Santa Barbara’s Multiple Listing Service is among the latest to switch to a website provided by Yardi-owned Point2. The Santa Barbara Association of REALTORS® (SBAOR) introduced SBAOR.com earlier this week. The new website uses data from the Santa Barbara Multiple Listing Service (MLS) to display searchable property listings on a mobile-friendly platform. SBAOR.com was developed by Point2, an industry leader in online marketing and data management for real estate. Website visitors can browse Santa Barbara homes for sale and rent, see property details by address and contact local real estate agents. Search options allow users to view active MLS listings by neighborhood, ZIP code and custom-drawn polygon, as well as criteria such as price range, property type, number of bedrooms and upcoming open houses. Registered users gain access to near real-time updates, new listings, detailed property reports and additional functionalities. Registration is free. “The Santa Barbara Association of REALTORS® has enjoyed partnering with Point2 to create a valuable real estate resource for our community that’s also an asset to our members,” commented Ed Fuller, president of SBAOR and broker-owner of San Roque Realty Inc. “SBAOR.com is the most accurate, mobile-friendly and consumer-friendly website for comprehensive Santa Barbara real estate information.” Using best-in-class consumer interface and mapping technology supplied by Point2, SBAOR.com benefits association members by generating increased exposure for member listings and services. Listing agent contact information is prominently featured next to each property. A “Find a REALTOR®” tool at the top of each page helps buyers and sellers to get in touch with SBAOR brokers and agents. “Point2’s MLS and Association Consumer Portal solution connects buyers and sellers to our members without lead diversion,” continued Fuller. “Whether you’re looking to buy a home, sell a property or speak with a REALTOR®, SBAOR.com is...

We can almost guarantee that within one click of your mouse, we can convince you that Point2’s office in Saskatoon, located in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, is a pretty fantastic place to work. Why? Well, the company is known for its team cohesion and spirit. And then there’s the secret weapon: the cooking abilities of Jacquelyn Bauer, Point2’s Director of Customer Relations. The Gourmet Housewife is the food blog that Jacquelyn maintains in her free time, but her lucky coworkers often get to sample leftovers. Not much helps wear off the chill of a sub-zero Saskatoon winter day like a warm loaf of homemade bread. In other words: if you’re ever invited to a Point2 company potluck, be sure to attend. There will be a near-certain chance of encountering a Jacquelyn-made treat, like a sautéed kale salad with panko and pine nuts, chewy peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, or homemade bagels. That’s right folks, she makes her own bagels. Totally awesomesauce. But even if we can’t all work with Jacquelyn at Point2 or invite ourselves to her house for dinner, we can still enjoy the gorgeous food photography and creative original recipes to some of her favorite dishes via her blog. She focuses on “simple gourmet” fare that you can recreate without too many trips to the grocery store or hours spent stirring sauce on the stove. It is easy to forget that good food doesn’t have to be sacrificed due to a busy schedule, and Jacquelyn makes preparing such dishes look easy. A self-described perfectionist, Jacquelyn applies the same loving care and attention to detail to her work at Point2 as she does to her kitchen creations. She’s been with the real estate software firm for 13 years, starting when she was...

Editors’ note: Geneva Ives is the marketing writer for Point2, a leading provider of online marketing solutions for real estate professionals, including custom websites, syndication tools and prospecting utilities. She will be contributing technology-oriented real estate interest posts to The Balance Sheet. It’s no secret that the team at Point2 is a little home obsessed. We’ve been providing real estate marketing services for over a decade now; it’s fair to say we’ve seen a lot of properties (and housing trends) in that time. We recently encountered this house-centric blog post on Smithsonian.com that features video clips from the long-canceled CBS weekly documentary program entitled “The 21st Century.” The episode in question originally premiered on March 12, 1967. In it our host, legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite, escorts us around a vision of the single family home in the year 2001. Modern marvels abound – inflatable furniture, multicolored plastics, illuminated speakers. It’s a wonderland inspired by rapid advances in technology. That got us thinking: holy moly, the future is now! Decades past had such high aspirations for the year 2000 and beyond. Are we living up to the hype? To address this question, we decided to take a look at three specific rooms in the homes of today. How do they compare to their counterparts in homes of the 1960s? And how do they compare and contrast with the futuristic visions previewed by Mr. Cronkite? The Kitchen 1960s Trends: According to back issues of House Beautiful, contemporary eat-in kitchens celebrated saturated colors and wood cabinetry. 21st Century Predictions: The CBS writers of the day posited that we would enjoy irradiated foods, automated meal preparation and dishes that are molded on the spot in the 21st century. Clean up would be a snap. Dirty plates, complete...

When it comes to pursuing the things he is passionate about, Cory Hawkes doesn’t cut any corners. Point2’s Manager of Customer Care wears his heart on his sleeve, whether he’s supporting his favorite Canadian Football League team, playing his favorite sport, or working with his top-notch team of customer care specialists. A Point2 employee since 2007, Cory worked his way up from customer care representative to manager of the department with some of the same skills that have made him one of Saskatoon’s top curlers. He’s dedicated, committed, patient and persistent. For our American readers who find curling to be a totally foreign concept, Cory describes the sport as similar to shuffleboard – but played on sheets of ice. “You’re shooting a rock, a 42-pound piece of granite, down a 100-plus foot sheet of ice and trying to get it to stop in the rings that are under the ice at the other end,” he explained. Sounds like a pleasant test of skill, but curling is in fact highly competitive, physically demanding, and very strategic. Curling is played by four-person teams, inspiring close bonding and camaraderie. An avid curler since age nine, Cory plays in three leagues during the winter months and teaches more novice curlers how to improve their skills. He’s on the ice daily, and at the time of our interview, his team was holding the first place spot in each of the three leagues. They’re past club champions, meaning they bested the top teams out of 16 leagues in Saskatoon, and have also competed strongly against other top curlers from Saskatchewan. He still has hope of taking his participation in the sport to a higher level. Curling was officially added to the sports contested at the Winter Olympic Games in 1998....

The Inman Connect event with over 1000 attendees was held in San Francisco this past week, and Yardi’s Saul Klein, Senior Vice President of Point2, sat on a Syndication panel with other industry leaders, and moderated by Bradley Inman, founder and publisher of Inman News.  Also participating on the panel were Spencer Rascoff, CEO of real estate search portal Zillow; Errol Samuelson, president of Realtor.com; Luke Glass, general manager of syndication publishing platform ListHub; and Mark McLaughlin, CEO of Pacific Union International. Brad Inman asked Saul to lead off the discussion with a capsule view of the syndication issues. Saul condensed it into these three words: “Distribution trumps destination,”  meaning that agents will syndicate listings whenever possible to expand their reach into other markets.  Sellers want to see their listings on the major sites, and they don’t care about the side effects. Point2 is one of the top two distributors of listing data to portals like Zillow and Trulia, among others. The Point2 technology offers brokers and MLSs the controls to choose how they want their listing data distributed. It was a great panel, and Saul was able to point out our strong relationships with MLS’s across the US and Canada.  Point2 gives users confidence in our listing information by displaying and syndicating content directly from the most accurate source—the MLS. You can read more about the panel at...