Each year the RMLS™ Forms Committee convenes in order to improve RMLSweb for users. After carefully reviewing suggestions submitted throughout the year by other subscribers, the Forms Committee recommends changes to the listing input forms, which are then reviewed and voted on by the RMLS™ Board of Directors.
After that vote, it’s time for RMLS™ staff to get to work! New code is written and tested behind-the-scenes—and once all the pieces are in place, a 12-hour outage is required to make the improvements for the year.
We anticipate the annual forms change to take place in early June. This will require a 12 hour outage of RMLSweb. We want to make sure subscribers have plenty of notice so they can plan ahead and avoid difficulties when the system is in maintenance mode.
Here are some highlights to expect from the forms change project this year:
- Green Options: we’ve increased the variety and types of green options in RMLSweb. This includes indicating a home’s location near bikeways and multi-use paths, and additional energy efficiency features like photovoltaic panels.
- Public Remarks Increased: the Public Remarks field will increase in size from 380 to 440 characters!
- Schools: an option to select up to two elementary and/or high schools will now be available. In some areas, homes are on a boundary between school districts and may choose where their child attends—REALTORS® will be able to reflect this circumstance in their listings.
- Homeowner Associations (HOA): the HOA field will now be required for all residential and land listings as a yes/no. This is an attempt to alleviate surprises on buyers, who may not find out about HOA fees until after purchasing a property.
We’ll be rolling out more details in the next few weeks as the project nears completion—including the exact date and time of the outage. Check in with the RMLS™ blog regularly for the latest!
Kudos on the private remarks. Now hopefully, we will not see those Twitter type abbreviations.
It would be great if the forms allowed an easier search for legal and non conforming ADUs. I recently tried searching for a “mother in law” apartment for a family group who did not care about the second unit being legal to rent. After talking with the RMLS staff I discovered that there are about six places on the listing input form where a listing agent might notate a second living unit. Each criteria would need to be searched separately to make a comprehensive search. This is cumbersome and likely to provide incomplete information for our clients. It would be great if the forms committee would review this issue and create a thoughtful solution.
Laurie, thanks for the feedback! It seems like ADUs may be on the rise (at least in Portland) too. I’ll let our forms committee know and they’ll review when they meet later this year.
Wayne, thanks for the positive feedback! We’re hoping others will be happy about the private remarks increase as well.
Could you put in the 5 page P&S a yes/no on fax & e-mail as legal transmations?
Nancy, you should contact OREF to make this suggestion as the Purchase and Sales agreement belongs to Oregon Real Estate Forms and not RMLS™. Their website is orefonline.com.