eNeighborhoods has acquired Homestore's WyldFyre division, which "provides listing management solutions for MLSs and their members. WyldFyre products allow real estate professionals to access, display and manipulate property information, photos and maps online or on their desktop. The company also has a product called MLSAlliance which allows MLSs to share listing data without having to merge.

The purchase price was $8.5 million, a figure that should have Homestore investors rejoicing as it brings more cash to the coffers and allows the company to "focus on our continuing, staged investment program in core media and advertising solutions for the real estate industry, including Realtor.com, HomeBuilder.com, RENTNET and Welcome Wagon, along with software that allows our real estate customers to manage relationships with their prospective and current customers more effectively," said Mike Long, chief executive officer of Homestore.

That could be a hint that the lead management idea that Homestore execs floated by the National Association of Realtors isn't dead yet. If lead management could be a module added to an improved Top Producer, much like a transaction module, Homestore's agent productivity software, and sold on a subscription basis, the possibilities for synergy between listings management, advertising, and customer relationship management could be fingertip-controllable with such a program. However, that conjecture hasn't been confirmed by Homestore, which is likely to stay mum until after the NAR convention in Orlando the first week of November.

eNeighborhoods founder Stu Siegel bought the assets of the entire WyldFyre business through a wholly-owned subsidiary (Wyld Acquisition Corp.) of Siegel Enterprises, Inc. for the purpose of benefiting another subsidiary, eNeighborhoods. The acquisition included "the people, the office, the furniture, computers, intellectual property, trademarks, and the technology," says Siegel.

The company's origins were as a software provider of desktop interface products to MLS legacy system designers such as Interealty. The company continued to innovate with RETS interfaces and parallel systems and Web-based systems with modules of great utility such as CMAPro. The innovative MLSAlliance system is a reciprocity/cooperative between MLS systems, where there has not been consolidation of the real estate or broker associations who run the MLSs.

"Generally WyldFyre was pretty independent of the rest of Homestore," notes Siegel. "The day-to-day Realtors believe WyldFyre is their MLS."

So how does WyldFyre dovetail into a company known for its marketing tools to Realtors? eNeighborhood's tools "enable real estate professionals to easily blend MLS data with detailed neighborhood information to create highly effective marketing materials," says the boilerplate.

"WyldFyre has given easy access to MLSs and creating marketing output is where eNeighborhoods has been strong. We also access MLSs and create marketing output and compile data that we combine with MLS data, like school information and home values and create similar output like a CMA in a flyer module. Where the advantages come is to have the tight MLS interface, and right now we feel that the primary system Realtors use everyday is the MLS. They don't need eNeighborhods except if it enhances that core technology solution, so our plan is to produce integration.

"Another important feature is a distributed database," says Siegel, "when you sync your palm with your computer. WyldFyre synchronizes your computer with the MLS and downloads it onto your local computer and every time it hits the sync button it updates the information from the MLS. Now, with laptops, Realtors have the entire geography on their laptop, and they have mobility."

Wyldfyre touches about 75 out of approximately 800 larger MLSs and about 100,000 agents through its desktop products, and the Alliance product touches hundreds of thousands agents in California and elsewhere.

"The main thing we are doing differently is enhancing the product and enhancing eNeighorhoods," says Siegel. "Homestore has done some things better and we have done some things better, and this is a new distribution channel for us. eNeighborhoods has been strong marketing directly to Realtors and WyldFyre is marketed to MLSs, and a lot of what has been done has been comarketed with MLSs. They will help us sell the combined product to the MLS channel and we'll help them increase the sale of individual products.

The new eNeighborhoods/WyldFyre product doesn't have a name yet, but "we will be able to say we are taking WyldFyre functionality and adding new functionality and more output options."

Published: October 11, 2004

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Blanche Evans is the award-winning senior editor of Realty Times, the Internet's leading independent real estate news service. She is featured daily on the Realty Times Video Network in the "Realty Viewpoint" segment. Blanche has been named one of the "25 Most Influential People In Real Estate" by REALTOR Magazine, and has been twice recognized as a "notable." In 2005, she was named "Top Reporter Covering the NAR" by Delahaye-Bacon's. Blanche is a renowned author of five real estate books. Her newest, Bubbles, Booms and Busts: Make Money In Any Real Estate Market, McGraw-Hill, was rave-reviewed by The New York Times. She was also selected from hundreds of real estate experts to contribute to Donald Trump's book, Trump: The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received: 100 Top Experts Share Their Strategies, Rutledge Hill Press, and is featured on page 68. Order Now Review - Honors In 2006, Blanche was selected among scores of candidates to author two consumer real estate guidebooks for the National Association of Realtors: The NAR Guide to Home Buying, and The NAR Guide to Home Selling, Wiley & Sons. She is currently planning two new books for the NAR and its members.       Known for her keen insight into real estate industry issues and for her ability to make complex subjects easy to understand, Blanche is a sought-after keynote and continuing education speaker. Real estate organizations from MLSs, to brokerages, to franchisors, to associations hire her to provide up-to-the-minute analysis of real estate industry news and advice on how to improve revenues. Her passionate delivery, peppered with stinging wit, is a huge hit with audiences and fans. Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, Blanche Evans, Richard Courtney, president 2007, GRAR "The GNAR membership meeting last week featured Blanche Evans as the keynote speaker. Her comments and insights resonated extremely well with those in attendance and we have had many requests for copies of her PowerPoint Presentation. She was a terrific part of the membership meeting and convention program!" - Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors Coverage from WSMV, Nashville - 8-14-2007 That Interview Guy - Get Inside The Head Of Today's Generation 2007 AE Institute Session - To purchase 2006 AE Institute Session - Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 HouseValues Mastermind call - Parts 1 2 Blanche's fireside chat with Jeremy Conaway, HAR - Click here. To contact Blanche, email her at . For more articles by Blanche, click here.