The consumer-oriented site of Makelaars Public Portal becomes Cribio

“This is the next big thing,” said Craig Cheadham, President and CEO of The Realty Alliance. “There is a natural stream to the real estate transaction, and that is a primary goal of this project – to create the online experience looking for consumers that corresponds to the natural flow of the transaction.”

Cheadham said that Cribio wants to eliminate the confusion and frustration that can occur on competing portals when consumers are sent to business models that may not be in accordance with their needs.

“Ultimately, professionals in real estate want to offer clarity and guidance and delete confusion and make this as smooth as possible,” he said. “We think this will make this site popular with consumers and clearly popular with agents and brokers.”

‘Choose the side of the consumer’

For BPP leaders, choosing the name Cribio was more than a marketing exercise.

“We will always have this balance between what the industry wants and what consumers want, and we will have to choose one side here if we want to build that confidence,” said Troup, CEO of BPP. “We see Cribio as choosing the side of the consumer and ensuring that we build that confidence.”

Troup added that the name, like other national portals, is short, easy to remember and deliberately unobtrusive.

“It represents everyone in the industry, represents all brokers and hopefully is an easy to spell, easy to remember place that will have all the offers,” he said. “We can define what Cribio offers the consumer, and we are just starting that path.”

Working with MLSS and Makelaars

Since its foundation in 2014, the Broker Public Portal has worked hand in hand with MLSS to collect data and to streamline access for consumers. Cheathamham said that the collaboration remains critical.

By uniting brokers and MLSS, Cheatham said that Cribio can offer an option that builds up consumer confidence without distracting them into referral networks or advertising experiences.

Challenge the standard

BPP leaders describe what strikes them as shortcomings in competitive platforms – while also offering their growth strategies.

“When we initially developed our own websites, we were guilty to let them fit with the real estate agent and agent model,” said Cheadham. “And then we saw the new portals that Disruptors had arrived by serving the consumer so well. But they also had the fatal error from sending to their own business model. Consumers discovered that the agent on which they clicked did not even live in that community – they had just paid to appear on this list.”

Vice president of products Tyler Olmsted said Cribio was designed to prevent those results.

“If we think about our mission, especially if it looks today, we want to change that story and win consumers while we love the industry,” he said. “We look at what Zillow has done and how they have won consumers, and we love the path they have followed. They follow a really strong approach to make consumers first.

“What we traditionally see of brokerage and MLS technology is that they try to serve the agents. They try to serve the brokers, and that ends as an incoherent experience for the consumer, and they ultimately do not gain confidence.”

Use relationships

Otherwise Zillow or Homes.comCribio will not rely on expensive advertising campaigns or pay-for-placing models.

Instead, leaders say, the power of industry coordination comes.

“If you don’t know consumers, you should advertise,” Troup said. “The good thing is that we have the consumer. We [Cribio] Represent the agents and brokers who today represent 90% of the transactions. “

Olmsted said that the key use that connection between agents and consumers.

“A great way to win these consumers is to show them the partnership with the agents and with the brokers,” he said. “It’s about showing them what we can solve that something like Zillow can’t. We can create an agent experience where they can start searches, find features and really collaborate with their buyers and sellers on the platform.”

MLSS pay reimbursements per member to support Cribio for ensuring that it can work without trusting advertisements, referral costs or lead costs, Troup said.

Cheadham emphasized that trust and administration are central to the viability of Cribio in the long term.

“Makelaars and agents were burned by sellers who turn on,” he said. “Sometimes that is just a matter of mission creiping, where they have suddenly forgotten. Sometimes the seller is simply sold out, and the next they know, the seller who now competes directly with them by their side competes.

“People want to know who this possesses this – and because (cribio) an organic industry that cooperates between the Brokerage community and the MLS – they say: ‘Okay, we will offer the ultimate user group that continuously input and this project will constantly offer it to keep it functional, never to keep our needs.” ‘