From Syndication to Mastering Online Marketing – June 30

Attend this educational seminar presented by ListHub and RMLS™!

Consumers are constantly turning more to the internet for everything, including real estate. As a result, the number of internet marketing technologies is exploding and consequently overwhelming to brokers and agents. In today’s challenging market, we can not afford to waste precious dollars experimenting to find out what works! If you are interested in maximizing and measuring the value you get from online advertising, ListHub has some valuable information for you.

On Thursday, June 30th, RMLS™ and ListHub are hosting an educational seminar to help. ListHub gives area brokers the latest online marketing tools and strategies, including the premier broker-controlled system for marketing property listings online. ListHub specializes in data integration and marketing metrics. Today, they manage the listing inventory for thousands and thousands of real estate companies nationwide. And, ListHub’s Online Marketing Reports have been dramatically updated in recent months to now include traffic from REALTOR.com, along with expanded data from Zillow/Yahoo! and a variety of additional sites! Find out how to put their experience to work for you!

Please join us to find out how you can leverage these new tools to make the most of the internet explosion – there are things that you can do today without spending a penny that will directly improve your results!

A ListHub representative will be on hand to provide you with helpful online marketing tools and tips. There will be two classes during the day: one for Principal Brokers, and one for agents.

Program: From Syndication to Mastering Online Marketing
Date: Thursday, June 30, 2011
Time for Principal Brokers: 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Time for Agents: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Location: RMLS™ Board Room, 825 NE Multnomah, Ste. 270, Portland OR
Refreshments: Snacks and refreshments will be provided courtesy of ListHub

For more information and to register for the principal broker class, click here.

For more information and to register for the agent class, click here.

Want more information about ListHub? View these documents:
5 Important Things About ListHub
How ListHub Works
3 Factors That Impact Listing Accuracy



Supra Lockbox Activity – Updated Through Week of May 23 – May 29

Activity drops in Oregon, but rises in Washington

When comparing the week of May 23 – May 29 with the week prior, the number of times an RMLS™ subscriber opened a Supra lockbox increased 7.5% in Washington and decreased 4.3% in Oregon.

Washington

Oregon

Archive

View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.



June Real Estate Events & Education

This June, take advantage of FREE RMLSweb training!

Here’s a quick rundown of upcoming real estate events and education for June in Oregon and Southern Washington. If you have an event that is not listed here, please let us know by commenting below. For future events, please send an e-mail to communications (at) rmls (dot) com.

RMLS™ Events:

Broker Education Series – June 2
Join RMLS™ for this educational event on June 2 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at Wildhorse Casino in Pendleton. Step-by-step training will show you how to successfully present, negotiate, and sign exclusive buyer representation agreements. This course provides great tools for qualifying buyers, negotiating professional service fees, signing representation agreements, and overcoming broker and buyer objections to exclusive representation.

Topic: Exclusive Buyer Representation Agreements
Speaker: Rick Harris, ABR CIPS CRS SFR
When: June 2, 2011 9:00am – 12:00pm
Cost: FREE!

For more information and to register, click here.

Events around the region:

-June 4-5: The 2011 REALTOR® Nationwide Open House is held the weekend of June 4-5, to provide buyers with opportunities to view local open houses and learn more about homeownership. For more information on how you can participate in this year’s event, contact your local association for details.

-June 7: East Metro Association of REALTORS® hosts “Advanced Real Estate Practices” at the EMAR offices in Gresham. (You may take 1 day’s class for Continuing Ed. credit for $59.) For more information, please see this flyer.

-June 9: Lane County Women’s Council of REALTORS® presents its Monthly “Real Estate Broker/Owner Panel” from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Mallard Hall in Eugene. For more information, please click here.

-June 9: Portland Metropolitan Association of REALTORS® presents “Law and Rule Required Course” from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at George Fox, Portland Center. For more information, click here.

-June 13: Portland Metropolitan Association of REALTORS® presents “Surviving the Appraisal Process in Today’s Marketplace” from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Multnomah Athletic Club. For more information, click here.

-June 14: Fair Housing Council of Oregon offers FREE Accessibility Training on the details of federally required Design & Construction requirements under the Fair Housing Act. For more information, please see this flyer.

-June 21-22: Earth Advantage Institute presents the Habitat for Humanity Sustainable Building Conference, a two-day event at the Clark College campus. For more information, please click here.

-June 28: Fair Housing Council of Oregon presents “Fair Housing & Advertising for Realtors®” from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. in Portland. To learn more, please see this flyer.

-June-September: Northwest Energy Star Homes is holding a “Welcome Home” $25,000 sweepstakes from June through September to stimulate home buying and generate more interest in touring and visiting homes. The $25,000 winner could use the money as a down payment or to purchase a new home (whether it’s an Energy Star home or not). If you have a client who will be touring Energy Star homes, they may find this information useful. Click here for more information.

Also, if you are an RMLS™ subscriber, we have lots of FREE educational opportunities at a location near you; click the link for your area to view the June Training Calendar:

–Coos County
–Eastern Oregon
–Eugene
–Gresham
–Hood River
–Portland
–Roseburg
–Salem
–Vancouver



Supra Lockbox Activity – Updated Through Week of May 16 – May 22

Activity falls in both Washington and Oregon

When comparing the week of May 16 – May 22 with the week prior, the number of times an RMLS™ subscriber opened a Supra lockbox decreased 14.6% in Washington and 2.8% in Oregon.

Washington

Oregon

Archive

View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.



The Offer of Compensation

Guest blog post written by Gail Hare, RMLS™ Executive Vice President

One of the core elements of a Multiple Listing Service is the offer of compensation. Each listing entered into RMLS™ shows the amount of the cooperating compensation in the BAC fields. This informs other MLS participants about their expected compensation before they try to sell the listing. Any change must be communicated in writing before an offer is submitted.

The cooperating commission is shown as a specific dollar amount or as a percentage of the gross selling price. The commission of the Listing Broker is never displayed. The total commission negotiated between the Listing Broker and the Seller is also never disclosed.

Dual or Variable Rate Commission

Some listing agreements have special terms if the Listing Broker also represents the buyer. Those terms state that total commission differs when there is no Cooperating Broker in the sale. This could affect the relative attractiveness of competing offers. Listings have a required field called “Total Commission Differs If Sold In House.”  This is checked YES to alert MLS subscribers about this condition.

Short Sale Considerations

Short sales present many challenges. The lender may require a reduction in the gross commission as a condition of approving the sale. The Listing Broker may use the Private Remarks to describe how any reduction will be apportioned.  If there is no notification by this or other means, Cooperating Brokers can reasonably expect the published compensation.

Remember!

Compensation and the division of compensation is not fixed or controlled in any way. Each Listing Broker independently decides the commission for each listing.

Disputes between REALTORS® regarding offers of compensation are resolved through arbitration and mediation.

For More Information

Read Section 6 of the RMLS™ Rules and Regulations to learn more about commissions, and Rule 3.25 to learn more about how short sales are handled. Please contact our Rules staff if you have questions. Call Vallerie Bush, Rules Administrator, at 503-872-8045 or Wanda Kennedy, Rules Representative, at 503-872 8084. They can also be reached by email at Rules@rmls.com.



Supra Lockbox Activity – Updated Through Week of May 9 – May 15

Activity rises in Washington and Oregon

When comparing the week of May 9 – May 15 with the week prior, the number of times an RMLS™ subscriber opened a Supra lockbox increased 20.1% in Washington and 7.3% in Oregon.

Washington

Oregon

Archive

View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.



Supra Lockbox Activity – Updated Through Week of May 2 – May 8

Activity decreases in both Washington and Oregon

When comparing the week of May 2 – May 8 with the week prior, the number of times an RMLS™ subscriber opened a Supra lockbox decreased 16.6% in Washington and 8.9% in Oregon.

Washington

Oregon

Archive

View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.



New Photo Manager Available on RMLSweb

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.



Supra Lockbox Activity – Updated Through Week of April 25 – May 1

Activity increases in both Washington and Oregon

When comparing the week of April 25 – May 1 with the week prior, the number of times an RMLS™ subscriber opened a Supra lockbox increased 1.1% in Washington and 15.8% in Oregon.

Washington

Oregon

Archive

View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.



INFOGRAPHICS: Distressed Properties in 2010

See a visual representation of distressed properties in our market!

One request we’ve frequently gotten from subscribers is to display data on Short Sales and Bank Owned properties. As a result, we have created brand new infographics to show how distressed properties identified as Short Sales or Bank Owned were represented in the 2010 housing market. This is the first report in an ongoing series that will show you how our local market has been affected by the economic downturn.

(Click the image to enlarge)

The above infographic shows a visual representation of the number of Bank Owned and Short Sales in all areas in the RMLS™ system during 2010. The top half shows new listings and sales for the entire year, while the bottom half shows new listings and sales by quarter. To download or print the infographic, click here.

Below are links to additional infographics for some of our larger areas:
Portland Metro
Clark County, WA
Lane County, OR
Douglas County, OR
*If you want information on percentages of distressed sales in other areas not represented by our infographics, please contact us at communications@rmls.com.

As can be seen from the above infographic, the percentage of distressed sales within the overall housing market greatly increased in closed sales compared to new listings. Additionally, the amount of Short Sales decreased by more than a third when comparing closed sales with new listings. The quarterly trend shows an increase of new listings which were distressed, particularly in Quarter 3 and Quarter 4. Looking at sales, Quarter 2 and Quarter 3 both show decreases in distressed sales compared to Quarter 1, and Quarter 4 ended with only a 0.1% rise in distressed sales compared with Quarter 1.

Here are some additional facts about distressed properties in 2010:

  • Distressed properties comprised 24.1% of new residential listings, and 29.3% of residential sales.
  • Short Sales were 11.8% of new listings, and 8.9% of sales.
  • Bank Owned properties were 12.3% of new listings, and 20.4% of sales.