Minneapolis, Minnesota (July 22, 2010) – Today the Minneapolis Area Association of REALTORS® (MAAR) is making housing market data easier than ever to explore and dissect. Welcome to “The Thing,” a new interactive market analytics tool for local real estate.
The new interactive tool, available at thething.mplsrealtor.com, was developed by 10K Research and Marketing, a division of MAAR, to simplify the sometimes-arduous task of interpreting housing market statistics.
Users can combine metrics like median sales price, months supply or days on market with breakouts like home types, foreclosures and new construction. The many possible combinations can be further broken down to geographic area, including cities, counties, ZIP codes and MLS areas. And none of this will take more than a few clicks. 10K products are built to be highly localized, visually elegant and intuitive.
Although MAAR has been taking raw data pulled from the Regional Multiple Listing Service of Minnesota, Inc. and packaging it into market trend reports for several years now, the reports have been steadily growing in number and becoming more complex based on both demand and, undeniably, some feature creep.
10K currently produces housing reports for MAAR such as the Weekly Market Activity Report, Monthly Indicators, Housing Supply Outlook, and “The 100+” — a popular series of monthly local market updates for 207 neighborhoods and suburbs around the Twin Cities.
According to REALTORS®, brokers, media outlets, government entities and consumers, these reports have become an invaluable part of understanding the market and (brag alert) are far beyond what most real estate organizations produce on their own.
The Thing encapsulates what MAAR has been doing into one easy-to-use, interactive, web-based product. Users can still print reports as with prior products, but now they can pull up charts without loading a PDF document, email them on the fly and share them via several social media outlets.
“This is just our latest contribution to clarifying the housing market,” said Mark Allen, CEO of MAAR and 10K. “It is our belief that real estate practitioners should always be striving to make their business more transparent and understandable, particularly in a challenging marketplace.”
10K officially launched their website (www.10Kresearch.com) and national service roll-out in June 2009 after fast but informal growth driven by word of mouth and referrals. The venture has grown from a small division of MAAR into a national research service company. After just a year, The Thing is a huge step forward in the company’s development. Minneapolis is serving as the pilot market for The Thing. Others will follow.
Additional tools will be built into The Thing based upon user request. Several ideas are already in the hopper after initial feedback from focus groups, such as broker/agent branding, the ability to enter self-defined price ranges, the inclusion of school districts and quick sub-area comparisons on the same chart. One step at a time.
10K also packages market reports into short videos as part of their “The Skinny” series. The videos are fast, informative and often downright entertaining—no dry talking heads here. View a sample by visiting www.10kresearch.com/video.htm. But not until you check out The Thing at thething.mplsrealtor.com.
10K Research & Marketing is a growing research firm based in Minneapolis, Minnesota that serves real estate companies, REALTOR® associations and MLS organizations. It is a division of the Minneapolis Area Association of REALTORS®. Wherever there is demand for localized and elegant housing market reports, 10K is ready to roll. To learn more about The Thing and 10K, visit www.10kresearch.com.
To Try it out Click here
Is there any registration fee on this to join? If there is, can you please state what are the basic concept in your business, or any requirements needed for me to qualify?
Posted by: Build Credit Fast | August 02, 2010 at 03:35 AM
This tool is free for members of the Minneapolis Area Association of REALTORS. Please visit http://www.mplsrealtor.com to get information about the association and membership. Thank you!
Posted by: Breanna Vanstrom | August 03, 2010 at 11:44 AM
how do we register? how much is the registration fee?
Posted by: Credit Repair Services | August 26, 2010 at 08:53 AM