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DocuSign Acquires Cartavi
DocuSign partners with Cartavi to simplify real estate transactions.
DocuSign, the Global Standard for eSignature, announced that it has acquired Cartavi, a leading provider of collaboration services for real estate transactions. This combination, along with a deeper integration with existing partner, zipLogix, will allow users to easily and securely manage end-to-end real estate transactions anytime, anywhere, on any device – complete with forms, collaboration and eSignature in one.
“Our real estate customers want a comprehensive and easy-to-use solution for managing transactions from listing to handing off the keys,” Keith Krach, chairman and CEO of DocuSign, said. “Combining Cartavi’s technology and zipLogix’s dominant forms management with DocuSign’s eSignature solution advances our leadership in real estate by futher streamlining transactions to make it easier, faster and more convenient than ever to complete deals.”
DocuSign’s acquisition of Cartavi comes after an 18-month strategic partnership where the companies developed joint solutions to help real estate professionals accelerate speed to results, reduce costs and please clients. DocuSign’s longer partnership with zipLogix builds upon an existing eight-year integration where zipLogix customers have been able to DocuSign directly from zipForm. Now, customers will be able to use all three industry-leading products in combination over the web, on tablets, and mobile phones. Further integration is planned to make it even easier for all parties involved in real estate transactions to close deals faster.
“Our mission when we established Cartavi was to fundamentally improve outdated and hard-to-use real estate transaction management technology,” Glenn Shimkus, Cartavi CEO and co-founder, said. “We simplified the experience by taking a cloud-based mobile-first approach that supports the busy, on-the-go lifestyle of real estate professionals and the tremendous complexity of their transactions.”
DocuSign and Cartavi will continue to operate within their existing office spaces while collaborating with zipLogix on further integration of their solutions. Cartavi will officially change its name to Cartavi, A DocuSign Company. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Article via Chicago Agent Magazine
100 Million Online Consumers to Attend MREDpalooza
Top Real Estate Websites On Board For Huge Summer Event
LISLE, ILLINOIS (May 6, 2013) – Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED), Chicagoland’s multiple listing service (MLS), has announced that national home search websites Zillow, realtor.com, and Homes.com are sponsoring and attending MREDpalooza, the largest free real estate tech expo in the country. Zillow and realtor.com are ZAP! level sponsors, and Homes.com is a ZOINK! level sponsor. They join Trulia.com, which MRED earlier announced as a POW! sponsor, MREDpalooza’s highest level of sponsorship.
Also sponsoring at the ZOINK! Level and attending are mega real estate brokerages Coldwell Banker Residential and Baird & Warner. Each has a significant presence in the Chicagoland real estate market with their own web-based home search tools. Combining the number of visitors to each of these major player’s websites delivers over 100 million consumers every month.
“We are pleased to participate as a sponsor of MREDpalooza and looking forward to seeing many MRED members at this event,” said Susan Young, Senior Manager of realtor.com, Industry Relations. “We will demonstrate the many free realtor.com benefits that they will want to use, especially the new Find application. MRED members will want to take full advantage of this free research tool when it becomes available to them next week.
“Zillow is the leading home and real estate-related marketplace on mobile and the Web, dedicated to helping home shoppers, sellers and renters find vital information about homes, and connect with the best local professionals,” said Chris Crocker, Vice-President of Partner Relations for Zillow. “We are excited to be a sponsor of MREDpalooza and showcase our newest suite of tools to help real estate agents attract and retain new and current clients.”
“Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage is proud to partner with MRED and sponsor MREDpalooza,” said Fran Broude, President and Chief Operating Officer of Coldwell Banker Residential. “In one of the most rapidly changing eras of real estate technology, tools and training, an event such as this championed by one of the most forward thinking MLS organizations in the country is exactly what all Chicagoland real estate agents need.”
“We’re pleased to support MRED in its efforts to provide a continued focus on technology,” said Jennifer Alter Warden, President of Residential Sales for Baird & Warner. “We’re especially excited for this opportunity to introduce our suite of innovative tools that enable broker associates to work whenever, wherever and however they want.”
“We are thrilled that all of the major players in real estate share our conviction that MREDpalooza is the place to be this June” said MRED CEO Russ Bergeron. “MRED customers are going to have the opportunity to meet, be trained by, and learn about the greatest real estate organizations and tools in the business. MREDpalooza is officially a ‘can’t miss’ event.”
MRED still has a few sponsorship and exhibiting opportunities available. All MREDpalooza participants will enjoy significant interaction with thousands of MRED’s customers.
About MREDpalooza
MREDpalooza is the largest free real estate tech expo in the country. Taking place Tuesday, June 18, 2013, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois, MREDpalooza will be a great opportunity for MRED’s customers to learn, at no cost, about a myriad of real estate products and services to enhance their businesses.
MRED is planning for several thousand attendees and scores of vendors, many of whom have already committed to attending. Training sessions and demos will be offered throughout the day, providing more in-depth understanding of many of the products and services. Those wishing to attend or exhibit at MREDpalooza are asked to visit MREDpalooza.com for free registration and sponsorship information.
About MRED
Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) is the real estate data aggregator and distributor providing the Chicagoland multiple listing service (MLS) to nearly 40,000 brokers and appraisers and 8,000 offices. MRED serves Chicago and the surrounding “collar” counties and provides property information encompassing northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin and northwest Indiana. MRED delivers over twenty products and services to its customers, complementing connectMLS™, the top-rated MLS system in the country per the latest WAV Group MLS Technology Survey. For more information please visit MREDLLC.com.
Gallup: Latest Data on Homeownership [Infographic]
The Top 5 Reasons People Buy via KCM Blog
FSBO? What You Should Know Before Trying [Infographic]
What a Homeowner should know before FSBOing via KCM Blog
Chicago Real Estate Was Awesome in March
We may have had ridiculously cold weather in March, but the heat in the real estate market more than made up for that. Prices popped: In Chicago, the median sale price was 8.9 percent above where it had been a year before, and for the nine-county region, it was up 2.2 percent, according to Illinois Association of Realtors data released Monday. And the time it took to get a house sold was a little more than 20 percent faster than it had been in March 2013.
In fact, March was so good in Chicago real estate that for once, our recent tendency to be the opposite of the national norm was to our advantage: On the national scene, the number of homes sold in March was down 0.6 percent from February. Here, March was up 33 percent from February.
“Poor Chicago”? I think not.
After lagging behind much of the nation’s real estate recovery, Chicago’s recovery may finally be taking root. “A lot of places have already gone where we’re going now,” says Russ Bergeron, the CEO of Midwest Real Estate Data.
Data that MRED’s Gayle Ludemann compiled for me late last week gets into detail about what happened in March. A few things stand out:
• The proportion of distressed sales dropped. In March, 43 percent of the homes sold in the Chicago area were foreclosures or short sales. That’s down from 47.2 percent the month before, and down from 45.9 percent in March 2012. (There were more homes of those types sold, but the increase in the sales of non-distressed homes was even bigger, so their share of the market shrank.)
That’s a sign that we’re moving back toward a market where distress isn’t such a dragging-down factor for sellers whose homes aren’t in distress. “Moving,” not “moved.” We’re still at more than two out of five homes selling in distress.
• Asking prices are going up much faster than selling prices. In the chart above, the green line shows asking prices and the red is selling prices. The way the spread between them has grown in the past few months worries me: I’m concerned that sellers may be too happy about the turn in the market, and in their enthusiasm could ask too much, leading to a whole new dip when buyers refuse to reach for it.
While sellers may be better able to sell now because rising home values have lifted more of them up from underwater, many sellers are still holding out for a time when prices are even higher, according to this analysis and others.
But Bergeron sees the leap in asking prices as potentially a good sign: “I think sellers are feeling more confident,” he says. “Hopefully they’ll start getting some of those prices, [because] what we’ve been lacking is seller confidence.” Buyers have been very confident, because of the combination of low prices and low interest rates making this the perfect time to buy. But “a lot of sellers have been sitting back waiting to get their best deal,” he notes.
• Are sellers getting better deals now than they were a year ago? It depends on what they’re looking for. They’re certainly getting their homes sold faster: homes that weren’t in distress sold in an average of 140 days in March. That’s 38 percent faster this March than last year.
But on price, ‘better’ is not such a clear term. MRED’s data show that non-distressed sellers are getting a better percentage of their asking price: In March 2012, they were selling at 88.57% of their original list price; a year later, that had gone up a little less than three percentage points, with sellers getting 91.2% of their original asking price. But the average sale price on traditional, non-distressed homes rose a less than one percent in the same period. This suggests that sellers are doing better in part because they’ve cut their expectations.
And that loops us back to the past few months’ growing gap between asking and selling prices. Let’s all keep our eyes on how that gap changes in the next couple of months, okay?
Article via Chicago Magazine
Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) Three-Peats with Top Help Desk Award
Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED), the Chicagoland multiple listing service (MLS), is pleased to announce that its Technical Help Desk has been recognized as one of the Top 50 Call Centers in the United States and Canada by BenchmarkPortal for the third consecutive year. MRED’s Help Desk has been identified as one of the best small centers in the category of organizations having 5 to100 full-time call center personnel.
Since 1995, BenchmarkPortal has conducted annual statistical analyses of call center operations throughout the world. BenchmarkPortal hosts the world’s largest call center metrics database in conjunction with the Center for Customer Driven Quality located at Purdue Research Park, Purdue University. The BenchmarkPortal team of professionals has gained international recognition for its call center expertise and innovative approaches to Best Practices for the call center industry.
BenchmarkPortal compares the performance of contact centers throughout North America by evaluating their key metrics against industry peers, to objectively identify centers who are achieving superior results both in financial and qualitative terms.
“MRED’s Help Desk is among the best in its industry,” said Bruce Belfiore, CEO of BenchmarkPortal. “This award was granted on the basis of objective, metrics-driven performance. MRED stood tall against its competitors according to the world’s largest database of call center metrics. This is not easy to do, and we congratulate them on their accomplishment.”
“MRED celebrates the continued excellence of our Help Desk,” said Russ Bergeron, CEO of MRED. “We have a substantial commitment to customer service, and it is gratifying to see our efforts and dedication recognized annually by such a prestigious organization as BenchmarkPortal. I am proud of MRED’s Help Desk Manager Stephanie Abrams and every single one of our Help Desk staff members, who are on the front lines serving our real estate professionals.”
About MRED
Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) is the real estate data aggregator and distributor providing the Chicagoland multiple listing service (MLS) to nearly 40,000 brokers and appraisers and 8,000 offices. MRED serves Chicago and the surrounding “collar” counties and provides property information encompassing northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin and northwest Indiana. MRED delivers over twenty products and services to its customers, complementing connectMLS™, the top-rated MLS system in the country per the latest WAV Group MLS Technology Survey. For more information please visit MREDLLC.com.
About BenchmarkPortal
BenchmarkPortal’s activities began in 1995, and it is now a global leader in the contact center industry, providing benchmarking, certification, training, consulting and research. The BenchmarkPortal team of professionals has gained international recognition for its innovative approach to best practices for contact centers. BenchmarkPortal hosts the world’s largest database of contact center metrics, which is constantly being refreshed with new data. BenchmarkPortal’s mission is to provide contact center managers with the tools and information that will help them optimize their efficiency and effectiveness in their customer communications. For more information, please call 1-800-214-8929 or visit BenchmarkPortal.com.
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