Year Built Description Now Required for Residential Listings

Year Built Description Now Required for Residential Listings

by | 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.

Year Built Description Now Required for Residential Listings

Coming August 3rd: Listing Forms Change

by | 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.

Year Built Description Now Required for Residential Listings

Survey Says: 39% Have Added Captions to Photos

by | Jul 20, 2011

41% of respondents have not used the new photo caption feature

Recently, we posted a one-question survey on the RMLSweb desktop for RMLS™ subscribers. With the new ability for subscribers to add captions to their photos (using the new Photo Manager), we wanted to gain some insight into use of the captions. Posting of the survey also had another purpose – to inform those who might not be aware that the caption feature exists.

We had 2,137 subscribers respond to this question, which is roughly 20% of our subscribership. As you can see from the responses, 41% of those who responded to the survey said they have not added captions to their listing’s photos. While we have seen the number of photos with captions steadily increase since the release of the new feature, this percentage shows us that there is still room for more growth. If you combine the two “Yes” answers, you can see that 39% of respondents have added captions to photos. 11% said they have added captions to ALL of their listing’s photos!

Also interesting to note, 12% of the 2,137 respondents said they don’t have any listings, and 8% didn’t know there was a photo caption feature.

For more information on the new Photo Manager feature, view Document #1726: How to Upload Photos Using Photo Manager or watch our tutorial: Adding Photos To Your Listing. If you have any questions, feel free to call the RMLS™ Help Desk at 503-872-8002 or toll-free at 877-256-2169.