Explore The Newest Features for The Nationwide Multiple Listing Service

Introduction: 

Dave: Hello and good afternoon. Welcome to StateListingsInc. The home of MyStateMLS, my name is Dave, and today we're talking about all things that are new for MyStateMLS.  

Dave: What that means is, we're going to be covering a whole bunch of different things that we're adding to the platform, that we've already added to the platform and things that are coming up down the pike very, very soon, that are going to enhance your user experience as a MyStateMLS member. I know we've got a lot of people on with us today.  

Question and Answer:

Dave: So the first thing I want to know is just how many of you with us today are MyStateMLS members, versus how many may not be members just yet? There's going to be no right or wrong answer to this question because if you're already a MyStateMLS member, you know what we're all about and today you're going to be able to learn about some of the things that you can start taking advantage of today as a MyStateMLS member. If you're not a MyStateMLS member, don't worry, this is still a great webinar for you because you're going to be able to learn about some of the things that we offer, that you may not be getting access to, from your local MLS and this may show you some of the things that you may want to utilize and consider and maybe even join MyStateMLS down the road.  

Dave: And it looks like about, we could say two-thirds to a third of people already members of MyStateMLS, versus those that are not members of MyStateMLS just yet and again there is no right or wrong answer because if you're here today you're going to be learning about things that you can start accessing through your MyStateMLS platform. If you're already a member and if not, these may be things that may entice you to becoming a MyStateMLS member whether in the near future or later down the road. 

Dave: So here's what we're going to be talking about today. We've broken things down into a couple of different chapters if we'll call them. First thing we're going to be talking about, some new tools and features that are going to help you up your game when it comes to taking on listings, putting listings into the platform then we're going to be talking about education, we all know that as licensed professionals in order to maintain that license, you have to go through CE classes, you have to do that continuing ed and what we've got coming up from MyStateMLS is surely going to help you not only keep your license active but expand your real estate knowledge down the road, through our continuing ed platform that we're going to be offering. Next, we're going to be talking about listing exposure, that's through our website design services as well as through our latest syndication partners that are going to allow you to get your listings on more platforms than ever before and the last thing I want to talk about is the thing we are so, so excited to talk about here at MyStateMLS and that's how MyStateMLS is going to be the first MLS that can pay you through our MLS Affiliate program. 

Dave: So a lot of stuff that we've got to talk about today. So we are very interested in showing you everything today, so without further ado, I want to jump in because we do have a lot of stuff to cover today. 

Dave: So let's first talk about some of these new features that we've got. The latest thing we've just launched this and I think It's really cool because It's just a lot of fun to play with too, whether or not you're in real estate or not and MyStateMLS is proud to have partnered with What3Words and what this tool does is, it substitutes traditional number street addresses with a unique combination of three different words to make it easier for users to find an exact location. So this is great for if you have rural properties that may not have a physical address yet or if you do work in New York City, addresses certainly can get confusing. We know in rural areas we can see properties that have strange addresses, they don't have addresses at all, where What3Words generates a three-word combination, to show you exactly where that property is and what we're going to be doing is, we're going to be joined by someone from What3Words in just a second but what I wanted to do is, I wanted to pull up MyStateMLS and I show you exactly where What3Words appears on listings, so as I said before this is perfect for rural properties because like at this one, we see a lot of properties where the address is just zero, zero and that's because It's either landlocked or It's a parcel that's going to be divided, so street addresses are going to be given later or it just never had a proper street address because it was just a vacant field, it wasn't a property, it never had a 911 address. 

Dave: So with What3Words, as you put your listing into MyStateMLS it generates this What3Words code here and so we can see for this property at 00, Randolph Road in Edmonton, Kentucky, Its three words are staying, explore, lurching, and if I click that, that's gonna pull up the What3Words platform and show me exactly where on a map this parcel is located and from here we could go ahead, we can pull up Waze, we can pull up Google maps and this can give us our driving instructions right to this property, so great when you're working with rural clients, rural customers, we can't find that exact location. By integrating What3Words into the MyStateMLS platform, you're going to make it so easy for anyone to find the property that they're looking for. So what I'm going to do now is, I want to welcome Ashley from what3words. She's going to tell us a little bit more about this cool platform and all the things you can do with it. Again, I had some fun with it earlier this week and what I was doing Ashley is, I was just going in and I was just putting in three random words just to see where it would take me in not just the U.S. but this is a worldwide platform, so with it, you can just map anywhere in the country. So we're going to do is, we're going to hand things over to Ashley so she can tell us a little bit more about What3Words and how it can help you boost your business. Ashley, take it away. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Ashley: Thank you so much. That was such a fantastic introduction and you went through many of the things that I wanted to touch on, so I really appreciate that how much work you've done and checking out and understanding What3Words. Thank you and so, I'm Ashley Kashan. I run our U.S. partnerships for What3Words, which is based in London and we're growing all around the world. So as I mentioned, What3Words is a global addressing system where we've given every 10-foot square in the entire world a unique three-word address, they already exist today, all of them, they're pre-assigned and so you can find these anywhere you go in the world. And so why did we do that? It sounds like you obviously know quite well, zero, zero is not an ideal address, and the existing addressing systems all around the world, they're not quite good enough. They're pretty good I mean, the U.S. we definitely have one of the best addressing systems but it doesn't help with every situation. There are a lot of really similar ones, so if you tell a client to meet you at 241st Street, that could be number two 41st street or two hundred, 41st street or there are different ways that that's captured, when you try to put it into a navigation system, numbers can be quite confusing, so I know New York is a place with a lot of listings and streets with numbers can be difficult as well and then as he was just mentioning, so many places don't have an address. So a rural area, a land parcel, a waterfront, lot places like that and in the urban centers you know, even new builds, so under construction, they won't have an address yet and then again lots of similar-sounding addresses, of course, they all have GPS coordinates, but using those is quite difficult and so that's where What3Words comes from. 

Ashley: We've actually used the GPS coordinate and given that a three-word address, so what our technology does is convert words to coordinates or coordinates to words and so on the MyStateMLS, those words you're seeing are related to the GPS coordinates that is in the system and so if for one of the properties you see, It's perhaps not at the right square, you would need you could choose a different square or give a different GPS coordinate for that listing so that you're showing the front door. 

Ashley: So you can see in this image, for example, Climate, Lectures, Liked, is the entrance to this Mercedes-Benz Stadium. It's going to have thousands of other addresses in this whole area right because every single 10-foot square has a unique address that's pre-assigned. So again, thinking about these properties, you want to get somebody to the front door or the driveway or a parking spot. You can give them that exact address much easier than saying one, one, three, eighteen minutes, you know those things are hard to repeat. So again, even in the large cities, so this example, in San Francisco, you want to get someone to the right entrance to a very large building or perhaps a parking area, you can give them the three-word address for that location. Also New York City, so again any location, anywhere in the world, every single 10-foot square has that three-word address. We have a free app, so if you see that three-word address on listing and then you need to get there exactly as you mentioned, you can send that over to Waze, Google, anything you use on your phone, up here you'll see a little speech-bubble, you hit that button and then you can speak the words in, Close, Point and Tire or you can type them in or you can send them as a hyperlink and they open directly. 

Ashley: So you send someone a text message saying, meet me for the viewing at Cloak, Point, and Tire and they can put that into the free app and hit navigate and get to that exact location, so this can be really helpful in getting to those exact spots. We also built something called, Auto Suggest Technology. You don't need to worry too much about this, It's in the back end but It's just to let you know that there are lots of similar-sounding combinations, we know that there are 57 trillion of these 10-foot squares and so with this, you can see that I misspelled Ideal Spoiling Yards, so perhaps someone tells me to meet them at Ideal Spoiling Yards, I mistyped that when I'm typing it, in our system will pick that up and say, okay, well did you mean Ideal Spoil Yards in Kentucky, you're about 187 miles away, 500 miles to Virginia, the third one's in Australia. I'm likely not going that far for reviewing, so I might have made another mistake and I can double-check that and It's helping me to see that I need to go, that I can get to the exact location, so that's just something to help catch any errors. 

Ashley: Just you know, we work with lots of different types of companies in the U.S. The biggest user so far is actually the 9-1-1. So when reporting an emergency, people can give a three-word address for that exact location but we also work with people like Car Companies, so you can navigate to locations. This is going to continue to grow. So again, saying to your clients meet you at Look, Opponent, Sedated, if they have one of the newer Mercedes and they have the infotainment system, they can speak those words into their car and drive to that exact location. Also in the new Mitsubishi that's launching this year, they can use What3Words there as well. So really neat that there are other ways that people can use these three words really simply, to get to those locations. 

Ashley: This is another Real Estate partnership and again, they're talking to their clients about where to park, where to put the for sale sign, where is the front door. So you can use What3Words for all kinds of things when you're thinking about listings if It's a bigger property or something where you've got different places you need to talk about, same thing for parking. We also work with Parking Partners, so again you know is there a certain place that you should park to get to this property, or is it a parking lot or a place that hasn't been built yet. So again, What3Words is useful for lots of different situations and we also work with travel and tourism partners, you can see It's starting to be listed in North Carolina, Arizona, and other places. So again, this is just kind of showing that in action, of how simple it is, ten-foot squares are about the size of a parking spot, so if you're showing this building here, you can say, meet me at Worlds Shelving Hero and get to that exact location. And thank you again, for showing that great demo. That's exactly what I wanted to just kind of highlight here, is that It's there on the listings, so you can see it right there, it actually clicks out, It's a hyperlink, so you can click out straight to see exactly where that is. So there's that 10-foot square on 38th street and New York. 

Ashley: So you can see that exact location, so if I go back, Drama Labels Army is this exact ten-foot square there. So if I click on any of these other squares, you'll get a different three-word address for those locations. So that's it for my Site. 

Dave: Thank you so much for joining us today and showing us that. Like I said, I've had a lot of fun doing this just when I was playing around with it and just putting in random words, just to kind of see what would come up and see where in the country things would appear. 

Ashley: Well thank you so much for having me. 

Dave: Oh of course. Thank you so much for joining us. So what I'm going to do now is, we're going to go back to my view here, we're going to share my screen and we're going to keep things going. So again, Ashley, thank you so much for joining us. I've had so much fun playing with What3Words. As we already mentioned, What3Words is already live on all of the listings within MyStateMLS, so you're not going to have to worry about anything extra and what it does is when you put your listing into the MyStateMLS platform, you know that when you put your listing in, you can select exactly on the map where that property is located and since you're selecting that exact pinpoint on that map, that's automatically gonna sync up with the What3Words platform and create that What3Words address for that particular listing. So that way when anyone views this listing from the public, they're gonna be able to go ahead click on that link and that's gonna pull up that website right from What3Words, where they can go ahead, pull up the Google maps and get the exact driving instructions to that property. For me, it looks like I've got quite the drive ahead of me, so let's keep going and talking about the other features that we are proud to have here at MyStateMLS.

Dave: 2020 certainly changed the way people did a lot of business, especially with Real Estate, even though Covid 19, the coronavirus shut down most of the world transactions, were still happening, people were still buying houses, people were still selling houses and in order to make those transactions easier, a lot of brokers, a lot of agents started to embrace electronic documents and MyStateMLS is happy to have been one of the MLS platforms to partner with Constellation 1 to integrate their rDocs platform to their accounts. With rDocs, you're gonna have access to all of the MyStateMLS documents, to be electronically signed by your customers and clients, you also have the ability to go in and upload your own documents to the platform, so that way your customers and clients can go ahead and get those signed. So again, we make it very easy for you to send those documents, they can be viewed and of course signed by all of your clients, all of your customers. If you're interested in getting access to the Constellation 1 rDocs platform, all you have to do is click on the digital docs link on the left-hand sidebar menu of your account, you're going to see it says digital docs right there. You're going to be able to click on that and when that's going to take you through, is all of the information about the rDocs platform. Before you get started, we do recommend you do watch that little overview video, It's going to show you exactly how it works, you can also watch some of the other training videos that we do offer and we do offer a free trial to this rDocs platform as well. So if you are interested in being able to use electronic documents for signing, viewing by your customers and clients, we strongly suggest you go ahead and try the digital docs platform that we've now integrated from Constellation 1. Again, if you haven't used this already, just log on to your MyStateMLS account and click on digital docs, there on the bottom of your left-hand sidebar menu, and with that, that wraps up our first chapter of brand new features of MyStateMLS.

Dave:  We're going to keep things going now and we are going to talk about continuing education. In order to keep your license active, you have to take CE courses, you know there are so many different CE courses available in each different state. You're not required to take all of them but the ones that you are required to take, they can be pricey. That's why we're happy to have partnered with the CE Shop to offer you discounted continuing Ed classes, so you can keep your license active. And what's cool about the CE Shop is, they offer discounted courses from different states across the entire country and we've actually did some comparisons in some of the different states, where one course in one state offered by the state was over a hundred dollars but that same exact course offered through the CE Shop platform of MyStateMLS was actually half off, essentially by going through the CE Shop. So It's going to allow you to take those classes that are required to keep your license active as well as expand your knowledge because again the beauty of CE is, It's gonna continue to teach you things. You don't just take your real estate license courses once, you don't take that five hour one time and that's it, you don't learn anything new, we know there's people out there they say, they want to learn something new every single day. With the CE Shop, you can go ahead and take a plethora of continuing Ed courses. So you can expand your real estate knowledge and while It's not officially live just yet. The CE Shop for MyStateMLS members will be available this summer. 

Dave: What I've done is, I've actually just quickly pulled up the platform here. Here is going to be the MyStateMLS store for the CE Shop, this is where MyStateMLS members are going to be able to take advantage of all those discounted CE courses offered by The CE Shop, and what we can do is, we can see, we can click on find your market and you're going to be able to get different tests from all of these different states. This is especially great for those brokers that are licensed in multiple states, instead of having to bounce back and forth and try to figure out what state you need to go to, for which class, try to find the website from whichever state, here's everything you need to know. You just log into the CE Shop store from the MyStateMLS platform, pick your state and you're going to be able to then go through and pick out which CE courses you need to take. So here I am in New York right now, so we can do all the different classes we can have, we have our pre-licensing, the exam prep, then of course the CE. So, so many different things that we have available through the CE Shop that you're going to be able to take advantage of through your MyStateMLS. So make sure you stick around and definitely take advantage of that. 

Dave: Next thing I want to talk about today is Listing Exposure. We know that as Real Estate professionals, It's super hard to get your listings out to as many places as possible. When you put your listing in, you want it to be seen by as many people as possible and what we're going to talk about today is some of the different websites that cater to specific markets. So what I want to do is, I just want to take a quick poll of everyone right now and ask if you list commercial Real Estate? So right now on your screen, you should have that poll there in front of you. Let me know if you do commercial Real Estate, so are you doing commercial leases? Are you selling commercial buildings? We know it is a very niche market, some people may not do commercial listings at all because they know that there is limited exposure because we know that sites like Realtor.com, Zillow and Trulia, they do not cater to the Commercial Real Estate market. So for brokers that want to sell commercial listings, it can certainly be very tough for them. So let's go ahead and pull up those results and we can see that just a third of you right now, just over a third do Commercial Listings, whereas two-thirds do not touch it at all, and again, that could be for a variety of reasons. Mainly, it might be because you understand that It's hard to get exposure for Commercial Listings but MyStateMLS has the solution for you because we are always adding new syndication partner sites to give our members the most exposure on their listings and one of the latest sites that we've partnered with is Brevitas.com. 

Dave: So now as commercial agents, you can now take advantage of listing syndication to the Brevitas.com website, which is designed for commercial listings. So now you don't have to worry about where is this listing going to go? How am I going to get it seen by the public? Because Brevitas.com is a site designed specifically for commercial listings. So if you answered no to that poll and you said, I don't do commercial listings because I don't know where they can go, I don't know how to market them. MyStateMLS and our partnership with Brevitas could be the solution you're looking for when it comes to sending out your listings. 

Dave: So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to go back to my screen here and what I've done is, I just went ahead and I pulled up a couple different listings from the MyStateMLS platform that are commercial properties. So here we can see a nice, very large commercial building in Miami Florida, listed at 3.2 million dollars. Typically this is a commercial listing. Where could we get the exposure we're looking for? Well, thanks to Brevitas.com, we can see that commercial listing right here on their site, listed at that full price, and what's really great about our partnership with Brevitas is, we strongly believe in your listing, your lead. So that means, as we look at this listing, we can see that Shannon was the one that listed the property and when we go to  Brevitas, we can see Shannon is listed here on the website and if I was to go ahead and fill out this Request more information, my information is going to go directly to Shannon because It's her listing. So It's her listing, her lead. 

Dave: Let's go to another property, another big commercial building in North Carolina. This one, actually an Auction listing and we can see this one's got an estimated value of 1.5, here it is again on Brevitas's website, we can see all of the photos that they've uploaded and again Jennifer's name and contact right here. So we can fill this out and that's going to go right to her. 

Dave: Now I want to know if you list or work with Modular Mobile, Land Leased properties? So up on your screen now is another poll. I want to know if you do Mobile or Modular properties? Those many of you know, listing Modular and Mobile properties slightly different than traditional Real Estate, it doesn't require a traditional Real Estate License per se, Some states do have specific dealer licenses but the thing is Modular Mobile Homes are slightly different because they're traditionally on land lease, so we're going to talk about today is a new Partnership that can allow those dealing with Modular and Manufactured Homes and how they can get more exposure on those listings. So it looks like a majority of you with us today, are not dealing with Modular Manufactured Land Lease properties and that's okay. Again, not everyone deals in certain types of properties but for the few of you that did say, you do list Modular and Manufactured Listings, this next section is all about you guys because today we're talking about exposure for your Modular listings, where MyStateMLS is the proud supporter of MH Authority.

Dave: That's right MH Authority is the newest site designed specifically for Modular and Mobile Homes and right now the only way to get your listings on MH Authority is through MyStateMLS. So if you've been doing Land Lease Modular Mobile Homes and you haven't had a way to get your listings out to the public, MyStateMLS is certainly the way to do it. So if you haven't checked out the site yet head on over to mhauthority.com and take a look at this awesome site designed for Mobile and Modular Homes and just like we did with Brevitas, I pulled up a couple land lease properties that are already in the MyStateMLS platform. 

Dave: So here's one in Vero Beach, Florida and I've also pulled it up here on MH Authority as well. Again, all the information about that property here and again, we strongly believe in your listing, your lead. So if we were to fill out this Request more information field that's going to go directly to Charles Mallory at Four Star Homes. Next is another property, this one also in Florida, this one in Fort Myers though, and we can see all of the photos, as they were added by the listing agent here and the same goes for when we go on MH Authority, all those photos here and if we were to fill out that information that's going to go right to Carol because again, we believe in your listing, your lead. If you also work in the Land Lease Properties, MH Authority is not the only site that we do syndicate these types of properties to. We are able to syndicate Mobile and Modular Homes to a variety of sites across the country, including those biggest sites Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com. 

Dave: Last thing I want to talk about today. When we're talking about Listing exposure and that is having a good Website. Amanda has talked in great length over the past two weeks about our online presence, whether It's social media or our websites and MyStateMLS offers website design and hosting services to all of our members and the benefit of having a MyStateMLS designed website is, It's going to connect automatically to the MyStateMLS. So that means anytime a new listing is put into the platform, anytime you add new agents to your roster, that's automatically going to update on your company website. So new listings will automatically populate, agent bios will automatically populate and It's all because your website is tied in directly to the MyStateMLS. 

Dave: What I've done here is, I've just gone ahead and I've pulled up a couple different websites that utilize MyStateMLS. So the first one here is mhfloridaliving.com, this is one of the newer sites that we've created. They cater to Mobile and Manufactured Homes in Florida and what they've done is, they've created this entire spec for how they wanted their website to look and we've designed it exactly to their wants and needs and for those that caught Amanda's webinar earlier this month about websites, we know that having a basic website is integral to expanding and growing your business and when it comes to having a website, it does not need to have every single bell and whistle that you can think of because sometimes having too much can be overwhelming to a visitor and it may just turn them away, so It's best to have as simple as possible but still having all the information that you want to have on your website. 

Dave: So on this website, we can see that they've created a special page called Florida Lifestyle and what this does is, they've laid out what it really means to have that Florida Style of living, and of course at the bottom, it takes us right down to a contact form, where that's going to allow us to contact this company directly and this is a great way for them to collect leads, whether I'm buying or selling or I'm just interested in knowing more. Having a website and having this contact page is a great way for you to generate leads as a business. I'm going to pull up another website, this one Flateau Realty these guys based in New York City and as I said before, the beauty of having a website tied into the MLS is, It's going to allow you to give your viewers and your visitors' ways to search for listings across the entire state in which you're based, so I can pull up any of these listings from Bayside and even if this property was not listed by this brokerage, if I fill out this information here, that's going to go directly to that broker. So It's going to go right to the Flateau Realty main office, so they're going to collect the lead even though this listing isn't theirs. So a website certainly a great way for you to go ahead and generate leads, generate business, and as Amanda has talked about in previous webinars, having an online presence is incredibly, incredibly important. 

Dave: And now our final step. Something that I am so incredibly excited to talk about and that is making money with MyStateMLS. Typically you pay your MLS hundreds and hundreds of dollars every single year, but what if the tables were turned? And your MLS actually paid you? So we are happy to announce MLS Affiliate and what this is, is this is a brand new program that allows you to make money by recommending MyStateMLS to other Real Estate professionals and how it works is, MLS Affiliate will pay you every time you refer another Real Estate professional to join or use MyStateMLS and as your referrals sign up and bring on new members you can make even more. So kind of just showing you how it works is, let's say you join MLS Affiliate, you get an MLS Affiliate member to join and then the two of you sign on new MyStateMLS members, every time that you go ahead and sign up those new members, those new Affiliates, you're going to be able to make money on each one of those transactions and while we are proud to announce this, what I'm going to do now is give you your first look and give you a little teaser trailer about what MLS Affiliate really is. 

Trailer Video:

Dave: You've been paying for your MLS for years but what if your MLS paid you? MyStateMLS is the first Nationwide Multiple Listing Service with members in all 50 states in Puerto Rico. Members have been the center of MyStateMLS's business from the very beginning and now It's time to give back. Meet MLS Affiliate, where influential members of the Real Estate community have a unique opportunity to generate passive income, just by recommending the best tools in the Real Estate Industry. Here's how it works, MLS Affiliate shares revenue with Affiliate members by rewarding them with direct payments every time they refer qualified members who purchase MLS services. Affiliates can receive referral fees from their direct sales as well as for sales made by Affiliates, who join the program using their direct custom Affiliate link. MyStateMLS and MLS Affiliate believe in giving you more for your money, that means the latest tools and technology, backed by excellent customer service and protected with common sense rules. So are you ready to grow with us? For more information visit us at mlsaffiliate.com.

Trailer Video Ended

Wrap Up:

Dave: Awesome. So that's your little teaser trailer into what MLS Affiliate is. Again, we are just doing the pilot program for this right now. So I want to know and I want to ask you if you're interested in MLS Affiliate? If you are interested in being able to make money, by using MyStateMLS, sharing it with other Real Estate Professionals, and making money by being part of an MLS. Please send me an email at dave@mystatemls.com or if you'd like give me a call at 888-769-7657. I want to thank you so much for joining me. We covered a lot of different topics, covering all of the new features that are now available or coming soon and I can't tell you how excited I am for all of these features. Until the next time. Have a great day and we hope to see you on MyStateMLS very soon. Alright, bye.