Dear Technical Terry,

I’m so frustrated! While I realize that software that allows me to control showings of their listings should be beneficial, I have such a hard time with ShowingTime! It seems like it should be such a time saver, but I get confused as to how to set it up. It seems like you should be able to either turn it off for all listings or select specific listings to turn it off for. 

I’ve also heard that there might be another tool coming online at some point down the road for showing control – is that true and what can you tell me about it?

-Challenged in Camas

Hi CC,

I hear you! You CAN control the use of ShowingTime for your listings, either individually or collectively (meaning all of them). This question is common at the Help Desk so please don’t feel like you’re alone in your challenges. We have a great guide (document #1783) available on RMLSweb that covers how to turn off ShowingTime in either scenario mentioned above. 

If you find you still have questions after reviewing the doc, give our Help Desk a call at 503.872.8002 or toll free at 877.256.2169.

As far as future plans for showing software, you may have read this announcement a few months back:

MLS Aligned, a partnership of five forward-thinking Multiple Listing Services that includes RMLS, has announced the acquisition of Agent Inbox technology and intellectual property. MLS Aligned will build upon Agent Inbox in order to offer an integrated tool for messaging and scheduling showings to agents and brokers.

MLS Aligned believes that the Agent Inbox system “will bring tremendous benefits to consumers due to the platform’s speed and enhanced showing system capabilities.” MLS Aligned plans to integrate Agent Inbox capabilities into their respective MLS systems, including RMLSweb, to “provide for seamless agent-to-agent and agent-to-client communications.”

Kurt von Wasmuth, President and CEO of RMLS, said, “With Agent Inbox’s ability to seamlessly integrate into our existing MLS, the communication and showing features will provide an enticing enhancement to our current list of features.”

Read the Full Press Release

Here’s the MLS Aligned website if you’re interested in learning more: https://www.mlsaligned.com/ 

In closing I’d like to point out the very tangible benefits of belonging to RMLS that is in this group of five MLSs. The opportunity to share concepts, programming costs, and other economies of scale is a huge benefit, and one that RMLS is proud to participant with. 

Thanks for writing in CC, hope this info is helpful!

-TT

Hi TT,

In this crazy market we are experiencing I’ve had opportunity to use the Coming Soon-No Showing (CSN) concept in Listing Load. While I understand the concept, and agree it has value in the right circumstance, I found the workflow to be tough to understand when adding the listing. 

In fact, I made a mistake the first time I tried to use CSN and the listing went Active right away! It took a bit of work and conversation with RMLS support staff to clean up the mess I made and get the listing re-added correctly. 

Are there any support materials I should have referenced before attempting to add a CSN that might have prevented my mistake? The Help Desk person I spoke with said it happens quite frequently.
Curious in Cottage Grove

Hi CC,

I hear you regarding adding a CSN listing. The mistake some subscribers make is not realizing the “Date Marketing to Begin” should be the date you want the listing to flip from CSN to Active, NOT the date you are publishing the CSN listing.

As the CSN status has been around for almost 3 years, much of the initial information about the status and how it all came about can be found on the RMLS Central blog – here is a post explaining the status and process for adding a new CSN listing. 

In light of the ongoing (though diminishing) challenges with getting the Date Marketing to Begin correct when adding a CSN listing, we created a brand new, short video that covers how to add a CSN listing and get the DMB value correct.

I sure hope this helps, CC. Going forward you can always call the Help Desk at 877.256.2169 or use the Chat feature in RMLSweb to discuss the process with RMLS staff while you’re adding the CSN listing.

TT

Dear TT,
I was chatting with a long-term Realtor in my office recently about farming (you know, how to wrangle up clients to list with you in an area you specialize in – not how to grow corn! They gave me the history of how they performed their farming strategies prior to Remine, and then told me how Remine has saved them a ton of marketing dollars. 

I couldn’t quite grasp what they were telling me, and honestly, I didn’t want to take up any more of their time explaining the concept to me. Can you help? What is it about Remine that is so great when it comes to farming?
Questioning in Quail Valley

Hi QQ,
The veteran Realtor in your office shared a really valuable perspective with you. Remine allows you to farm in a way not possible before the days of “big data” and “artificial Intelligence” became commonplace. Remine has access to a TON of consumer data, including mortgage information, that is used to analyze the potential to sell based on known historical tendencies. This is based on many variables that you can custom select when running searches in Remine. The product doesn’t simply identify homeowners more likely to sell but can offer a turn-key solution in generating marketing materials and sending them on your behalf to homeowners that meet your criteria.

Examples of filters you can use to target your marketing/farming dollars include:

• Property Value
• Ownership Time
• Equity
• Mortgage rate %
• Sell Score
• Mortgage age
• Absentee owner

Keep in mind that we offer Remine classes every month and the classes qualify for OR continuing education credit!  We also offer one-on-one sessions where you can schedule personal training time with an RMLS Trainer. To register for this type of assistance, simply go to the Training Registration module in RMLSweb, navigate to the one-on-one option and pick the day and time that works for you. Time slots are in one-hour increments, and you can book as many time slots as you want. This gives you a chance to really explore with the help of a Trainer.

Hope this helps Q!

TT

Dear TT

I am a fairly new subscriber to RMLS, and I’m interested in figuring out how to use all the additional tools RMLS offers us subscribers. It’s a pretty big difference compared to the last MLS I was a member of – they provided the base MLS system and that was it. Any additional tools were up to us Realtors to obtain and figure out how to use.

So, I’m excited about all the ‘extras’ RMLS has available, but there are almost too many additional tools to choose from. Can you help me better understand which toolset does what and which ones to pick for specific activities?

Curious in Cottage Grove

Hi CCG,

That’s a really great question. We put a lot of emphasis on providing tools for our subscribers to pick from and leverage to perform those daily tasks that can seem overwhelming – everyone is looking for ways to become more efficient and successful, right?

We do offer a class that covers all the various 3rd party products available to you called RMLS 3rd Party Tools, which is a great starting point. Recently we began offering another class – Comparing Your CMA Options – that takes a look at four viable options for creating market analysis reports for your clients. Nothing beats spending a little time exploring the options available to you though – you can view all the various 3rd party product options in RMLSweb.

After beginning with our RMLS 3rd Party Tools class to get a good overview of all the various products, I’d recommend identifying what your top goals are. Perhaps you want to streamline your farming process, or upgrade how you communicate with clients. Determine your top priorities, then give each tool which provides what you’re looking for a good test drive. Once you’ve identified some good tool matches, you can fast track your education and comfort with the tool by making use of our training options.

For example, if CMA creation is one of your challenges/objectives, I would sign up for our Comparing Your CMA Options webinar. This new CMA class compares RMLSweb, Homesnap, RPR and Remine, and the various approaches each uses to create a CMA. The class provides good detail about how to create the CMA report by searching for appropriate comparative properties, as well as the various output reports each product offers.

We offer stand-alone classes for many of our 3^rd party products that goes into more detail about additional beneficial aspects of each product. You can also set up one-on-one sessions with our staff to answer specific questions about product use and integration for your business. To view our current schedule of available webinars, go to the Training Calendar on RMLSweb. You can also use Training/Support Resources to access all our support and training links, as well as video tutorials.

I hope this helps you identify a starting point in better understanding how to explore the variety of educational options we offer for the 3rd Party tools at your disposal.

TT

Dear Technical Terry,

I know it has been several months since the introduction of the Paragon MLS system and I recall there being a free trial period. Is that still available and why would I want to try Paragon?

Curious in Coos Bay

Hi CC,

It has been a few months since the roll out of the Paragon MLS System of Choice project. We continue to offer your first quarter of Paragon access for no cost — you simply need to send an email to frontdesk@rmls.com letting us know of your interest in trying the Paragon system. You will receive instructions on how to log in to the Paragon system as well as other details.

Now, your second question about why you would want to try Paragon has more answers. It depends on how you conduct your Real Estate business, how comprehensive of a technology toolset your brokerage provides you and what you like to do with MLS listing data.

Take, for example, the Paragon Collaboration Center and Paragon Connect – utilizing these two Paragon modules in conjunction with each other allows you to provide your customers a wonderful experience in viewing listings that match their specifications while allowing your customers to change search criteria on their own, favoriting properties they like and discarding properties they don’t like. All of this activity is done with transparency on your side, so you will know exactly what your clients are doing with the listings that you are providing them. And by utilizing Paragon Connect on your smart phone or tablet you will be able to see exactly what they are doing while you’re out in the field. Very powerful! Check out this short video about how the two modules work together.

If you are an appraiser, or simply like to export listing data to create your own data analysis using Excel, Paragon offers a simple, yet very effective way to create custom exports for your use. Also, if you are required as an appraiser to create the 1004MC market conditions report, Paragon has you covered there as well.

I’d be remiss in not mentioning the really powerful integration of the CRS Data’s MLS Tax Data suite that is included inside the Paragon system. The CRS system takes tax data reporting and searching capability to a new level!

So, as you can see, just detailing a couple of the Paragon system benefits will hopefully give you the encouragement to try the product. The RMLS Training Dept. and Help Desk Dept. are both available to support and train your Paragon experience for you, and the Paragon Help Center is as well-developed a support portal as I have seen in my 30 years in the industry.

Give it a try – we are here to support you!!

TT

Dear TT,

Some of my REALTOR® friends and I were chatting recently about RMLS™ and how many cool tools we now have available for us. We tried to think about all the new “stuff” that has been provided to us just this year and while I’m sure we remembered a lot of the things could you give me a quick recap on the highlights for 2020? And also, THANK YOU to all the RMLS™ staff for keeping RMLS™ products and services up and running without skipping a beat during COVID. Much appreciated!!

Ecstatic in Estacada

Hi EE,

First of all, thank YOU for the kind words. The RMLS™ staff really does pride itself in not only providing/integrating those cool tools you reference above, but also recognizing that our core responsibility is to make sure RMLSweb is up and available for you 24/7.

Now, for a list of the deployment highlights from 2020.

Q1:

• Added Immoviewer to the list of approved 3^rd party products. Immoviewer automatically sends you a link to a simple video tour upon saving your new listing in the RMLSweb database.
• Added the ability to customize the subject line in manually sent client reports from RMLSweb
• Added a red button indicator Back Office on the Menu bar to alert you of your expiring listings
• Added the SentriLock Access Report to the Statistics menu in RMLSweb
• Implemented various COVID-19 accommodations to RMLSweb

Q2:

• Released Phase 1 of the new RMLSweb reports including Client Full and Medium report styles
• Added INRIX Drive Time mapping toolset as well as a new “freehand” drawing tool to Map Search
• Continued with Phase 1 of the RMLSweb reports project by releasing new Open House and Broker Tour reports

Q3:

• Added Paragon as the first “System of Choice” in the MLS industry
• Added RatePlug to the approved 3^rd party products
• Added Price Change Amount filter in Prospecting to confine searches to a price change threshold

Q4:

• Added button to Advanced Search to allow the creation of a Prospect Profile directly from the search
• Added a new Agent Limited One Page report option

Keep in mind that I pulled these improvements/enhancements from a 20-page single line report of all the various items accomplished in 2020 – really quite impressive given the challenges of a global pandemic!

TT

Dear TT,

During the pandemic I’ve really had a chance to take a closer look at some of the wonderful products the RMLS™ Board of Directors has approved for our use. My goodness, there are some good tools available but the one I’m most interested in is Remine. I watched the demonstration when the product first hit the market but was a bit discouraged by how expensive the Pro version was – at almost $200 per month I’d really have to stay busy to rationalize paying for it. I was talking with a fellow REALTOR® last week and they said they’d heard the Remine Pro version was now included in the tools we have to use for no additional cost – is that true? If so – THANK YOU!!

–Farming for leads in Fairview

Hi FF,

It IS true!! The RMLS™ Board of Directors recently agreed to provide the Remine Pro product to you for no cost, meaning the $200 per month some subscribers were paying to get the amazing benefit of Remine Pro is now available to all RMLS™ subscribers. Included in the Pro version is the ability to save up to 10,000 carts of property listings (think of a cart as a collection of specific property addresses) and the elimination of the $3.00 per contact fee. Remine Pro also has every conceivable property filter available to really fine tune your farming activities. Generating mailing labels to farm specific areas based on tangible knowledge about the propensity to sell or buy is a huge deal – no longer do you have to “shotgun market” with your valuable marketing dollars. Now you can send marketing materials to property addresses that might actually be ready to buy or sell!

I’m only touching on a small portion of what Remine Pro can do for you – I would strongly suggest either attending one of the RMLS™-led Remine webinars or checking out the Remine teaching webinars by going to the Support Center when logged in to Remine.

Happy Farming!

–TT

Dear TT,

I swear to you, I’m a very calm person, but if my buyers get one more prospecting email where the listing agent has altered the price by $5 both they and I are gonna scream!! Why do my fellow REALTORS® do this?? It’s sooooooooo frustrating for my buyers! Please tell me there’s a rule about this?

–Hopeful in Happy Valley

Hi HH,

Oh. My. Gosh. I hear you loud and clear! I’m not sure where that form of “marketing” came from but honestly it really IS irritating. Your timing could not be any better however, as just last week our amazing developers released new functionality to the Prospecting module of RMLSweb. This new feature allows you to define the amount of price change the system will use to determine triggering email notification to your clients. When you are looking at your clients Prospecting search, notice in the Frequently Used list of fields a new Price Change option is available. You can define the $ amount of change and the days back. This would allow you to restrict RMLSweb from sending new matches to your client unless the change was more than $1,000 as an example. So now you do have full control over this area of RMLSweb, something both you and your clients will likely enjoy!

–TT

Dear TT,

I have heard rumors about a new MLS system option coming online for RMLS™ subscribers very soon. While I would be the first to admit that RMLSweb frustrates me at times, I never anticipated access to a different sort of MLS dashboard.

I can imagine the concept requires a lot of work to deploy – help me understand why RMLS™ would be doing such a thing and why now?

Interested in Irrigon

Dear II,

Thank you for your question about the Paragon system, which we will release soon (July is when we plan to roll it out). You are correct that this new system requires some heavy lifting, though we believe it is well worth the effort for our subscribers.

Here are some of the reasons:

• Subscriber choice – RMLS™ and its Board of Directors have always focused on providing our  subscribers the best tools, and the best ways to work with their listing data.  As we know, many subscribers come to RMLS™ from other areas where they had a different MLS system, and are frequently telling us “so and so does this aspect better, you should switch to them”.  This model of true front end of choice allows us to put that choice in subscribers’ hands and choose how THEY want to work with the listing data. Paragon will be tied to the same database that RMLSweb uses but will be a completely unique user interface containing some features that we think will be very well received.

• The forward thinking of the Black Knight team; not all MLS system vendors are willing to offer a front end of choice. They want the MLS to switch entirely to their platform before they will work with them, due to their perceived lack of ROI for all the development hours they feel it would take to make this concept work. Black Knight has worked with RMLS™ for years. We’ve shared code with them in the past with our mapping module.  They were willing to give it a shot and dedicate hours of their development team to put the Paragon system in place for us and see how this experiment goes.

Now, we have talked about front end of choice for many years in the real estate/listing service industry. In fact, I can remember all the way back in the early 2000s this concept being discussed at national MLS conferences.

So why has it taken so long to achieve this concept? Here are some details explaining why:

• Standardized MLS data via RESO – Prior to the evolution of RESO (Real Estate Standards Organization) data standards, taking on a new front-end system for an MLS would be a monumental task, as all the data fields would have to be duplicated and reprogrammed and configured to work with a new MLS system and database.  With the evolution of RESO, and the industry acceptance of said standards, we can now push out our data in the RESO format that other system providers can somewhat quickly and easily work with and make these new options available.

As I briefly mentioned above, front end of choice has been a long discussed but never implemented industry idea. RMLS™ and Black Knight are the first MLS / MLS System Vendor team to join up to provide this concept to our subscribers.

To clarify for those who may think RMLSweb is going away and will be replaced by Paragon – that is not the case at all, in fact RMLSweb will continue to be available going forward. You will still use RMLSweb to add and modify listings even if you’ve decided Paragon is your preferred system.

Thanks, Interested in Irrigon, for the great question. Keep an eye on RMLSweb desktop news for more info as we get closer to releasing Paragon.

—TT

Hi TT,

I saw the recent release of the INRIX Drive Time mapping tool in RMLSweb. I have to admit that while I had heard of INRIX before, and understand a bit about the technology, I was not sure I’d ever have use for it in RMLSweb.

Boy was I ever wrong! A day after you folks announced its availability, I got a new client lead that is a doctor moving to Portland, and he said he must live within 20 minutes of his work location and also, ideally, within 20 minutes of the daycare where he wished to enroll his son.

I explained that I have access to a really cutting-edge tool called INRIX Drive Time, and he was quite impressed! I created a search using both addresses and the 20-minute time frames, which helped narrow the number of listings down to homes that would keep him close to work and his child’s daycare.

Really cool! Thank you for adding this feature!

—Thrilled in Tigard

Hi TT (oh, I see what you did there!),

I’m so happy to hear of your success in using the new mapping tool! It really is designed to facilitate the very sort of search you just described. It sounds like you had no problem figuring out how the “Union” and “Intersection” controls work with the Drive Time tools.

For those who may not feel as confident in using the new INRIX Drive Time map functionality, the RMLS™ Training Team has created both a PDF overview and a video overview to walk you through the process.

You also mentioned being familiar with INRIX technology. I find their stuff fascinating, so I poked around on their website and found a great Trip Analytics resource page that is worth reading if you want to really dive into what INRIX can do.

Thanks again, TT; happy searching!

—TT

Dear TT,

In my tenure as a Realtor, I thought cooperation had always been one of the fundamental tenets of MLS — any MLS, not just RMLS™. I’ve tried to read up on the plethora of info that RMLS™ has been providing regarding this Clear Cooperation MLS 8.0 change, but I’m still not 100% sure I understand exactly what the change means.

I’ve heard the terms “pocket listing”, “off-MLS listing” and “office exclusive listing” — what the heck is the difference? I suspect it won’t really affect or alter my business practices, but I’m assuming it may other practitioners depending on how this changes the landscape. Can you help?

—Intrigued in Iona

Dear Intrigued,

Of course I can! Or, I should say, I will do my best to help you and others confused as we adjust to the new rules.

As you stated above, one of the core tenets of MLS is cooperation. That, along with a guarantee of compensation, make up what I consider to be two cornerstones in the foundation of MLS. As the industry has evolved over time, there have been many business models employed, some with greater success than others.

Regardless of their differences, all of the models relied on those two fundamental tenets (cooperation and compensation) via the MLS system. However, throughout the history of MLS, even with the demonstrable benefit to both seller and buyer of sharing listing information within the MLS co-op, there have been real-world reasons to withhold listings from the co-op. Most of those examples were based on seller security/privacy in some way — which is perfectly legitimate.

The problem that arose over time, facilitated in particular by web-based real estate marketing, is the reality that some “pocket listings” (or “off MLS listings” as they’ve been more recently described) were not actually being excluded for privacy reasons. They were excluded out of a desire to capture more of the money available in a transaction — this is clearly not within the framework of MLS rules regarding cooperation.

So along comes Clear Cooperation MLS 8.0, the new policy approved earlier this year by NAR and being implemented by RMLS™ on April 30, 2020. Intending to add clarity to what can and cannot be done by MLS subscribers with exclusions, this is a national change for any MLS aligned with NAR. In some ways, Clear Cooperation MLS 8.0 makes it better for sellers wanting their property excluded from the MLS co-op, in that they no longer experience a 30-day penalty to have their property added to the MLS co-op if it does not sell “off MLS”.

That was a very real deterrent historically that has been changed with this new policy. So, you can still take a “pocket” or “off MLS” listing but the criteria for keeping it out of the co-op has become much clearer.

You mentioned that you have read and watched a lot of info about this change, so this may not be news to you. However, here is a look at key attributes of the new policy:

• Any “public” marketing of the pocket / off MLS listing immediately invokes a violation of the new rule, requiring the listing be added to the MLS co-op within one business day of public marketing.
• “Public marketing” includes (but is not limited to):
  • flyers displayed in windows
  • yard signs
  • digital marketing on public-facing websites
  • brokerage website displays (including IDX and VOW)
  • digital communication marketing (email blasts),
  • multi-brokerage listing sharing networks
  • applications available to the general public
• “Office Exclusive” listings are still possible within the framework of this new rule, but your “marketing” of this type of listing is limited to direct promotion of the listing between the licensees/brokers in your brokerage office, and one to one promotion between these licensees and their clients. In essence, you could share your Office Exclusive listing with the licensees within your brokerage at an office meeting, and they can one to one share with their clients, and that’s it.
• Coming Soon No Showing listings are still possible for RMLS™ subscribers even after the implementation of CC 8.0 (same CSN rules apply as prior to this change).

In closing, thank you for the great question, and for trying hard to stay abreast of this really important evolution of MLS rules. Keep your eye on the RMLSweb Desktop News for more info as this rule change is rolled out.