Ask Technical Terry is a series RMLS™ aims to offer once a month. RMLS™ subscribers will drive the content—submit any question about RMLS™ to Technical Terry in the comments or by emailing communications@rmls.com. Don’t be shy—we won’t identify you by name.
Dear TT,
RMLS™ has done a great job finding products that provide great benefit to its REALTOR® subscribers, but at times it seems like there are just too many options! It seems like we have new tools to learn on a daily basis. Just recently I went to a training session for a new product called Remine, and now I understand there is another product coming soon called Homesnap. Can you tell me why I would choose one over the other? What are the differences?
Overloaded in Orenco
Dear OO,
Understood completely! It’s not just you—it’s even a challenge for our support and training staff to keep abreast of the rapid pace of innovation around RMLS™ these days.
Here’s a brief overview of the products you mention above.
Homesnap Pro
Homesnap Pro combines agent-only MLS data on a web portal with a mobile app for use in the field.
- Provides real-time information to agents on the go, giving them the flexibility to research homes, interact with each other, and collaborate with clients from their mobile devices. Agents and consumers can use the same platform to seamlessly share real estate information and communicate directly.
- Additional features of Homesnap Pro include real-time access to agent-only MLS information, information about any home, messaging with clients and agents, customized email marketing, CMA generation from a mobile device, and information about other agents.
Remine
Remine provides some of the same capabilities as Homesnap, but it really excels more for data mining. This means Remine provides users the ability to “watch” homes, neighborhoods, and people to best understand market motivation. Users can use this data to scientifically allocate marketing efforts toward specific properties or people that indicate potential motivation.
Remine has three main components on its app: Discover, Track, and Engage.
- Discover: This is the map, where you can use layers to narrow down properties you want to target and set up farming areas to find opportunities.
- Track: This is the list of properties and people you’re tracking. You can upload contacts to track data that will help you prioritize who you should reach out to, and when to reach out. You can use this page to export spreadsheets to use for mailers, call lists, or email campaigns.
- Engage: This is your client dashboard, where you can keep track of your clients’ activities, invite new clients, and manage your leads.
Both Homesnap and Remine provide great benefits, but they have different strenghts. Homesnap provides great tools to engage clients, and Remine specializes in farming activities. Both products have amazing support portals available, containing plenty of how-tos in both written and video formats, there to help you decide which might work best for you.
The RMLS™ trainers are developing classes for both products, so keep your eyes on your local training calendar in the coming months!
TT
Hey Ask Technical Terry!
Homesnap seems like it’s going to be great for my workflow and working with my clients! My assistant told me that RMLS.com will be going away because of Homesnap—is this true?
Snappin’ for Homesnap
Hey Snappin’!
It is true: RMLS.com will redirect to Homesnap’s Broker Public Portal once RMLS™ rolls out the project on May 7th! We recently published a video about the change:
It’ll be a big change, but one that we think will better serve our REALTOR® subscribers and their clients. We can’t wait to hear what you think once Homesnap is live!
Ask Technical Terry
I received 3 saved searches from Remine this morning. I can’t figure out how to find out who it is. There is nothing in my contacts or in any of the other categories on my dashboard. How do I find out who it is? Did they come directly through Remine or another search platform? Thank you.
Great question, Betty! I’ll have someone from the RMLS™ Help Desk contact you directly.
HomeSnap has terrible online reviews. This is also a lead generation platform. Does RMLS receive a portion of the income generated from buying leads or advertising campaigns?
Hello Angela: RMLS™ pays Homesnap $1 per subscriber per month for the service, which provides features subscribers had been requesting for some time. We receive absolutely nothing from any leads generated.
There has been a rapid push in the industry for MLS’s to join with Sawbuck Realty (aka Homesnap) https://www.homesnap.com/about/pr/080611 to use Sawbuck Realty’s search platform. It seems like this is a conflict of interest for the usually neutral MLS platform to financially support just one real estate company.
In addition, there is quite an aggressive push to enter all our contact information and data mining portions like the CRM tools of Homesnap in the training and in articles like this https://rismedia.com/2019/07/02/mls-disruption/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=eNews .
For years Homesnap tried focus getting the broker to use the product but was not seeing the kind of growth they wanted so they switched their focus to the MLS’s but I feel like the MLS has made a sweeping decision for something the brokers by and large did not see the value when given the option.