Get Ready…a New Reverse Prospecting Is Coming to RMLSweb!

Get Ready…a New Reverse Prospecting Is Coming to RMLSweb!

RMLS™ subscribers, get ready—RMLS™ is putting the finishing touches on a new reverse prospecting tool! We plan to premiere the new system the morning of Thursday, July 16th.

What should you expect? Here’s a preview:

New RMLSweb Reverse Prospecting ScreenshotMap Capability

Need to find buyers specifically looking in your geographical area? Reverse prospecting will now feature map capability, meaning REALTORS® can connect with agents who have clients looking in the specific area where your listing is situated. Net result? A more effective search!

NOTE: Agents using auto-fill to populate information from a ML# in Reverse Prospecting, take note: the map pin will be placed where it was entered in Listing Load. It can be adjusted in this new Reverse Prospecting interface, but it’s always good practice to verify the map point of your listing in Listing Load!

If the map isn’t useful to you, minimize it by clicking “Map Point Selection Map” above the upper left corner of the map window. This will give you easy access to the other search fields that appear below the map.

Saved Searches

Just like our other search options, users will now be able to save searches in reverse prospecting. These saved searches can be accessed via tabs at the top of the screen.

A Refreshed Look

The current RMLSweb reverse prospecting system is a bit dated, and we’ve been working to bring a consistent look and feel to the site as a whole. You’ll notice a big difference in the visual design of the reverse prospecting system as soon as we roll it out.

Don’t forget, if you find yourself with questions as you navigate around the new system, the RMLS™ Help Desk is available to assist you via telephone [(503) 872-8002 or (877) 256-2169], email, or by chatting directly from RMLSweb.

Get Ready…a New Reverse Prospecting Is Coming to RMLSweb!

How to Use the Accessibility Field on RMLSweb

Are your doors wide enough for a wheelchair? (Photo courtesy of Fairfax County, VA via Flickr)

Are your doors wide enough for a wheelchair? View a tour of an accessible house in Virginia. (Photo courtesy of Fairfax County, VA via Flickr)

Would you know how to look for a home for a client who uses a wheelchair? Do you know how to identify accessible features when listing a home to market them to a wider audience on RMLSweb?

July 26th is the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a piece of legislation crafted to eliminate discrimination against people with physical or mental conditions that may require accommodations. Last week, an educational forum organized by the Portland Metro Association of REALTORS® (PMAR) explored the intersection of real estate and accessibility—from looking at how a brokerage can improve accessibility in the office to the perspective of a local REALTOR® who uses a wheelchair.

Today we aim to educate RMLS™ subscribers on how they may use RMLSweb more effectively in both the listing and buying processes.

The Accessibility Field on RMLSweb

Accessibility has been addressed on RMLSweb for years, with the Accessibility field being regularly reviewed and developed by the RMLS™ Forms Committee. Over the years this field has been expanded to include wide parking spaces, stair assistance, roll-in showers, and more.

The Devil’s in the Details

How wide must a doorway be to be marked as WD-DOOR? Specificity helps REALTORS® do their job, so prospective clients don’t arrive at a property to find the listing inadequate for their needs—perhaps sporting a dangerously steep ramp or a ‘wide’ hallway where a wheelchair can’t turn.

Document #1211 on RMLSweb, Accessibility Term Definitions, defines minimum standards for each accessibility feature. REALTORS® listing a property should verify the specified measurements on each feature before marking the appropriate field in RMLSweb.

(We also include the accessibility terms on Document #1210, Listing Abbreviations, but this document only unravels abbreviations without specific details about each feature.)

In the Thick of Listing or Searching for a Property?

If you’re listing a property using Listing Load, click on the linked text that says “Accessibility” for a pop-up window with full definitions.

Accessibility Link in Listing Load

Searching for properties for a client? In Advanced Search, select the Accessibility field and then click the Help link for full definitions.

Click the Help link for definitions

Incorrect Data? Let Us Know!

What if, as a buyer agent, you show a listing that don’t quite meet the standards outlined on the definitions document? Report the listing to RMLS™ using the Report Issue button! Our staff will contact the listing agent to get things ironed out.

Have any suggestions for improving how RMLSweb communicates a listing’s accessibility? Submit a suggestion to the RMLS™ Forms Committee by contacting Christina Smestad.

 

Get Ready…a New Reverse Prospecting Is Coming to RMLSweb!

MLS Insight: The RMLS™ Forms Committee

Forms Committee Chair Maureen Bonfiglio (left) works with Christina Smestad, RMLS™ Staff, to plan 2015 Committee strategy

RMLS™ Forms Committee Chair Maureen Bonfiglio (left) works with RMLS™ staff member Christina Smestad to plan 2015 committee strategy.

MLS Insight is a series about how things work at RMLS™.

The RMLS™ Forms Committee is responsible primarily for what information is collected in Listing Load on RMLSweb. They also consider how that information is available for searching, as well as the contract language in the Exclusive Right to Sell agreement that RMLS™ provides.

Maureen Bonfiglio, RMLS™ Director and Chair of the Forms Committee for the past two years, has actually been a member of the committee for more than ten years. She has reviewed and discussed thousands of suggestions in that time. In her words, “the RMLS Forms Committee is instrumental in providing the best venue possible for the successful marketing of homes for sale. Each year dedicated REALTORS® volunteer their time to serve on this committee to review suggestions from RMLS™ subscribers and address real estate trends. We encourage you to email us with any suggestion you feel would enhance the listing input or provide important information to our membership about a property. If you would like to serve on this committee please contact Christina Smestad at RMLS™.”

The 2015 Forms Committee will meet later in the summer. It usually takes two or three two-hour meetings to review and discuss all the suggestions.

Last year, for example, the committee reviewed about 170 suggestions over the course of two meetings. The work of the committee resulted in 47 recommendations for changes to the collection and searchability of property information, which were all approved by the RMLS™ Board of Directors in November 2014.

Changes approved include additional tax ID fields to denote parcels included with the listing, additional fields in several of the supplement forms, additional values in several fields, and an increased number of value choices in several fields (i.e., increasing Garage Description maximum choices from one to three, and Lot Description from one to two.) Search improvements include a streamlined search for residential listings with dual or multi-household living possibilities and any bedroom on the main floor.

A special subcommittee reviewed the Green/Energy Efficiency fields with the objective of aligning our fields with national efforts by NAR and NAR’s Green REsource Council. This will result in a new Green/Energy Supplement for RMLS™.

You will see most of those changes at the end of July. Two of the recommendations will be released shortly after that. The ability to add up to 24 photos will coincide with the release of updated photo-loader functionality. A new status – Pending Lease Option (POP) – will also be released a little later. Because accepted offers with lease option terms tend to stay in Pending status for extended periods of time, the new status will provide better information about them and better statistics for the accepted offers with other terms.

There has been a standing Forms Committee at RMLS™ since 1991, when our multiple listing service began. This goes a long way to account for the rich dataset RMLS™ maintains about property listed by our subscribers.

The next post will focus on mapping in RMLSweb. If you have questions on any RMLS™-related topic that you would like to have answered, I encourage you to post a comment.

Get Ready…a New Reverse Prospecting Is Coming to RMLSweb!

MLS Insight: The RMLS™ Forms Committee

Forms Committee Chair Maureen Bonfiglio (left) works with Christina Smestad, RMLS™ Staff, to plan 2015 Committee strategy

RMLS™ Forms Committee Chair Maureen Bonfiglio (left) works with RMLS™ staff member Christina Smestad to plan 2015 committee strategy.

MLS Insight is a series about how things work at RMLS™.

The RMLS™ Forms Committee is responsible primarily for what information is collected in Listing Load on RMLSweb. They also consider how that information is available for searching, as well as the contract language in the Exclusive Right to Sell agreement that RMLS™ provides.

Maureen Bonfiglio, RMLS™ Director and Chair of the Forms Committee for the past two years, has actually been a member of the committee for more than ten years. She has reviewed and discussed thousands of suggestions in that time. In her words, “the RMLS Forms Committee is instrumental in providing the best venue possible for the successful marketing of homes for sale. Each year dedicated REALTORS® volunteer their time to serve on this committee to review suggestions from RMLS™ subscribers and address real estate trends. We encourage you to email us with any suggestion you feel would enhance the listing input or provide important information to our membership about a property. If you would like to serve on this committee please contact Christina Smestad at RMLS™.”

The 2015 Forms Committee will meet later in the summer. It usually takes two or three two-hour meetings to review and discuss all the suggestions.

Last year, for example, the committee reviewed about 170 suggestions over the course of two meetings. The work of the committee resulted in 47 recommendations for changes to the collection and searchability of property information, which were all approved by the RMLS™ Board of Directors in November 2014.

Changes approved include additional tax ID fields to denote parcels included with the listing, additional fields in several of the supplement forms, additional values in several fields, and an increased number of value choices in several fields (i.e., increasing Garage Description maximum choices from one to three, and Lot Description from one to two.) Search improvements include a streamlined search for residential listings with dual or multi-household living possibilities and any bedroom on the main floor.

A special subcommittee reviewed the Green/Energy Efficiency fields with the objective of aligning our fields with national efforts by NAR and NAR’s Green REsource Council. This will result in a new Green/Energy Supplement for RMLS™.

You will see most of those changes at the end of July. Two of the recommendations will be released shortly after that. The ability to add up to 24 photos will coincide with the release of updated photo-loader functionality. A new status – Pending Lease Option (POP) – will also be released a little later. Because accepted offers with lease option terms tend to stay in Pending status for extended periods of time, the new status will provide better information about them and better statistics for the accepted offers with other terms.

There has been a standing Forms Committee at RMLS™ since 1991, when our multiple listing service began. This goes a long way to account for the rich dataset RMLS™ maintains about property listed by our subscribers.

The next post will focus on mapping in RMLSweb. If you have questions on any RMLS™-related topic that you would like to have answered, I encourage you to post a comment.

Get Ready…a New Reverse Prospecting Is Coming to RMLSweb!

MLS Insight: The RMLS™ Forms Committee

Forms Committee Chair Maureen Bonfiglio (left) works with Christina Smestad, RMLS™ Staff, to plan 2015 Committee strategy

RMLS™ Forms Committee Chair Maureen Bonfiglio (left) works with RMLS™ staff member Christina Smestad to plan 2015 committee strategy.

MLS Insight is a series about how things work at RMLS™.

The RMLS™ Forms Committee is responsible primarily for what information is collected in Listing Load on RMLSweb. They also consider how that information is available for searching, as well as the contract language in the Exclusive Right to Sell agreement that RMLS™ provides.

Maureen Bonfiglio, RMLS™ Director and Chair of the Forms Committee for the past two years, has actually been a member of the committee for more than ten years. She has reviewed and discussed thousands of suggestions in that time. In her words, “the RMLS Forms Committee is instrumental in providing the best venue possible for the successful marketing of homes for sale. Each year dedicated REALTORS® volunteer their time to serve on this committee to review suggestions from RMLS™ subscribers and address real estate trends. We encourage you to email us with any suggestion you feel would enhance the listing input or provide important information to our membership about a property. If you would like to serve on this committee please contact Christina Smestad at RMLS™.”

The 2015 Forms Committee will meet later in the summer. It usually takes two or three two-hour meetings to review and discuss all the suggestions.

Last year, for example, the committee reviewed about 170 suggestions over the course of two meetings. The work of the committee resulted in 47 recommendations for changes to the collection and searchability of property information, which were all approved by the RMLS™ Board of Directors in November 2014.

Changes approved include additional tax ID fields to denote parcels included with the listing, additional fields in several of the supplement forms, additional values in several fields, and an increased number of value choices in several fields (i.e., increasing Garage Description maximum choices from one to three, and Lot Description from one to two.) Search improvements include a streamlined search for residential listings with dual or multi-household living possibilities and any bedroom on the main floor.

A special subcommittee reviewed the Green/Energy Efficiency fields with the objective of aligning our fields with national efforts by NAR and NAR’s Green REsource Council. This will result in a new Green/Energy Supplement for RMLS™.

You will see most of those changes at the end of July. Two of the recommendations will be released shortly after that. The ability to add up to 24 photos will coincide with the release of updated photo-loader functionality. A new status – Pending Lease Option (POP) – will also be released a little later. Because accepted offers with lease option terms tend to stay in Pending status for extended periods of time, the new status will provide better information about them and better statistics for the accepted offers with other terms.

There has been a standing Forms Committee at RMLS™ since 1991, when our multiple listing service began. This goes a long way to account for the rich dataset RMLS™ maintains about property listed by our subscribers.

The next post will focus on mapping in RMLSweb. If you have questions on any RMLS™-related topic that you would like to have answered, I encourage you to post a comment.

Get Ready…a New Reverse Prospecting Is Coming to RMLSweb!

“Missing” Your In-progress Listing? We Can Help! What’s Coming to RMLSweb Next Week

NewInProgress

“Where did my in-progress listing go? I’ve entered it three times and now I can’t find it again!”

The RMLS™ Help Desk frequently receives calls like this, and we’re happy to announce that one of the new features being released on RMLSweb Wednesday, May 27th should solve this frustrating issue.

In-Progress Listing Changes

Help Desk Technician Joanne Fulgaro reports the Help Desk receives over 50 calls a month from subscribers unable to find a listing they had saved in their in-progress list. “This was not only time consuming, but frustrating for our subscribers,” she notes.

After Help Desk staff describes a work-around to access the correct listing, the subscriber could then continue their work where they left off. (At this point, multiple in-progress listings for the same property would exist.) As of Thursday this work-around will not be needed, as the in-progress listings page will function differently, displaying the most recently saved in-progress listing at the top (above).

RMLSrightsidebarSidebar Improvements

Subscribers will also notice changes to the right sidebar of the RMLSweb desktop page starting Thursday. A new tabbed interface allows users to toggle between sidebar features without scrolling. The system will keep the last accessed tab at the top, so if a user only uses a certain feature of the sidebar, the tab will remain on top when they come back. A front/back toggle button also means subscribers utilizing custom columns on searches can send the sidebar behind their search results if needed.

Responsive Menu Bar

Finally, on Thursday we’ll be changing the way the RMLSweb menu bar behaves. Users who tire of scrolling up each page to access different parts of RMLSweb will rejoice, as the menu bar will remain fixed at the top of the browser window for convenience. This was a project prioritized for 2015 by the RMLS™ Board of Directors.

We’re always trying to make RMLSweb better for subscribers, and hope this latest round of changes will be helpful. Subscribers can always contact the RMLS™ Help Desk at (503) 872-8002 or (877) 256-2169 with questions or suggestions for future improvements.

DON’T FORGET: the monthly RMLSweb outage usually scheduled during the last Wednesday of each month from 10pm-2am Thursday will be a little longer this month. RMLS™ technicians will not only be executing new features to the site and performing system maintenance, but also replacing hardware. RMLSweb will be in maintenance mode from 10pm Wednesday, May 27th until 4am Thursday, May 28th.