SPECIAL ROYAL LEPAGE UPDATEJANUARY 2013

1

AGENDAA Special Royal LePage Update

•Big Data: Changing the face of real estate

•What is CREA’s Data Distribution Facility (DDF)?

•Royal LePage Canada’s position on CREA’s DDF

•An All New www.royallepage.ca

•What do I need to do to prepare for the launch?

•Summary

2

BIG DATAChanging the face of real estate

•Data availability: In recent years, the availability of data has created better informed consumers who have more options. This is the case in real estate and in most other industries.

•Real estate at a crossroads: The real estate industry finds itself at a crossroads between open and freely-available information vs. proprietary and tightly managed access.

•Change: The proliferation of data and the change in consumer expectations are driving industry change.

3

DATA SHARINGStaying competitive against third parties•In real estate, as in other industries, the concept of sharing is vital to Royal LePage’s online competitive positioning.

─ Third parties gaining ground: Today, third parties such as Zoocasa and Kijiji, are gaining ground with their listings inventory, sometimes exceeding the share that organized real estate displays as they are able to show multiple brands at once.

─ Web traffic is directly correlated to listings inventory: An examination of competitors within organized real estate shows a strong correlation of listings inventory to traffic. Without change, Royal LePage will be increasingly challenged to compete for traffic.

─ Sharing will help organized real estate: The sharing of listings across brands will allow organized real estate and Royal LePage to stay competitive with third parties. This will also provide consumers with the information and experience they want and drive more traffic and leads to our agents.

4

WHAT IS CREA’S DDF?CREA’s Data Distribution Facility (DDF) extends sharing opportunities for listings data already available on www.realtor.ca to the industry at large. CREA’s DDF provides four methods of sharing data for Brokers to choose from:

1. National Shared Pool (NSP): a database created by participating brokers who decide to share their listings. Participating brokers can display all of these listings on their own websites, if they so choose.

2. National Franchisor Pool (NFP): this facility provides those brokers who have opted into the National Shared Pool, with an opportunity to gain exposure on national franchisor websites. That is, Royal LePage listings can have exposure on other participating franchisor websites and other franchisor listings will display on www.royallepage.ca.

3. Third Party Destinations (TPD): this facility sends a brokerage’s listings to third party websites outside of the industry, i.e. Zoocasa, Point2. (Kijiji is not currently participating.)

4. Member Website Feeds (MWF): this facility sends your own listings to your own website providers.

5

ROYAL LePAGE CANADA’S POSITIONRoyal LePage Canada recommends that brokers opt-in to CREA’s National Shared Pool and Franchisor Pool but NOT into CREA’s Third Party Destinations.National Shared Pool / National Franchisor Pool rationale:

•Consumer service: www.royallepage.ca will provide consumers with a better search experience as they can see substantially more listings and offering consumers an alternative to www.realtor.ca.

•Lead generation: with increased website traffic from more listings on www.royallepage.ca, Royal LePage Canada will be in a better position to generate new leads as well as invest in new lead management technology.

•Levelling the playing field with third parties: before CREA introduced DDF, only third parties were able to host national websites with listings from multiple brands. The National Shared and Franchisor Pools now offer organized real estate with this option, correcting an historical imbalance.

6

ROYAL LePAGE CANADA’S POSITIONRoyal LePage Canada recommends that Brokers Opt-in to CREA’s National Shared Pool and Franchisor Pool, but not into CREA’s Third Party Destinations components.

7Note: Realtor.com is not considered organized real estate as NAR sold it in 1996. Today, NAR only owns 2.5% of the company that operates the website.

Third party syndication rationale• U.S. Experience: Post-syndication, only one U.S.

franchise website is in comScore’s Top 10, whereas there are six in Canada’s Top 10 today pre-widespread syndication. Some U.S. brokerages are now opting out of syndication but it is hard to reverse an entire industry’s practices. We would like to avoid the U.S. syndication scenario.

AN ALL NEW WWW.ROYALLEPAGE.CAWith the advent of DDF, we are rebuilding www.royallepage.ca to introduce a better user interface as well as compelling and differentiating features to draw consumers to the brand and the website. •Easy to use•Rich content•Branded YouTube Channel

8

WWW.ROYALLEPAGE.CA FEATURESThe new website is fresh, modern, rich and relevantEasy to use:

• New, fresh, efficient, modern design. Responsive to resize for all sizes of devices.• More informal, approachable language throughout.

Rich content:•DDF Listings•Provincial regionalization of the home page and listings search pages of the website •More neighbourhood information on detailed listings including the Walkscore ranking as well as a neighbourhood description, photos and points of interest•More than two agents per listing•Enhanced agent profile (see pages 10 and 11)•English /French toggle on every pageSocial media

• Branded YouTube channel with all video content

9And many more features coming this summer in Phase II!

WHAT DO I NEED TO DO NOW?One of the features in the new website is a major improvement to the agent profile page. As such, to best market yourself, please update your profile.

Current agent profile

New, enhanced agent profile

10

WHAT DO I NEED TO DO NOW?Ensure your profile is well written and populated. Below, at left, is a profile with poor detail. See the improvement at right with a well-fleshed-out profile.

Poorly Populated Profile Well Populated Profile

11

WHAT DO I NEED TO DO NOW?To update your profile, please do the following:Go to www.rlpNetwork.com > REALTORS > Manage Your Business > Manage Your Profile > Modify Self to do the following:•Review your Personal Information to ensure it is up-to-date and complete.

•Specifically, fill in the Professional Experience field. This is the first section to display on your profile and your best opportunity to market your skills and experience but, unfortunately, this field is too often blank in agent profiles!

•Ensure that your Languages Spoken, Designations, Specialties and Awards are selected and up-to-date.

•For your Areas Serviced, ensure they reflect what you are willing to service so as to best meet consumer needs.For more detailed how-to instructions, go to: http://docs.rlpnetwork.com/RLPN/Help/CustomerCare/11_manage_web_profile.pdf

12

SUMMARYA new www.royallepage.ca is coming that supports CREA’s National Shared Pool and Franchisor Pool.•Our office will / will not (Broker to Select One) be participating in (Broker to Insert Relevant CREA DDF Components) of CREA’s DDF.

•To-Do’s:

- Update your agent profiles to best promote yourself. You can win your choice of an iPad or a SmartPhone when you update your profile by midnight Jan. 28. The winner will be announced on Feb. 1.

- In addition, look for a communication coming out in late January to provide to your third party website providers.

13