Tips and Resources for REALTOR® Safety Month

Tips and Resources for REALTOR® Safety Month

by | Sep 25, 2013

ShadowyFigureinHomeSMSafety should never be relegated to just one month, but September is REALTOR® Safety Month. This year marks the 10th year of the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) dedicating a month to REALTOR® safety. Every year more and more alarming (and sometimes bizarre!) stories emerge from our subscribers: robberies, creeps, and fools. Every year RMLS™ strives to give subscribers resource material to better educate and protect themselves.

Top Tips from NAR (and Me)

The following are the four most paramount tips NAR would like to pass on:

  1. Have office guests sign in. At the office, use a visitor log book where potential clients fill out a customer identification form. Remember to check IDs.
  2. Don’t disclose too much personal information online. Consider setting up separate personal and business accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. This will help protect your personal photos, posts, and other information from people you don’t know.
  3. Familiarize yourself with the properties you’re showing. If you are showing a vacant house, walk the perimeter of the property before you or your client enter to look for signs that someone has been or is currently inside.
  4. Note your escape route. When showing a property, leave the front door unlocked for a quick exit if needed. As you walk through a house, let the client enter rooms ahead of you.

And my personal favorite tips:

  1. Tell people where you are going if meeting someone alone or for the first time. You can also go so far as to have a colleague call you at a certain time if you are nervous about the meeting. Mention the name of who you’re meeting and even set an estimated time of return.
  2. Reasonable people will answer reasonable questions. For instance, there has been a rash of would-be buyers who are offended when asked to provide proof of funds for an all-cash transaction or who become upset if you can’t meet with them under their conditions. While it’s not always the case, dramatic reactions to seemingly benign questions or comments should raise concern.
  3. Advise your sellers of the possibilities. Tell them to lock up all valuables, especially small items such as prescription bottles, checks, and jewelry. Even at a brokers’ tour with the most seasoned agent,  someone who doesn’t look suspicious who says they were in the neighborhood and saw the sign can wreak havoc and you know the rest.

Technology. Whew, What They Can Do These Days!

In our last safety post, we discussed internet resources REALTORS® could utilize to be notified should their listings be hijacked by scam artists and posted on sites like Craigslist and even Trulia. Now you can empower yourself with applications on your mobile devices. Smartphones have become ubiquitous in the real estate industry. Safety applications go beyond just panic button capabilities these days. Some applications utilize GPS coordinates for emergency response while others offer speed dialing or automated emergency messages that go to designated numbers. As new apps become available every day, check your mobile device’s app store for the latest offers and information.

That said, still protect your personal information in case your phone is stolen or compromised. Consider installing a tracking device on your phone where you can remotely access it from a computer. Device passwords should be unique and free from obvious patterns like 4-3-2-1 or 1-3-7-9 (the four corners of a key pad). Read on at REALTOR.org for a comprehensive list of safety precautions for your valuables and yourself beyond those mentioned here.

Speaking of helpful resources, NAR has an archive of safety webinars for REALTORS® that include all they released in the last four years. Webinar topics on the archive include open house safety, online safety, office layouts, and removing dangers specific to distressed properties. This kind of information can be great to touch on either briefly at an office meeting, or NAR has a variety of full presentations available for your staff.

Trust your instincts, be aware of your surroundings, and always listen to the little voice, no matter how cliched or cynical, that says if something looks too good to be true…

Happy REALTOR® Safety Month, and if you would like to report an incident or concern regarding safety or fraud to RMLS™, please contact me at kelly.m@rmls.com.

Tips and Resources for REALTOR® Safety Month

2.3 Million Public Records and Counting: Tax Information on RMLSweb

by | Sep 6, 2013

Oregon Washington 1-31-13RMLS™ strives to provide property and tax data in one location for all counties where our subscribers do business. Currently RMLS™ maintains over 2.3 million property records encompassing 43 counties in Oregon and Washington.

Each county has its own assessor and its own system for maintaining property and tax records. Many systems are one of a kind—one county system still uses 3×5 cards! Although some counties provide a website where individual tax properties can be researched, many counties do not provide such convenient access.

RMLS™ obtains data from the county itself or from another tax provider and then processes it into a standard RMLS™ format. The data is quality checked to the best extent possible. Updated property and tax data is then deployed to RMLSweb each week on Tuesday evening.

Depending on availability and other factors, sales are updated either weekly, quarterly, or biannually. Some counties do not provide sale data at all. It is important to remember that regardless of the update schedule, RMLS™ data will always lag a little compared to data from the county itself. This is especially true of tax amounts due to the volume of processing required.

Along with a defined primary set of property data (tax ID, acres, site address, market values, sales data, etc.) each county also has a unique set of ancillary data (heating, foundation, parking, etc.). Each data item also has a “fill factor” unique to each county. For example, in Baker County 98% of properties have a zoning value, in Jackson it is 83%, in Tillamook it is 72%, and in Benton it is 0%. RMLS™ analyzes these data items and factors and then displays the most relevant data on the tax report. Every county’s tax report is therefore slightly different.

The property and tax data also contains errors and omissions. Humans, computers, and governments are involved in the process and mistakes do occur. Whenever a subscriber encounters such a situation, they should contact us (you can reach me at kim.h@rmls.com) and provide sufficient details (county, tax ID, description of error) so that research can be done and the proper correction made. Most cases are resolved with the next update from the county. In the meantime, subscribers are advised to put a comment about any tax issues into the listing’s private remarks field.