by RMLS Communication Department | Aug 16, 2011
Learn more about these two new Supplement forms!
On August 3rd, our Forms Change was released, which made five new Supplement forms available for subscribers to use to share even more information about their listings. In this blog post, we are highlighting the Condo and Amenities Supplement forms. Later, we will highlight the other new Supplement forms.
Condo Supplement:
The new Condo Supplement includes fields that offer the ability for Listing Agents to describe the condo building beyond just the unit for sale. For example, there is a field for Condo Conversion Yes/No, and a field for the number of condo units in the complex.
Want to provide information about the condo association? The Condo Supplement makes this possible. There are fields for Condo Association Name, Condo Association Contact, Condo Association URL and Condo Association Phone.
There is also a field for Pending HOA Litigation Yes/No. Keep in mind that the condo association information and pending litigation fields are kept private and can only be viewed by subscribers, meaning that they are not included in client reports.
Note: We moved the Upper Condo Level field from the address line of the main Listing Load page to the Condo Supplement form. The visibility of the field stays the same (the field will only be visible when the “Condo Unit Location” is set as UPPER).
Click here to view the Condo Supplement.
Amenities Supplement:
Is your client an avid public bus commuter? Does your client have a child who rides the public school bus? Or perhaps your client has a pet that needs frequent trips to the park? The Amenities Supplement allows Listing Agents to describe the distance from the property to different public features, such as parks, bus stops and shopping areas.
The Amenities Supplement also provides a field for Easement Information and a field for Walk Score! Many consumers are familiar with the Walk Score website, which rates neighborhoods for distance to walkable amenities, like shops, restaurants, transportation, etc. Visit walkscore.com for more information. The Walk Score field in the Amenities Supplement allows for the actual number of the walk score to be entered.
Click here to view the Amenities Supplement.
General Information:
On a general note, we want to mention that all of the new Supplement forms (except for Auction, which isn’t new) provide a Public Remarks field to further describe the property for that supplement.
Want to know more about Supplement forms? View the Utilizing Supplement Forms tutorial, it’s a visual learning experience!
To see the other Supplement forms and to see other changes that were released with the Forms Change, view the Listing Forms Change Summary document.
Questions? Contact the RMLS™ Help Desk at 503-872-8002 or toll-free at 877-256-2169.
by RMLS Communication Department | Aug 4, 2011
Brush up on Year Built Description terms!
This year’s Forms Change went into effect on August 3rd, 2011. One of the important changes this year is that the Year Built Description field is now required for Residential listings only. The addition of this requirement will help us report on new home sales versus existing home sales statistics.
With the different options available to select for the Year Built Description field, we thought a refresher on what the different terms mean may be beneficial to subscribers. Here is a list of the available terms and their meaning:
APPROX: Approximately – Year Built indicates the approximate year in which the home was built.
FIXER: Fixer – Needs Repair.
NEW: New – Construction completed, but home has never been occupied.
PROPOSD: Proposed – Not yet under construction.
REGHIST: Home is on the Register of Historic Homes.
REMOD: Remodeled – Some or all of the home has been remodeled.
RESALE: Resale – Existing home for sale.
RESTORD: Restored – Homes restored to original condition.
UNDERCON: Under Construction – Ground broken and construction actually under way.
UNKNOWN: Unknown due to loss of county records.
Want more information about the Forms Change? Read the Listing Forms Change Summary document. Or, watch our new tutorial, Utilizing Supplement Forms.
With the new changes to the Listing Input Forms on RMLSweb, it may be a good idea for subscribers to attend an RMLS™ Updates class taught by our Training Department. Offices can also contact our Training Department to schedule a visit to get personalized instruction on the new changes. Contact RMLS™ Training at 503-236-7657 or access the RMLS™ Training calendar on RMLSweb under the Toolkit option.
Questions? Contact the RMLS™ Help Desk at 503-872-8002 or toll-free at 877-256-2169.
by RMLS Communication Department | Jul 26, 2011
Includes New Supplement Forms!
Each year, the RMLS™ Forms Committee, which is comprised of volunteer Realtor® subscribers, recommends changes to the Listing Input Forms to be approved by the Board of Directors. The annual Forms Change will be released on August 3rd, 2011 from the suggestions made in 2010.
Click here to view the Listing Forms Change Summary document.
Click here to watch the Utilizing Supplement Forms tutorial!
Extended Outage: The upcoming changes to Listing Load will require some additional time to update the website. As a result, RMLSweb will be in maintenance mode from 7 p.m. on Tuesday, August 2 to 7 a.m. Wednesday, August 3. Please plan your work schedule around this outage.
Five New Supplement Forms Available On RMLSweb: We are adding new Supplement forms for Additional Structure(s), Amenities, Condo, Farms & Ranches and Water Rights.
- There are Supplement form navigation links at the top of the “Listing Load: Edit Listing” page and also in between the individual form sections. These links will take the user to the Supplement form section at the bottom of the page.
- To add an Amenities, Additional Structures or Water Rights Supplement form, the user must check the “include” box on the far right side of the Supplement section bar in order to see the Supplement fields and to input information into them. The Supplement forms for Auction, Farm and Condo cannot be selected or unselected with a check box. These will be included as required by selecting an Auction price type, a Property Type of Condo or a Property Type of Farm (or Farm/Forest).
- When viewing a report within RMLSweb, users will have the option to “Show/Print Supplements” at the top of the page.
Below are some of the significant changes to the forms:
Year Built Description Field: Starting on August 3rd, this field will become required for all Residential listings. We will backfill this field (fill in the Year Built Description for you according to certain criteria), but suggest that if you have ACT, BMP, PEN or WTH listings that are Residential, to select the Year Built Description before August 3. We are also adding a RESALE option to this field. The criteria we are using for our backfill process is as follows:
- If the Year Built Description is blank and Occupied By is Proposed or Under Construction, then the Year Built Description will become Proposed or Under Construction.
- If the Year Built Description is blank and the List Date is within the last 5 years, then Year Built Description becomes UNKNOWN.
- If the Year Built Description is blank and the List Date is older than 5 years and Status is ACT, BMP, PEN or WTH, then the Year Built Description becomes UNKNOWN.
Farms and Ranches: Due to the addition of the Farms and Ranches Supplement form, we will be converting Farm listings to either Residential (RES) or Lots and Land (LND) categories, according to specific criteria. The conversion of Farm listings to either RES or LND is based on the following criteria:
- If Habitable Residence is Yes, then the listing will be converted to RES
- If Habitable Residence is No, then the listing will be converted to LND
- If Habitable Residence is blank (meaning it was a pre-RMLS listing), and the number of bathrooms is greater than zero, then the listing will be converted to RES, otherwise it will convert to LND.
Want to know more about the changes? Attend one of our RMLSweb updates classes at your local RMLS™ office. See the Training Calendar to find a class near you.
Questions? Contact the RMLS™ Help Desk at 503-872-8002 or toll-free at 877-256-2169.
by RMLS Communication Department | May 11, 2011
You can now upload multiple photos at one time and add captions to photos!
The new, transformed Photo Manager is now available in Listing Load on RMLSweb! Feedback from subscribers in the 2010 Subscriber Satisfaction Survey, as well as other channels, showed a need for RMLS™ to update our photo loading functions. Due to this interest, we have released a new Photo Manager, which enables users to upload multiple photos at one time, add captions to photos, and provides users with added functionality to make uploading and maintaining photos much more efficient.
Here are some exciting things you can do with the new Photo Manager:
Upload multiple photos at one time. When locating photos to upload, you can now select multiple photos and upload them all together. The new photo upload feature also displays thumbnail previews of the photos, as well as status and progress information, so you can track the uploading process. Note: To use this feature, you will need to install the free Microsoft Silverlight plugin on your computer, which can be downloaded here. For users who don’t want to download Silverlight, the previous functionality of uploading photos individually will still be available via a link on the Silverlight installation prompt screen.
Add captions to your photos. You can now add captions and sub-captions to your photos from a list of provided captions. If you don’t see a caption that fits your desired description, please email the desired caption to rules@rmls.com. The captions will only appear within RMLSweb and not in data feeds at this time. Note: you cannot assign a caption to the first photo.
Drag and drop your photos to reorder. The new Photo Manager allows you to drag and drop your photos to reorder them, making it easier than ever to manage all of your photos! To rearrange, simply click on the photo you would like to reorder, and drag that photo to the location you would like it to appear. Once the photos are in the desired order, you must click “Save the Order” before continuing for the changes to be saved. 
Auto resizing. No more stretched photos! One of the reasons the new Photo Manager will be more efficient than ever is that it now resizes photos for you! Silverlight allows you to select any sized photo and will resize it prior to upload. It will resize the photo to the size of 640 x 480. This makes uploading faster! For best results, we recommend using landscape photos. However, the Photo Manager now recognizes the orientation of the photo (whether landscape or portrait) and will now add padding (white space) to portrait photos to make them into a landscape-oriented photo. Therefore, portrait photos are now accepted and will be resized (with padding/white space) to prevent distortion and stretching.
Other highlights:
- Bulk deletion – delete multiple photos at one time!
- List & Preview/Grid View – two viewing options via a dropdown menu!
- New arrow buttons – allows scrolling through photos using a “previous” and “next” method!
- Pop-up Viewer – view and print larger photos!
For more details and information on the Photo Manager, take a look at Document #1726: How to Upload Photos Using Photo Manager. Or, watch our video tutorial: Adding Photos To Your Listing.
If you have any questions or need help with the Photo Manager, feel free to call Help Desk at 503-872-8002 or toll-free at 877-256-2169.
by RMLS Communication Department | Mar 30, 2010
RMLS™ will no longer be printing contracts or input forms
At RMLS™, we take your feedback very seriously. Every year the Realtors on our Forms Committee review your suggestions regarding changes to the listing contracts and input forms and make recommendations to the Board of Directors. This year they have identified several changes to the forms that will be in effect April 28, including several new feature options and a new field for Energy Efficiency.
In addition, the committee and the Board of Directors carefully reviewed the declining usage of the printed input forms and decided that in order to be more responsive to the real estate market in the future, we will only be publishing the input forms electronically from now on. Printed input forms will no longer be for sale starting on April 15. The electronic forms are available in several formats on RMLSweb:
- Printable blank PDFs that you can fill in by hand. (If you use this method, you may want to purchase NCR paper from your local office supply store or EMAR so you don’t have to fill them out twice.)
- e-Forms that can be filled in on your computer and printed out.
- Print listing agreements from Listing Load.
If you prefer to have them professionally printed yourself, please email frontdesk@rmls.com for a copyright permission letter.
There will be no changes to the contracts or addendum forms at this time. However, we will not be reprinting them in the future. Starting April 15, you may purchase the printed contract pages and addendum forms at a special 2-for-1 rate while supplies last.
More information about the specific field and feature changes will be available shortly. Stay tuned!
The new Condo Supplement includes fields that offer the ability for Listing Agents to describe the condo building beyond just the unit for sale. For example, there is a field for Condo Conversion Yes/No, and a field for the number of condo units in the complex.
Is your client an avid public bus commuter? Does your client have a child who rides the public school bus? Or perhaps your client has a pet that needs frequent trips to the park? The Amenities Supplement allows Listing Agents to describe the distance from the property to different public features, such as parks, bus stops and shopping areas.
