RMLS™ will be simplifying its subscriber fee structure—which will mean an increase for individual subscribers—beginning in the fourth quarter of 2018. Subscribers will see the fee change reflected on their invoice for the fourth quarter, which should be available September 1st.
Subscribers who previously paid either $105 per quarter or $135 per quarter will now both pay $141 per quarter, simplifying the overall RMLS™ fee structure. Offices that previously paid a quarterly access fee will no longer pay that fee. Administrative users and personal assistants will still be charged $25 per quarter for each user.
RMLS™ subscribers will see a fee increase of either $6 per quarter or $36 per quarter. Office access fees will be eliminated. Administrative users and personal assistant fees will remain unchanged. SentriLock key fees will not change.
The RMLS™ Board of Directors approved these changes at their June 2018 meeting, the result of ongoing discussions about serving subscribers as robustly as possible and the future of the organization. The board, comprised of working REALTORS® from around the RMLS™ service area, oversees the direction of RMLS™ as an organization and deemed these changes necessary in consideration of future projects.
These future projects include:
- Creation of a new mobile app, slated for release in Summer 2018.
- Hiring additional staff including a new product manager, UI/UX designer, and additional programmers that will enable RMLS™ to release more projects, more quickly.
- The “Report Issue” button will be updated to use a CoreLogic Listing Data Checker dashboard. Subscribers will be able to see what inquiries they have submitted and what has been reported on their own listings.
- The RMLSweb login page, desktop page, and menu bar will be updated with a more modern look and feel. It will be more user- and mobile device-friendly. This is just the beginning of a fresh look that will eventually find its way to all areas of RMLSweb.
- A SentriLock Bluetooth lockbox upgrade slated for Fall 2018. NXT lockboxes will be exchanged, for free, for a new Bluetooth lockbox.
RMLS™ looks forward to better serving RMLS™ subscribers through these improvements, some of which are in direct response to feedback received from subscribers over the course of several years.
Fee Simplification and Increase Overview
Fee Simplification and Increase FAQ
UPDATE (July 31):
I cannot say that I am happy with the change. You have taken away one more way an office can help save their agents money or differentiate themselves from other offices.
Jeff, if the only way you can differentiate your office from others is by saving your agents $30/month then you can’t really blame them if you leave.
Meredith…..Did I say “the only way?” I believe I said “one more way”. For instance signing up for a Corporate Account with DocuSign is “another” way to get your agents a tool they want but save them money on the fee’s. As a managing broker I am always looking for ways to help my agents if I can. Happy agents are selling agents. I understand why they are raising the fee’s – that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.
Jeff, the current structure isn’t equitable and results in Brokers in smaller offices paying higher dues for the exact same services. The $100 per office fee didn’t even begin to make up the difference in any office with over 10 Brokers let along those with hundreds.
Wow, really, you’re going to launch a mobile Ap in the Summer of 2018.?
How cutting edge to announce that, along with a fee increase during the first week of Summer 2018. That’s really pretty innovative begging the question what sort of innovation were you using the fees for previously? Perhaps working on Blackberry compatibility?
hahahahaha
Our clients will still all use Zillow or Redfin, unless you can make this app really WORTH switching to. You’re gonna have to pull out all the stops that the fee increase can buy, to compete. Design for 2022 not 2018.
I would like to see the RMLS financials. Considering we are member owned – financial records should be available to all of the membership.
RMLS™ is wholly owned by three REALTOR® associations: Portland Metro (PMAR), East Metro (EMAR), and Clark County (CCAR). Our shareholders appoint directors to serve on the RMLS™ Board of Directors who approve major policy changes and oversees our financials.
I hear it’s been 25 years since an MLS increase. :)
It feels as if changes are constantly being made just to justify the fees. We were fine before Sentrlink. This is a cumbersome system that only gets more complicated. I’d love to see you do a survey of membership. We don’t feel we’re being represented well.
Feedback is important to us! Every year in September RMLS™ conducts a subscriber satisfaction survey. The feedback we gather in this survey lets us know how subscribers regard our services, which helps us hone our strengths and develop solutions to address our weaknesses. In September, watch the RMLSweb desktop page and your email for a link to the survey. In addition, feedback that RMLS™ receives from subscribers through other methods, such as training classes, or emails, are collected and are taken into consideration as new projects are started throughout the year.
LOL Greg. Perfect summation.
It’s only a $30 max increase..not sure why anyone’s crying over that. I don’t mind paying that as long we can UPDATE RMLS so it doesn’t look like a website from 1997. I can’t believe with all the money you guys pull in that we’re stuck using a dated system. Lets see some improvement people! We are rooting for you!
(Fingers crossed the app is more useful than the website)
Fresh look would be great especially on what we send clients. Really can care less about what we as agents use but the clients need something that pops.
I’m not very happy with the increase because of two things.
1- We realtors will be paying $564 annually, and then RMLS turns around and let 3rd party get access to all our listings example – zillow/trulia, realtor.com and much others. I hate it just because they turn around and sell us the leads that we should be getting as the listing agent. I don’t speak for others but I get so many calls from marketing people.
2- I think the office should still pay some, because in some companies they keep up to 10% to 30% commission from their brokers.
RMLS™ does not send listings to Trulia, Zillow or any other websites except http://www.RMLS.com , http://www.realtor.com and IDX sites. In order for listings to be sent to other sites an RMLS™ Participant would need to approve sending their firms listings onto that website.
I am a very small office and have been in business since 1980. Though no one likes to pay more, I truly appreciate all the folks at RMLS do for us including fixing my PC, answering technical questions, and working hard to provide us with great technology. I just did a transaction with another MLS company and we have it very nice here using RMLS. It really hasn’t gone up much since 1980 in comparison to the value we now receive vs. then.
Thank you RMLS! I am very satisfied with you all!!
I think that Rolando makes a great point. When, in what year, was the decision to sell the MLS feed to Zillow, Trulia and other competitive companies made by the members of associated multiple listing services? Zillow, Trulia, and others have developed huge platforms and frankly some very deceptive marketing strategies and charge thousands of dollars to sell us back the leads that should belong to the paying membership. Would have been much smarter to have developed an agent paid lead distribution that paid the MLS associations in my opinion, not competitors that truly do nothing but redistribute leads generated by our hard work. I am curious how this decision was made. Maybe there is detail I am not aware of?
The new UI is frankly worse than the old one. It does not feel modern at all. It is extremely clunky and honestly more frustrating to use. Not to mention the horrid appearance. I hope the future improvements are in fact just that, improvements.
When was the last time we had an increase? You don’t fuss when you buy a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk. Look what people will pay for a bottle of water.
I have no problem with the small fee increase however if you do change lock boxes in the future please make sure the credit cards with the chip actually work and the chip reader and update device work. That stuff is junk
and I don’t like having to pay for things like that
‘Hiring additional staff including a new product manager, UI/UX designer, and additional programmers that will enable RMLS™ to release more projects, more quickly.”
How about bag that idea and sign up with a successful UI like the FLEXMLS? Otherwise it’s like putting lipstick on a pig.
Seriously. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel and design and program our own MLS. There are FAR better options that we can simply license like they do in Chicago and many other big cities. Corelogic, Paragon (my choice), etc. We can have an industry leading level MLS by using one of these providers or we can continue trying to work our way out of the stone age the way we’re doing it now…while we drive local buyers to Zillow and Redfin.
It’s honestly embarrassing.
Personally my recent income has gone down and expenses have gone up. Pretty soon I will not be able to afford to work.
This is just the starting.. Cost will continued going up — Save up
It’s unbelievable the amount of fees brokers get charged by CCAR, RMLS, WA State License fee, renewal classes, real estate company charges on every transaction, etc. Oh yes, and out of pocket expenses when listing a home, etc. Where does this all end? Unless you have an “in” with a loan officer or divorce lawyer to get clients, we can’t make enough money to cover these costs and pay the mortgage…MY Mortgage.!
Can we PLEASE just get Paragon or CoreLogic? So much better.
Seriously. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel and design and program our own MLS. There are FAR better options that we can simply license like they do in Chicago and many other big cities. Corelogic, Paragon (my choice), etc. We can have an industry leading level MLS by using one of these providers or we can continue trying to work our way out of the stone age the way we’re doing it now…while we drive local buyers to Zillow and Redfin.
It’s honestly embarrassing.
How about instead of trying to come up with your own app, just let us fully utilize homespotter? I would like to be able to send clients properties directly from homespotter, but apparently you have not allowed that??? Trying to add another platform to your plate when the rmls website is clunky, and dated seems ridiculous.