​Today we officially announced our partnership with CoreLogic replacing RPR as our vendor.   We are excited to make this announcement and about the future of this initiative.  We’ve been working closely with CoreLogic for almost six months to ensure everyone is aligned on Upstream’s promise to the brokers.   A promise to provide brokers with better tools to exercise their fiduciary duty to protect and control their firm and client’s data.

Navigating Upstream through industry waters has sometimes felt like Class V rapids as we learn and maneuver to reach our goal.  The greatest lesson throughout this journey is the need for alignment.   Alignment of stakeholders, alignment of mission and alignment of incentives.  “We are very excited about our partnership with CoreLogic.  Their team has demonstrated an understanding of our needs, a willingness to work through the complexities, has deep relationships with MLS’s and brokers across the country, and a track record to get the job done,” says Real Estate One CEO and UpstreamRE Chairman Dan Elsea. “They collaborated early on to ensure all parties were appropriately set up and aligned to succeed.”

So, what’s different with this new deal?   Let’s start with what’s the same.

Brokers remain in charge of the initiative with its board and operating agreement unchanged, maintaining its “cooperative style” operating structure.  The Board of Managers remains elected by the Upstream members to manage and direct the initiative.  And Upstream will continue to drive the product roadmap, marketing, sales, and governance, and quoted prices will not be increased.  

Why is this better?  What propels Upstream’s future?

CoreLogic has outstanding experience, relationships, and coverage across the MLS community.  They are the perfect choice if you want to align better with any MLS.  Upstream has always looked to partner with the MLS community, but we are better with CoreLogic by our side.   Their platforms already cover over 60% of the US, and they adroitly understand regional nuances and issues MLS CEOs face.  With the Trestle platform, we can create a custom product for brokers that leverage their enterprise infrastructure and integration architecture.  Over 300 vendors are already integrated and receive data today!

Finally, CoreLogic embraces our desire to align, adopt, and promote the RESO standard.  Few vendors have the resources and broad coverage we can leverage to help push national adoption.

So, what’s next?

The teams have been working together on an aggressive, multi-phased roll-out.  Brokers will receive deployments as early as Q2 that give them syndication control and administrative accounts.  Shortly after, users can “enhance” listings with high-res photos, documents, etc. And they’ll receive vendor management and distribution reporting.   We will follow with role-based accounts, roster management (agent, staff, team, and office) and team features.  All this in 2019!

We’ll end the year building Add/Edit functionality looking to deploy in the first half of 2020.  Innovation won’t end there as we plan to add client record management, transaction fields and even add customizable broker fields to their managed data in subsequent phases.

Proper alignment early has created powerful, internal momentum.  There is a lot to be excited about in this new partnership.  We added experts who have navigated these waters to our team.
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I was hoping to post an update before the media blitz, but we should never be surprised by how fast news spreads about movement in our industry.  If you haven’t seen the news, Upstream is making big changes that are great for the project, practitioners, and MLSs. 
 
We’ve learned a ton over the past few years, and frankly, NAR has been instrumental in helping us define the product, understand friction in deployment and navigate the political environment.   Our refined understanding of what it will take to implement Upstream’s dream lead all parties to agree that we should amicably separate and seek new options.  

Upstream has vetted and select a new vendor to power our initiative.  We have solidified early deal terms and will announce as soon as we have signed the definitive agreement.

It’s been an exhilarating journey but not remotely as exciting as our renewed prospects with our new partner.  They will dramatically accelerate our rollout and vendor adoption.   They will leverage what we’ve learned and incorporate it into their extensive and reliable platform.  

If you can’t tell… I’m thrilled!

But before the rumors start, I want to set a few things straight…

• The separation from NAR/RPR was mutual.  It just made sense with what we’ve learned.
• Upstream was never a NAR initiative.  RPR responded to Upstream’s RFP.  They were always a vendor who acted as a partner.
• We targeted a new partner that will multiply our acceleration technically, geographically and politically.
• All parties are focused on a smooth transition and our working relationship with RPR has been very good.
• The deal terms with NAR required two seats on UPSTREAM’s board and Executive Committee.  Tom Solomone and Rei Mesa were not only NAR representatives but practicing brokers. Both have elected to continue their support of Upstream and service on the Board of Managers.
• There will not be price increases or changes to existing Upstream contracts
• Both Upstream and our new partner are ensuring the efforts of those pilot markets, who have been so supportive, have not been in vain.  

I apologize for being so quiet while working on these deals. I believe more than ever that 2019 will be phenomenal for Upstream, practitioners and the industry.

I'm looking forward to announcing more details of our new partnership soon.  For now, if you want to read more about the transition, you can go here.

Happy Holidays,

​Yesterday the Upstream team, in partnership with RE Technology, conducted a webinar that focused on vendor integration.   We had over 450 registrants and had over an hour of questions and answers!  If you missed the session, here is the recording as well as the Powerpoint presentation.

If you are a vendor and ready to integrate with Upstream, click here to sign up.