Agents who create listing presentations with Cloud CMA are about to get a new edge in their efforts to win clients thanks to a new integration with data firm Buyside.
The integration, which was announced Tuesday, will let agents directly incorporate Buyside’s real-time market data into their presentations. Pennsylvania-based Buyside compiles data from online portals, open house software and various other sources to identify how many people are looking for a particular type of property at any given moment.
A screenshot showing the new integration. Credit: Cloud CMA
Company founder and CEO Charles Williams told Inman that the approach contrasts with traditional comps, which look at past sales not at the future, and that it represents a huge advantage for agents trying to win listings.
“Its just so impactful to use real time data,” he said. “It’s hard to argue with data.”
In the past, agents could come to listing presentations with both data from Buyside as well as a presentation report created using Cloud CMA — a comparative market analysis tool from W+R Studios. But the Buyside data and the Cloud CMA were separate items that had to be created independently.
Charles Williams
Now, however, that’s no longer the case.
“This makes it streamlined so the agent has one tool,” Williams said.
W+R Studios co-founder Greg Robertson added that the partnership with Buyside represents an effort to break down real estate’s “silos” that often keep different information and applications separate.
Greg Robertson
“What we’ve been actively doing is trying to connect with outside sources to give the agent even more capabilities,” he added.
The new data integrations are available, for no additional cost, to any real estate professionals who already use both Buyside and Cloud CMA.
Buyside currently serves more than 200,000 agents in about 900 brokerages. Robertson said that there are currently more than 500,000 Cloud CMA subscribers and that his company currently produces more than 260,000 presentation reports per month — though he didn’t know exactly how many people are already using both his company’s product and Buyside.
For many agents, Cloud CMA is included as part of their multiple listing service (MLS) membership dues. For everyone else, it costs $45 per month. Buyside’s data is available only to brokerages, not individual agents, and prices vary depending on the services a given client wants.
A screenshot showing the new integration. Credit: Cloud CMA
The new integration doesn’t include a profit sharing agreement, meaning both companies will continue to make money as they have in the past via subscribers.
Robertson characterized the Buyside integration Tuesday as a continuation of W+R Studios’ efforts to build better tools for agents. That project had previously advanced in October, when Cloud CMA began integrating offers from iBuying giant Opendoor in Phoenix and Atlanta. The idea was to let agents in those two cities walk into a listing presentation with a potential offer already on the table.
In 2018, W+R Studios also debuted a feature that allowed agents using Cloud CMA to connect sellers with investors who could make cash offers.
Robertson said Tuesday that the iBuyer features and the new Buyside integration are part of his company’s efforts to team up with the best partners.
“We’re here to help the agent,” he said. “We know that we can’t do everything, so we want to find the right people, like Buyside.”
Williams said that he too was excited by the new partnership, and praised Robertson for building “a great user experience.”
“It’s a great looking report,” Williams added of Cloud CMA. “It has great adoption, and great penetration. He’s built a great following.”
Correction: W+R Studios’ feature that connects sellers to cash investors launched in 2018. This post originally misstated the year it debuted.
