in Atlanta.
Do you have a house to sell inAtlanta?
If you don't have an agent, Ican find one for you, and that
MLS match is a great tool forthem to use.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Or someone says oh, I was going to move to Tampa, but
now my job is actually remote,so I think I'm going to move
further out.
I'm going to go down toCharlotte County and make a
referral to an agent down inCharlotte County.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah, you can research the agents right on
there, because before you'd haveto, you know if I had a buyer
or whatnot who was moving out ofthe area and they're moving to
Utah or whatever.
I don't know anybody in Utah.
Now I've got to get on ZillowRealtorcom, try to figure out
you know which agents are doingthe most business, who's got a
good profile, and then vet themout.
This program really saves a lotof time and money or time and
(23:56):
energy.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Where would you recommend that an agent go to?
Like, we know the basic classesthey have to get to get their
access and stuff like that, butan agent that really wants to
jump in and figure it out, whatwould you recommend they do to
inform themselves on all theproducts you guys?
Speaker 3 (24:11):
have.
So it depends on where they are, and our training team offers a
variety of webinars.
We have classes at the boards,but I spent my first five years
with Stellar as a trainer and itcan be overwhelming If you look
at all the products, if youlook at all the classes.
The first thing I always say todo, if you don't have one,
write a business plan and figureout what is unique about you.
(24:35):
What can you bring to the tablein a transaction.
If you had a career in HRbefore coming to real estate,
maybe it's going to be corporaterelocations.
I met someone once and I lovethis.
He came to one of my basicclasses.
He was a retired physician fromChicago and his niche was going
to be other retiring doctorsfrom the Midwest moving to
(24:55):
Florida.
So figure out what your nicheis, what types of transactions
you want to do, because a lot oftimes people, I think, just
start too broad and once youknow what you want to do that's
unique, then look for theproducts, look for the classes
that will help you in thatmarket.
If it's going to be working withfirst-time buyers, you're going
to want to learn more aboutthat down payment resource tool.
But if you're looking to doluxury all cash sales that's
(25:17):
probably not going to be veryhelpful.
Right, right, Once again, ifyou're going to do corporate
relocations, all the referraltools are going to be really
important.
So we have some great classes.
I love the one on leadgeneration tools, because
there's a lot of great stuff inthe MLS to help you get business
.
Not only use the MLS to.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
That would be the number one place to start for
most people that could be aplace to start.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
We have classes on working with buyers, if you're
going to really focus on thatside of the transaction, other
classes about how to enhanceyour listings with MLS tools.
So, really, what type ofbusiness you're looking to do,
what's going to be yourspecialty, and then the class
title should speak themselvesafter that.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah, you can't know it all, but find out what your
business plan is, what yourniche is going to be, where you
think your wheelhouse is, andtake the appropriate classes.
But that lead gen stuff I wouldbe all over that.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I'm interested to take a look at that.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Because that's the number one thing agents want to
know is what do you guys do forleads?
Well, I want to send them overto Chris.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Well before I worked for the MLS, I was actually an
agent here at Charles Ruttenberg.
Really, yeah, you guys didn'tknow that A long time ago, back
in the day, many years ago, butmy niche was condos in North
Pinellas.
So what I would do is I wouldadd to my MLS search grid things
like the pet fields and thecondo association fees and stuff
(26:35):
like that, and really become anexpert.
Oh well, in this complex, well,there's actually two different
associations.
If you live in this building,you're paying this bunch of fees
, and this building this bunchof fees, and this building
you're allowed to have cats Inthis building you're not, and
you'll be surprised at thevariation, even within a condo
complex.
And by me being an expert inthat area and using the MLS to
(26:57):
get data and to building myexpertise, that really gave me
some credibility, yeah, andwhat's going on in the condo
market right now I've beentelling people for the last year
.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
That that's going to be.
You can be a problem solverwith these buildings, absolutely
Okay, I know we are gettingrunning out of time here.
So, chris, you for everybody outthere, chris has agreed to take
part in our October 29th, thenext training at PRO.
It'll be via Zoom and PRO.
We're going to have our panelof experts and Chris is going to
(27:26):
be there, one of the panelists.
So we're going to run it kindof like a broker town hall, or I
should say more like a townhall thing, and we'll point the
questions to the right people.
So thank you for the commitmentto that.
I would just say this I don'tknow if you want to give people
your contact information Maybeit's just for the brokerage
levels that you're doing, butare you out there?
(27:48):
Is there any way they couldfollow you or get a hold of you
if people want to talk to you?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Yes, number one.
I'm on LinkedIn, so follow methere.
Stellar MLS we're very easy toreach.
So if you have anything that'sjust a product-specific question
, if it's oh, how do I do thisin Matrix, you might want to
contact our support center first, support at StellarMLScom or
(28:13):
call us 407-960-5300.
But if you do want to talkstrategy or anything I talked
about today and you feel free toreach out to me, chrislumia at
stellarmlscom.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
And he's on it, guys, because I emailed him a lot
here in the last three or fourmonths and got back.
Okay, we're going to wrap it upwith one last thing.
If you do have, with the recentchanges and everything and you
were an agent you know thisbusiness as well as anybody do
you have any tip, one good tipfor agents or brokers out there
building their business?
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Yeah.
So one thing I kind of said isdetermine your niche Based on
your background, based onwhatever you did before real
estate.
What can you bring to the table?
So if you're new, you're reallynot new because you're bringing
with you a lot of experiences.
And if you've been doing thisfor a long time, what have you
done?
What area of expertise do youhave?
And really just double down onthat and then look at what the
MLS gives you to help you withthat focus.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, take it from there All right, Amir, you've
got a closing thought.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Hey, chris, we just want to say thank you so much
for joining us today.
We really appreciate everythingyou've done for us over the
past couple weeks and whatnotWell, not even weeks, months,
but thanks for coming in andspitballing with us a bit.
And we look forward to seeingyou at our October 29th Pro
Panel.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Absolutely Thank you, and I want to give you a
heartfelt thanks too, chris.
We've had to work together inthe last few months to get
through these hurdles that we'rearound and some changes and
meshing your operation with myoperation.
What noise is the easiest?
And you've been the consummateprofessional to get us through
it.
You've been gone out of yourway to come to our office,
really help us drill down andget this right, and I really
appreciate that we appreciatethe partnership and thank you so
(29:49):
much for all of you.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
For wantingsteller MLS All right guys.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
That's it for this week's edition of the Charles
Ruttenberg Realty Podcast.
We'll catch you guys all nexttime.
Hello everybody and welcome back to the Charles
Ruttenberg Reality Podcast.
I am here with my cohort, Amir.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hey, hey, how's everybody going?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
I'm doing great and we have a very special guest
with us today.
We want to just jump right intoit and thank you so much, Chris
, for being with us today.
We have Chris Lumia fromStellar MLS joining us today.
Guys, Chris, what is going on?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Oh, I'm happy to be here.
It's been a happening year inthe MLS world, but we're really
excited at Stellar.
We think that there's somegreat things coming to this
industry.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah, you know, we had a guest on last week and he
was an appraiser and I jokinglysaid it's been kind of a quiet
year in real estate hasn't it?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Oh, never, never, yeah, we quiet year in real
estate hasn't it?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Oh, never, never.
Yeah, we had a few changeshappen this year, right, just a
few, just a couple, and you knowStellar's uh.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
You know I got to commend you guys.
You guys have been, you know,uh, with uh, the videos that
you've put out, or Mary Jo, uh,mary Jo Cohen has put out, um,
you know, throughout the removalof compensation, the addition
of concessions and then theremoval of concessions.
I think the videos you guyshave been putting out were
really instrumental with gettingthe agents on board with
(01:14):
exactly how we were going tomove forward, and so kudos to
you guys for doing that.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Well, thank you, and we tried to stay on top of
things.
So even long before the caseeven went to trial, we were
meeting with our brokers, wewere getting feedback, we were
having these conversations.
So we really tried to make itso that this was not a surprise.
But of course it was a majorchange and we were really
impressed with the amount ofagents and brokers who attended
all of our sessions and whoreally just got on board with
(01:41):
the new way of doing business.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
There was no other option.
Right, absolutely, we pay ourdues, we want to do business, so
we pay attention and try tofind that good way forward.
So, just talking aboutcompensation and being that it
has been removed from the MLS asof August 6 of this year, we
(02:06):
get questions all the time fromour agents.
You know, here at CharlesRuttenberg we have close to
2,300 agents, so you know, we,we, we have a a big voice there
and so I take a lot of thosecalls and you know I, I back you
guys up as much as I can.
But I get this common questionof hey, compensation is being
removed, what's the value of theMLS now?
(02:30):
What should I say to them?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Absolutely, and we occasionally get that question,
but what we're seeing is it'skind of interesting.
So, even though the MLS ischanging within the United
States, globally, there is thisnew interest in these countries
that have absolutely no MLS ororganization in the real estate
markets to form MLSs.
And as these countries arelooking at the value of the MLS
(02:54):
and they're deciding whether ornot they want to create one,
compensation has nothing to dowith their decision.
So if you look at certainmarkets, especially in Europe
and Asia and different countries, you have these portals and
owners can enter their ownlistings in the portal.
Real estate agents can enterlistings directly and there are
no exclusive listings, so youcould have the same property
(03:18):
listed five different times atfive different prices.
So it creates a nightmare forconsumers to try to navigate
this information and then thinkabout that way as well.
If you have to enter, if there'smultiple websites within the
country and you have to enteryour listings directly, when
anything changes, you have toremember to go in and change it
in all those places as well.
(03:38):
And how many people are going toremember to do that in every
place they have the listing.
So now you have inconsistentinformation across these sources
.
You don't have any real-timedata on the market, you don't
have exclusive relationships,you don't have an ecosystem
where buyer representation caneven occur.
So through the MLS, regardlessof whether or not there are
offers of compensation, you haveall these other benefits Just
(04:01):
having that single source ofcomprehensive inventory, having
the real-time publishing andreal-time information, the data
standardization and dataintegrity, the idea that MLSs
follow data standards, that youcan feed the data back into your
broker back office feed orother software the agent might
subscribe to that we have checksin place to make sure the data
(04:23):
is correct and accurate.
So those are all the benefitsof the MLS and why an agent is
going to want to belong to theMLS, regardless of whether or
not there are compensationoffers in there.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, it's still the greatest marketplace we could
possibly ever have.
You know, to put one listingand it does get some feeds out
of there to some third-partyportals, as we know that, the
Zillows and realtorcoms thatwe're aware of.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, no, and that's along the same lines of what I
tell people.
You know you want to have, youdon't want to have the wild,
wild west out there.
You know you need to have thatcentral location that you're
putting the properties into.
They are doing their checks andbalances on stuff.
Otherwise, you know you'regoing to have, like you said
you're going to have, you know,one website saying one thing and
(05:11):
another website saying anotherthing.
And where is we're in such welive in such a litigious society
that you know if, oh my gosh,this one changed five minutes
ago and this one didn't, and oh,but I have the printout here
that says you know, then all ofa sudden you get a lawsuit
because it was invalidinformation.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
So, having that one dedicated search engine, if you
will, and even the major portalsthey draw directly from the MLS
.
So Zillow and Homescom actuallyare powered as brokerages and
they have IDX feeds, and thenRealtorcom has a data feed.
But when you enter a list inthe MLS and you make a change,
the change flows directly tothose sources.
(05:52):
So once again, it's allaccurate data that flows from
the MLS.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Right, right.
No, that's good stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So along those lines sorry, I didn't mean to jump in
on you, amir Along those lines,how is it going to affect?
Listen, the one thing you guyshave that's amazing is the data.
You have the data about thetransaction down to the detail
for appraisers and for appraisalpurposes and for the agent to
(06:20):
really go out and do a fair CMA.
You know, we knew exactly whatthe concessions were and what
the commissions were Now goingforward.
By the way, we do know that youguys wound up pulling seller
concession field out of there,not to.
You know, brag a little bit,but we're going to brag a little
.
Amir and I have been tellingagents for three months that was
(06:41):
going to happen.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
And all of a sudden we wake up.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
one day, Actually I was over at the convention and I
get a text from Amir that saysyeah, we were right 68 days ago
that seller concessions arecoming out, but along with that,
I want your thoughts on theseller concession field coming
out.
Now you have really no dataabout compensation.
How is that going to affect thepeople that are drawing off of
that, that need it?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
So here's the good news the seller concession
fields were only removed foractive listings with the idea
that there was just too muchconfusion around those fields.
And now we do allow in thepublic and realtor remarks for
statements to have to do withjust general credits,
concessions, allowances, thatcan't make any mention of
(07:23):
compensation.
But there are ways that you canjust make a general statement.
You know seller is willing tooffer a $5,000 closing credit to
the buyer or whatever theamount might be, but there can't
be any tied compensation.
But when you close out alisting there is a field it's
actually a required field calledseller paid buyers costs and
(07:46):
that field, when closing alisting, you include the
aggregate of any credits,allowances and concessions given
from the seller to the buyer.
And that field can be added toa results grid and can be used
by appraisers to see the totalamount of credits and allowances
that that buyer received.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
So when you guys are aggregating that data now or the
third parties are aggregatingthat data from you, the only
thing if I'm right here, correctfollowing you the only thing
that won't be accuratelydocumented would be in the event
that the buyer themselvesactually paid their agent
outside of closing and it wentright to the brokerage.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
That would not be documented.
If brokers share compensationwith each other, that would not
be documented.
But in the seller paid buyercost field that would be all
costs given, all credits givenfrom the seller to the buyer, so
that could include.
Some of that might becompensation, Some of it could
just be a general concession, itcould be the roofing allowance,
but the whole idea there is.
(08:47):
It still helps the CMA process.
It helps appraisers see okay,even though it's sold for this
amount, the seller then creditedthe buyer this amount for
whatever it was for.
We don't know what that's for.
We don't want to know, Becausewhat we do not want is to have a
field where it's reporting.
Oh well, this seller providedthis much compensation.
Because we can't have any datain the MLS that speaks to
(09:09):
compensation and that helps setcompensation rates or anything
along those lines.
But by having a field just forgeneral seller-paid buyer's
costs, we know exactly how muchthe seller gave the buyer and
what really the true sellingprice of the property was.
And what the buyer did withthat is kind of their own
business isn't it really?
Yeah, that's the buyer's ownbusiness.
The buyer negotiates with theiragent how much that agent
(09:32):
expects to be paid.
They receive credits from theseller and then they can do
whatever they want with that.
They can use some of that topay their agent.
They can use it for otherthings and that's none of our
business at the MLS.
But we just want to make surethat we have data to help with
valuations.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, and just to digress for a second, because
that seems to be what I dosometimes is a really bad idea
for broker to brokercompensation.
You're not saying that, I'msaying that.
We've been out saying that fora long time.
Uh, it just doesn't make anysense for the broker to be, uh,
the third party handling themoney between the seller and the
and the buyer's broker.
It just doesn't make any sense.
(10:04):
Yeah, you know, we've been.
We took a lot of heat for that.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
We did I mean, I know whether you know it or not,
chris, but we came out a littlewhile before the settlement.
Well, just after the settlementhappened, and we said at
Charles Ruttenberg we're notgoing to share compensation
anymore.
It's going to come directlyfrom the seller if the seller
wants to.
Otherwise, it comes from thebuyer.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
And what's nice about one thing that's a good thing
about the settlement, andespecially nice from the the MLS
end, is that now thatcompensation is removed from the
MLS, we can be completely outof the business compensation.
We can focus on what we do best.
We provide the clean, accuratedata and we let brokers make
those decisions, and everybroker can now make the decision
on how they want to do businessmoving forward.
Now, of course, there could besome more changes coming down
(10:49):
the pike from other sourcesSounds that way, doesn't it?
But right now the MLS can justfocus on what we do best and let
the brokers decide how theywant to operate business-wise.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah, that makes sense.
How do you guys feel about overthere how you just arbitrarily
got drug into the settlement andbeing the police force of this
third-party aggregate sites andstuff like that?
I mean they kind of task youwith a job that's almost
impossible and threaten to sueyou if you don't do it properly,
(11:20):
correctly.
Am I accurately conveying thatmessage?
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Stellar MLS.
As this is all very new, we aretaking a very cautious approach
in terms of how we enforce therules.
We're enforcing the rules quitestrictly and we've got some
attention on that.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, we know Some viral social media posts.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
But really the idea is to take our role very
seriously, and we know too, it'snot just us, but it's all the
brokers who subscribe to Stellar.
We want to make sure that weare doing our part to be in
compliance.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
How are you guys going to address this
third-party IDX aggregate feed?
That seems to me to be thebiggest challenge you guys would
have.
I'm assuming I'm going to beway above my pay grade here.
There's some kind of algorithmthat could see Because I sign
license agreements daily aroundhere for agents to form a site
with GoDaddy or whoever, and allof a sudden they want an
(12:11):
agreement with you guys.
I've got to sign off on it.
I'm thinking I hope they're notdoing something bad with that
IDX feed.
Is that going to come back onme to the agent?
How are you going to find it,Am I?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
going to jail what's happening?
So there are very strict rulesthat anyone who receives a data
feed from the MLS cannot usethat MLS data to power a site
that aggregates offers ofcompensation from multiple
brokers.
So brokers can augment the feedfrom the MLS.
So if you want to add on yourown listings additional
(12:41):
information for your listingsfrom your office only, that's
fine.
But the minute someone takes afeed from the MLS and starts to
create a site that aggregatesoffers of compensation from
multiple brokers, that's a bigproblem.
How are you going to?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
find it.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
One thing that we've learned and, if you think about
it this way, the brokers who arefollowing the rules, the agents
who are following the ruleswhen they find out that someone
else is not, and they're gettingan unfair advantage from not
following the rules they tell uspretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Gotcha.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
And not only that.
We have processes where we doall the IDX sites.
There's other things as wellout there.
There are other mechanisms, butusually something is happening
like that we get notified withinminutes.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, Is there a protocol of what you guys would
do in place?
Would you shut them down?
Would you find them immediately?
What would you do?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
And this is a little beyond the scope of what I do,
and so far, to my knowledge, wehave not really seen a lot of
issues.
But pretty much what Stelmansays we're supposed to do is
we're supposed to shut down thatfeed until the issue is
resolved.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
So if we find out there's an issue that feed gets
cut off.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah yeah, absolutely Just cut off, Don't pass go,
not kicked out of Stellar oranything, the punitive side of
it.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
That's still.
There's still a lot there thatthe settlement's kind of vague
on, but I think the feedbackthat we're receiving, to our
understanding, is that we haveto cut off the feed until the
issue is resolved.
Gotcha, if someone is amultiple offender, that could.
Oh yeah, I'm sure they're goingto lose their license with
(14:22):
Stellar at some point.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Have you heard of any nationally other than you guys
that have had an issue with thisyet?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
I have not Now.
That doesn't mean that therehaven't been cases, but so far I
think that people understandthe stakes are high, because not
only are they in risk of losingtheir feed and not just for
themselves but, for example, ifa broker is licensing data for
multiple agents, if one agent ismisusing that data, everyone
(14:51):
gets cut off and you know so.
The consequences are high.
But not only that, it's openingthemselves up to other types of
liability and scrutiny fromother places outside the MLS.
So so far we have not seenanyone misusing MLS data to
create a site that aggregatescompensation.
Now whether or not that'shappened elsewhere, I don't know
.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Sure sure.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
So 100% clarity here for me, moment of soberness here
, Any one of my agents ismisusing that data, there's a
threat that the whole brokeragecould get shut off.
You would come to me becauseobviously I'm responsible for
the agent.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
It would depend on how it's licensed, but like it
could.
So if you're licensing feedsfor your agent's websites and
then there's misuse somewhere,somehow and it's all from the
same feed, it could impactmultiple people.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
And is that just shut off the feed to their website?
Speaker 3 (15:47):
or does that shut off the agents and the brokerage
from using Stellar MLS?
Well, in this case, it would bethe data feed, just the data
feed.
The data feed would be shut offGotcha gotcha.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
So they still have access to the MLS.
We still have access to the MLS.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
So if I offered them up on a platter to you and the
attorneys and everything you'dgive attorneys and everything
you give Charles Ruttberg reallya little grace.
But the idea for everyonelistening do not use your MLS
data fee to aggregate offers ofcompensation.
I think.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Mike and I are both telling you this together.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
The MLS side from your broker side.
Do not do that.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
No, no, no no.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Do not test the consequences, don't be the first
one to see what happens.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, you don't want to be that first one.
I know we had one agent thatwhat was it?
Left a word compensation in thefield and they got hit with
that $500 fine, really quickFirst day, like the 18th or
something.
It was crazy so we knew Stellarwas serious about it.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
We did, and as you should be.
They task you again with a verytall order, being the police of
this, and you guys are justtrying to run a business out
there.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Well, not only that, but just also to make sure that
all of our brokers, that there'snothing the MLS can create
liability for.
Not only the MLS, but all thebrokers want the MLS.
Yeah, no, it's definitelyimportant.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
So, Chris, as practices are changing due to
both the settlement and othermarket forces, what are some new
ways agents can leverage theirMLS to increase the value they
provide to their buyers andsellers?
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Yeah, and there's so much.
And a lot of times we think theMLS is a very transactional
system.
Oh well, I have a buyer.
They just gave me the criteria.
I can go set up a search or Ican go enter my listing that I
already have into the MLS.
But if you really just think ofall the different ways you can
increase your business, there'sso much in the MLS Number one
because Stellar has such a widecoverage area and we were
(17:26):
talking about this before thepodcast.
But we serve about 20 realtorassociations in Florida plus
Puerto Rico, so we're in abouttwo dozen counties and really we
have listings in 65 out of the67 counties in Florida, but we
are the primary MLS for about 20counties.
It's a referral network.
(17:51):
So if you have a seller here inthe Tampa Bay area who's moving
to Orlando, who's moving toSarasota, you can use the MLS to
see, hey, who sells the typesof properties or who works with
buyers of those types ofproperties, and I can make an
informed referral.
Now we just launched a newproduct called MLS Match to help
with the referral process.
So the MLS is a referralnetwork, hyper-local stats and
that word is a mouthful.
(18:13):
But thinking of the MLS and MLSdata, not just to say, oh well,
in Pinellas County, this manysingle-family homes sold this
month, but to really drill down.
Go into the neighborhoods whereyou sell.
In this specific zip code or inthis subdivision in Pinellas or
Pasco County, homes with poolsin this size range sold for X
(18:37):
amount of money.
Homes without pools of the samesize sold for this amount of
money.
So you can now start to givevery specific stats to a seller.
Hey, you have a pool.
You know that pools on averagebring X amount of dollars to a
sale and get very micro with it.
Yeah, exactly.
And just use MLS data.
You know four bedrooms versusthree bedroom homes.
What does a four bedroom go forin this neighborhood versus a
(18:57):
three bedroom?
And use that in your marketingas well.
You can create hyper-focusedmailing lists through our tools,
either through the Matrix,public record search, through
Realist, through IMAP, and youcan now mail all the owners of
four-bedroom homes in thisneighborhood with that stat hey,
your fourth bedroom brings thisamount of value to your home.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I was at the board that they asked me over there on
Tuesday to talk to the neworientation people, and that's
exactly what I told them.
I said listen, when you havebad news to tell to a seller,
let the data do it.
Don't you be the bearer of badnews Like, hey, here's the
information and look at it andyou tell me what price you
(19:37):
should reasonably come up with.
Use the data.
But also good news.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
And sometimes, especially like a lot of times,
if know, use the data, but alsogood news, you know, yeah, and
sometimes, especially like a lotof times, if you look at the
aggregate stats, it doesn't tellthe whole story, because right
now, especially here in PinellasCounty and Tampa Bay, we have
some areas that were justravaged by storm surge and the
way that markets can behavemight be very different the more
the inland areas that arehigher up and we could, you know
(20:02):
, the data can really starttelling very specific stories.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I had as you were walking in.
I was clearing out email and Ithink I had 42 notices from MLS
about expected closing date notmet due to this little storm
that just blew through on us.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yeah, but you know, I agree, mls does have a lot to
offer, you know, and people I.
One of the common themes that Isee with some agents out there
is they just don't know aboutthe extra products and services
that you get with stellar MLS.
I mean, you know, take, forinstance, riz Media.
Yeah, I mean that's a great wayto keep an eye on what's going
(20:40):
on in the real estate market andyou get that free with well,
not free.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
it's included in your membership, but that's $199
value.
So to subscribe on your own,it'll be $199.
Then you have RE technology,which would be another I can't
remember a couple hundreddollars.
And we have Hurdler, afinancial tracking system.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
That's wonderful yeah .
Speaker 3 (20:57):
You can actually track your finances, your
expenses, your mileage to aspecific listing or to a
specific buyer and see, hey, Iwork with this buyer two
counties over, but by the time Ifactor in my gas and all these
other costs, this is how much Inet from the transaction.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah, you start making better business decisions
, exactly, and that's includedin your MLS subscription Lead
generation tools.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
So through a down payment resource that's a
product I love, where you canactually see for any listing the
down payment programs thatmight qualify for.
There's a tool.
You get your own custom linkwhere you can share with
potential buyers first-timebuyers, military buyers,
anything along those lines wherethey can see which down payment
programs they might qualify forand you get a lead.
Oh wow, I didn't even knowabout that I did not know that,
(21:40):
absolutely that is super cool.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Can you take like two minutes and tell us about the
new product, MLS Match?
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, so MLS Match.
I mentioned the MLS as thatreferral network.
So not only are we in so manycounties in Florida, we're also
the MLS for Puerto Rico andthere is actually a lot of
movement between parts ofFlorida and Puerto Rico.
We have a data share with FirstMLS in Georgia, gulf Coast MLS
in Alabama.
Plus, we have a reciprocalaccess agreement with Omni MLS
(22:06):
in Latin America.
So there's a huge network outthere.
Through MLS Match, you're ableto.
It's almost like a LinkedInmeets, a transaction management
platform where you can findagents in these areas and you
can line up a referral throughthe platform and it even has.
You can even set up thebrokerages to transmit the
(22:28):
referral fees to each other.
Right, do it?
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Got the documents for you the referral agreement and
everything in there.
It's a pretty extensiveplatform.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
But once again, it's this whole idea of thinking
beyond the box, using the MLSnot only when you have a buyer
or a seller, but also looking isthere an additional source of
revenue by making a referral?
And to me, I think so manypeople lose out on that because
they sell a home.
The person's moving to Atlanta.
Well, why not?
We have the data, we know whothe agents are in Atlanta who
(22:55):
are working with buyers inwhatever city they're moving to.
Why not make a referral andincrease our revenue stream?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Absolutely.
Yeah, you know we run into thatall the time.
Where you know an agent, theyget a lead, whether it's a buyer
coming in from Atlanta or goingout.
But mostly when they're comingin, hey, you have a house to
sell in Atlanta.
Do you have a house to sell inAtlanta?
If you don't have an agent, Ican find one for you, and that
MLS match is a great tool forthem to use.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Or someone says oh, I was going to move to Tampa, but
now my job is actually remote,so I think I'm going to move
further out.
I'm going to go down toCharlotte County and make a
referral to an agent down inCharlotte County.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah, you can research the agents right on
there, because before you'd haveto, you know if I had a buyer
or whatnot who was moving out ofthe area and they're moving to
Utah or whatever.
I don't know anybody in Utah.
Now I've got to get on ZillowRealtorcom, try to figure out
you know which agents are doingthe most business, who's got a
good profile, and then vet themout.
This program really saves a lotof time and money or time and
(23:56):
energy.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Where would you recommend that an agent go to?
Like, we know the basic classesthey have to get to get their
access and stuff like that, butan agent that really wants to
jump in and figure it out, whatwould you recommend they do to
inform themselves on all theproducts you guys?
Speaker 3 (24:11):
have.
So it depends on where they are, and our training team offers a
variety of webinars.
We have classes at the boards,but I spent my first five years
with Stellar as a trainer and itcan be overwhelming If you look
at all the products, if youlook at all the classes.
The first thing I always say todo, if you don't have one,
write a business plan and figureout what is unique about you.
(24:35):
What can you bring to the tablein a transaction.
If you had a career in HRbefore coming to real estate,
maybe it's going to be corporaterelocations.
I met someone once and I lovethis.
He came to one of my basicclasses.
He was a retired physician fromChicago and his niche was going
to be other retiring doctorsfrom the Midwest moving to
(24:55):
Florida.
So figure out what your nicheis, what types of transactions
you want to do, because a lot oftimes people, I think, just
start too broad and once youknow what you want to do that's
unique, then look for theproducts, look for the classes
that will help you in thatmarket.
If it's going to be working withfirst-time buyers, you're going
to want to learn more aboutthat down payment resource tool.
But if you're looking to doluxury all cash sales that's
(25:17):
probably not going to be veryhelpful.
Right, right, Once again, ifyou're going to do corporate
relocations, all the referraltools are going to be really
important.
So we have some great classes.
I love the one on leadgeneration tools, because
there's a lot of great stuff inthe MLS to help you get business
.
Not only use the MLS to.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
That would be the number one place to start for
most people that could be aplace to start.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
We have classes on working with buyers, if you're
going to really focus on thatside of the transaction, other
classes about how to enhanceyour listings with MLS tools.
So, really, what type ofbusiness you're looking to do,
what's going to be yourspecialty, and then the class
title should speak themselvesafter that.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah, you can't know it all, but find out what your
business plan is, what yourniche is going to be, where you
think your wheelhouse is, andtake the appropriate classes.
But that lead gen stuff I wouldbe all over that.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I'm interested to take a look at that.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Because that's the number one thing agents want to
know is what do you guys do forleads?
Well, I want to send them overto Chris.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Well before I worked for the MLS, I was actually an
agent here at Charles Ruttenberg.
Really, yeah, you guys didn'tknow that A long time ago, back
in the day, many years ago, butmy niche was condos in North
Pinellas.
So what I would do is I wouldadd to my MLS search grid things
like the pet fields and thecondo association fees and stuff
(26:35):
like that, and really become anexpert.
Oh well, in this complex, well,there's actually two different
associations.
If you live in this building,you're paying this bunch of fees
, and this building this bunchof fees, and this building
you're allowed to have cats Inthis building you're not, and
you'll be surprised at thevariation, even within a condo
complex.
And by me being an expert inthat area and using the MLS to
(26:57):
get data and to building myexpertise, that really gave me
some credibility, yeah, andwhat's going on in the condo
market right now I've beentelling people for the last year
.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
That that's going to be.
You can be a problem solverwith these buildings, absolutely
Okay, I know we are gettingrunning out of time here.
So, chris, you for everybody outthere, chris has agreed to take
part in our October 29th, thenext training at PRO.
It'll be via Zoom and PRO.
We're going to have our panelof experts and Chris is going to
(27:26):
be there, one of the panelists.
So we're going to run it kindof like a broker town hall, or I
should say more like a townhall thing, and we'll point the
questions to the right people.
So thank you for the commitmentto that.
I would just say this I don'tknow if you want to give people
your contact information Maybeit's just for the brokerage
levels that you're doing, butare you out there?
(27:48):
Is there any way they couldfollow you or get a hold of you
if people want to talk to you?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Yes, number one.
I'm on LinkedIn, so follow methere.
Stellar MLS we're very easy toreach.
So if you have anything that'sjust a product-specific question
, if it's oh, how do I do thisin Matrix, you might want to
contact our support center first, support at StellarMLScom or
(28:13):
call us 407-960-5300.
But if you do want to talkstrategy or anything I talked
about today and you feel free toreach out to me, chrislumia at
stellarmlscom.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
And he's on it, guys, because I emailed him a lot
here in the last three or fourmonths and got back.
Okay, we're going to wrap it upwith one last thing.
If you do have, with the recentchanges and everything and you
were an agent you know thisbusiness as well as anybody do
you have any tip, one good tipfor agents or brokers out there
building their business?
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Yeah.
So one thing I kind of said isdetermine your niche Based on
your background, based onwhatever you did before real
estate.
What can you bring to the table?
So if you're new, you're reallynot new because you're bringing
with you a lot of experiences.
And if you've been doing thisfor a long time, what have you
done?
What area of expertise do youhave?
And really just double down onthat and then look at what the
MLS gives you to help you withthat focus.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, take it from there All right, Amir, you've
got a closing thought.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Hey, chris, we just want to say thank you so much
for joining us today.
We really appreciate everythingyou've done for us over the
past couple weeks and whatnotWell, not even weeks, months,
but thanks for coming in andspitballing with us a bit.
And we look forward to seeingyou at our October 29th Pro
Panel.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Absolutely Thank you, and I want to give you a
heartfelt thanks too, chris.
We've had to work together inthe last few months to get
through these hurdles that we'rearound and some changes and
meshing your operation with myoperation.
What noise is the easiest?
And you've been the consummateprofessional to get us through
it.
You've been gone out of yourway to come to our office,
really help us drill down andget this right, and I really
appreciate that we appreciatethe partnership and thank you so
(29:49):
much for all of you.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
For wantingsteller MLS All right guys.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
That's it for this week's edition of the Charles
Ruttenberg Realty Podcast.
We'll catch you guys all nexttime.
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