Move bets on social media, acquires platform & talent at SocialBios

California based Move, Inc. is the parent company of Move.com, Realtor.com, Moving.com, SeniorHousingNet.com, TopProducer.com and is in joint partnership with Builder Homesite, Inc. to offer Builders Digital Experience. As one of the top real estate companies, Move, Inc. has made a move that expands their offering in a new direction- toward social media.

Given the reliance of Realtors (their consumers) on being social, they have acquired SocialBios.com which is just over a year old. SocialBios is a social search platform that allows people and brands to “create a single social hub for their online profiles through interactive ‘About Us’ pages that simplify the discovery of shared connections on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Foursquare and Google without sacrificing their privacy.”

For an undisclosed amount, Move, Inc. has acquired the SocialBios platform and team which will be based in Denver, CO. The SocialBios products will remain “in production and available to real estate professionals.” Although it remains to be seen how Move will integrate the platform into their current offering, Move says development will continue which means there are potentially more products or modes of integration on the way.

“Real estate is inherently a social industry and social media experiences are changing the landscape of how people connect and interact with each other,” said Scott Boecker, chief product officer at Move, Inc. “The convergence of our expertise in search, mobile and now social brings a new element of discovery to our product development process that we think will give our customers new ways to connect naturally with people across all of our brands.”

According to Move, Inc., SocialBios founder Ernie Graham and co-founders Ira McMahon and Andrew Van Tassel have joined the product development team at Move, Inc. where Graham will serve as general manager of Move’s SocialBios brand and head up Move’s social product strategy and development team effective immediately.

“We’re very excited to join Move and the talented team that continually delivers great products and services based on the premise of connection,” said Ernie Graham, general manager for Move’s SocialBios platform. “By using the current SocialBios platform as a springboard and leveraging Move’s product and technology assets, we’ll take the concept of social capital discovery and create new ways to expedite higher quality connections between agents and consumers. We’re looking forward to the road ahead and transcending the traditional boundaries within our industry of how to drive better client-agent relationships.”

Move, Inc. is a product advertiser on AgentGenius.com.

This article published on Monday, July 18th, 2011 at 5:00 am | Contact the editor Tags: featured, Inc., move, Real Estate News, real estate social media

Category: News

AgentGenius is a rapidly growing real estate social media, tech, news, and opinion site built and designed by and for the on-the-go agent. Our mission is to be a positive force in the industry, led by people inside of real estate. We aim to keep you up to date on trends that we study closely in order to forecast what’s next on the horizon.

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Housing baffles traditional media leading to unacceptable fluff headlines

Just as it has been in recent history, low foreclosure filing numbers have traditional media outlets and misled bloggers to proclaim a sunny spot in the real estate sector.

Looking at a chart of foreclosures just for the past year, the first half of the year looks pretty healthy as the number of filings have dropped dramatically. Headlines today praised the massive drop and Twitter lit up with agents desperately trying to pass along the good news to their client followers.

Alas, the data is not a talking point or sound bite that should be painted as positive, it is an outlook that is misguided at best.

Some analysts are finally echoing our original assertion that the falling foreclosure filings are related almost exclusively with the slow down in the foreclosure process as the time to process has nearly doubled in the last year.

We said last month when traditional outlets took the same stance and made fluff headlines, “These numbers look good, but don’t take into account why this process has slowed down. We’ll give you a hint- it isn’t because employment is any better or because consumer confidence is up. No, it’s because the big banks have kinked the hose of the flow of foreclosures in light of the robosigning debacle (where banks didn’t manually review documents before foreclosure leading to illegal foreclosures on wrong addresses, homes paid in full and various other mistakes) as many states attorneys general and federal agencies are investigating the banks’ processes, putting a hamper on how quickly papers are/were being processed.”

Yet again, outlets point to filings dropping 29% over the last year as a sign of recovery based on RealtyTrac numbers. But this year alone, 1.2 million homeowners have received a foreclosure filing with delinquencies on the rise.

The reason we are outraged at the soundbites that are being regurgitated on tv, in print and online is that if you look at the chart of recent foreclosure filings and delinquencies, just compare 2011 to 2005 and you’ll see how dramatically high foreclosures are:

Prices are falling, sales are falling, politicians are pulling each others’ hair out arguing over whether or not to require 20% be put down on all mortgages and shadow inventories loom over a crippled real estate economy. When possible to present good news, we do it proudly, but when we see bad news spun as good, we find it to be unacceptable. Thinking critically in down times helps forge the way toward a healthy future, but collectively burying our heads in the sand will most certainly stall a recovery.

This article published on Friday, July 15th, 2011 at 6:00 am | Contact the editor Tags: featured, real estate economy, Real Estate News

Category: Editorials

AgentGenius Editor-in-Chief: Lani, named one of Real Estate’s 100 Most Influencial, as well as 12 Most Influencial Women in Real Estate, is a business writer hailing from the great state of Texas in the city of Austin. As a digital native, Lani is immersed not only in advanced technologies and new media, but is also a stats nerd often burried in piles of reports. Lani is a proven leader, thoughtful speaker, and vested partner at AGBeat. You’ll often find her on Facebook and Twitter, so feel free to reach out and get to know her.

Email Lani Rosales

View the original article here

Housing baffles traditional media leading to unacceptable fluff headlines

Just as it has been in recent history, low foreclosure filing numbers have traditional media outlets and misled bloggers to proclaim a sunny spot in the real estate sector.

Looking at a chart of foreclosures just for the past year, the first half of the year looks pretty healthy as the number of filings have dropped dramatically. Headlines today praised the massive drop and Twitter lit up with agents desperately trying to pass along the good news to their client followers.

Alas, the data is not a talking point or sound bite that should be painted as positive, it is an outlook that is misguided at best.

Some analysts are finally echoing our original assertion that the falling foreclosure filings are related almost exclusively with the slow down in the foreclosure process as the time to process has nearly doubled in the last year.

We said last month when traditional outlets took the same stance and made fluff headlines, “These numbers look good, but don’t take into account why this process has slowed down. We’ll give you a hint- it isn’t because employment is any better or because consumer confidence is up. No, it’s because the big banks have kinked the hose of the flow of foreclosures in light of the robosigning debacle (where banks didn’t manually review documents before foreclosure leading to illegal foreclosures on wrong addresses, homes paid in full and various other mistakes) as many states attorneys general and federal agencies are investigating the banks’ processes, putting a hamper on how quickly papers are/were being processed.”

Yet again, outlets point to filings dropping 29% over the last year as a sign of recovery based on RealtyTrac numbers. But this year alone, 1.2 million homeowners have received a foreclosure filing with delinquencies on the rise.

The reason we are outraged at the soundbites that are being regurgitated on tv, in print and online is that if you look at the chart of recent foreclosure filings and delinquencies, just compare 2011 to 2005 and you’ll see how dramatically high foreclosures are:

Prices are falling, sales are falling, politicians are pulling each others’ hair out arguing over whether or not to require 20% be put down on all mortgages and shadow inventories loom over a crippled real estate economy. When possible to present good news, we do it proudly, but when we see bad news spun as good, we find it to be unacceptable. Thinking critically in down times helps forge the way toward a healthy future, but collectively burying our heads in the sand will most certainly stall a recovery.

This article published on Friday, July 15th, 2011 at 6:00 am | Contact the editor Tags: featured, real estate economy, Real Estate News

Category: Editorials

AgentGenius Editor-in-Chief: Lani, named one of Real Estate’s 100 Most Influencial, as well as 12 Most Influencial Women in Real Estate, is a business writer hailing from the great state of Texas in the city of Austin. As a digital native, Lani is immersed not only in advanced technologies and new media, but is also a stats nerd often burried in piles of reports. Lani is a proven leader, thoughtful speaker, and vested partner at AGBeat. You’ll often find her on Facebook and Twitter, so feel free to reach out and get to know her.

Email Lani Rosales

View the original article here

Housing baffles traditional media leading to unacceptable fluff headlines

Just as it has been in recent history, low foreclosure filing numbers have traditional media outlets and misled bloggers to proclaim a sunny spot in the real estate sector.

Looking at a chart of foreclosures just for the past year, the first half of the year looks pretty healthy as the number of filings have dropped dramatically. Headlines today praised the massive drop and Twitter lit up with agents desperately trying to pass along the good news to their client followers.

Alas, the data is not a talking point or sound bite that should be painted as positive, it is an outlook that is misguided at best.

Some analysts are finally echoing our original assertion that the falling foreclosure filings are related almost exclusively with the slow down in the foreclosure process as the time to process has nearly doubled in the last year.

We said last month when traditional outlets took the same stance and made fluff headlines, “These numbers look good, but don’t take into account why this process has slowed down. We’ll give you a hint- it isn’t because employment is any better or because consumer confidence is up. No, it’s because the big banks have kinked the hose of the flow of foreclosures in light of the robosigning debacle (where banks didn’t manually review documents before foreclosure leading to illegal foreclosures on wrong addresses, homes paid in full and various other mistakes) as many states attorneys general and federal agencies are investigating the banks’ processes, putting a hamper on how quickly papers are/were being processed.”

Yet again, outlets point to filings dropping 29% over the last year as a sign of recovery based on RealtyTrac numbers. But this year alone, 1.2 million homeowners have received a foreclosure filing with delinquencies on the rise.

The reason we are outraged at the soundbites that are being regurgitated on tv, in print and online is that if you look at the chart of recent foreclosure filings and delinquencies, just compare 2011 to 2005 and you’ll see how dramatically high foreclosures are:

Prices are falling, sales are falling, politicians are pulling each others’ hair out arguing over whether or not to require 20% be put down on all mortgages and shadow inventories loom over a crippled real estate economy. When possible to present good news, we do it proudly, but when we see bad news spun as good, we find it to be unacceptable. Thinking critically in down times helps forge the way toward a healthy future, but collectively burying our heads in the sand will most certainly stall a recovery.

This article published on Friday, July 15th, 2011 at 6:00 am | Contact the editor Tags: featured, real estate economy, Real Estate News

Category: Editorials

AgentGenius Editor-in-Chief: Lani, named one of Real Estate’s 100 Most Influencial, as well as 12 Most Influencial Women in Real Estate, is a business writer hailing from the great state of Texas in the city of Austin. As a digital native, Lani is immersed not only in advanced technologies and new media, but is also a stats nerd often burried in piles of reports. Lani is a proven leader, thoughtful speaker, and vested partner at AGBeat. You’ll often find her on Facebook and Twitter, so feel free to reach out and get to know her.

Email Lani Rosales

View the original article here