One of the disappointments that many industry watchers felt when Cyberhomes closed its doors was the loss of its president, John Mosey. He protected the MLS and Realtor agenda and their reputations, and did so with great integrity.

When MLS organizations were given stock options and up to $3 per listing in exchange for giving Realtor.com an exclusive edge, Cyberhomes, along with Homeseekers, and Homeadvisor were shut out of the listings game in hundreds of 130 top MLS organizations. Homeadvisor, for one, fought back with an aggressive broker direct policy. Meanwhile MLS organizations, now that Homestore had gone public, were eager to have the windfall continue. Many based their revenue models in part on collecting listings bounties, and some asked Homestore's competitors to pay up to $5 a listing. That's what they would need to entertain the idea of breaking their Gold Alliance contracts, you see, said some executives. All three of the major listings services declined. Let Homestore continue paying up to $3 a listing for exclusivity. For some, the listings wars were over, and new challenges lay ahead - namely the development of other tools for Realtors.

Mosey had three choices. Expose the MLS extortion for what it was. Go directly to brokers for listings and pay them and the MLS at stupefying cost to his company. Or fold. He tipped his hat on the way out and never once divulged the true reasons for his and Cyberhomes departure.

Now Mosey is head of a new corporation that serves Realtors. Will they show him the appreciation he deserves?

Hopefully they will when they see what he is bringing them - an indisputable way to way to save time and money on a daily task - booking listing appointments. Mosey has a new product to sell to Realtors - something they not only will use every day, but they'll soon wonder how they ever lived without.

Mosey's new company Callnetics Corporation combines the Internet with phone and voice technologies. The system receives and makes telephone calls to schedule and confirm showing appointments for real estate brokers, agents and their clients. At the same time, the system records and reports all activity and feedback for real-time reference online.

In case the beauty of that little idea didn't quite sink in, look at it this way. You have a central answering service that can be used via e-mail or phone to schedule showing appointments without having to track down the listing agent - ever. By virtue of using the service, the showing agent only has to provide security information in order to receive showing instructions. Feedback records show when the house was open and to whom, so listing agents have complete records to share with their sellers.

This may be where Mosey's gentlemanly behavior toward MLSs will get him invited back to the party. Now under pressure to provide real tools to harness the Internet, many MLSs are adding a rich array of IT services on a menu basis including productivity software and listings management that integrate with the MLS listings database. Imagine the possibilities! Showing agents make appointments and the listing agent gets an automatic report on all showings direct from Callnetics, courtesy of their very own MLS. Agents can schedule half a dozen showings with one phone call.

And in case MLSs turn up their noses, brokers can employ Callnetics without them as a phone cooperative, if you will. All it will take is one or two brokers in the area doing it and the rest will look like dinosaurs. It won't be long before everyone's on board. I doubt any MLS will want to be left out in the cold.

And who better to deploy such a product? If anyone has MLS and broker connections in this business, it's Mosey, and there's nobody who doesn't want to do business with a man of his word. And he has friends in the MLS information management business, too. Cyberhomes was part of VISTAinfo, one of the largest MLS information management system providers on the continent. I doubt Howard Latham, president of VISTAinfo, would turn down the prospect of a strategic partnership. Therefore, I predict some big announcements from this company, and soon.

"The potential for Callnetics Appointment Technologies System is huge," says Mosey with characteristic optimism. "Especially considering that an industry-wide deployment of Callnetics could save brokers more than $300 million per year in operating overheads. That number doesn’t even include the productivity gains realized by agents who can save as much as 30% of their time currently spent playing telephone tag around showing appointments."

This is a productivity solution I can't imagine anyone not liking, and therefore it gets my vote. Listing appointments are an essential part of the business and a centralized system for scheduling simply makes sense.

No, Callnetics won't be an ordinary start-up. And it's business model isn't limited to real estate. There is a real and immediate need and ready adoption of this product. Realtors don't have to change who they are or how they do things in order to use it. It's perfect.

And the best part is, Homestore isn't a competitor, so the company just might have a chance of making it! But Homestore also has a reputation for picking up good companies at bargain prices that can help build subscription revenues and bring more added value services to Realtors. But I wouldn't wait for a firesale on this one, Homestore. Better get out your checkbook while you can.

Published: March 7, 2001

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