Are You Disclosing Your Disclosures on RMLSweb?

Only 16% of Listings in RMLSweb Have Documents Attached

When entering a listing in RMLSweb you can attach up to five PDFs of documents that would be useful to other agents such as:

Lead Paint Disclosures
Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions
Floor Plans
Feature Sheets
Platt Maps

It’s pretty simple to do and we’ve been told that it’s incredibly important to provide this information, but it appears that only a handful of agents are using this feature of RMLSweb. In fact, only 16% of active listings have documents attached.

We’re curious why that number is so low. Are any of those 6,500 listings yours? If so, what kinds of documents do you normally attach? If not, why don’t you use it? How do you share that information with your fellow agents? Leave a comment below and let us know.

How Should Agents Use the Private Remarks?

What Information Do You Want To See There?

We often get requests to post messages on RMLSweb suggesting that agents use the Private Remarks in a certain way. For example, I received these two requests this week:

Please ask agents to include when there is no water or power in the Private Remarks.
Please remind agents that adding “No showings till MM/DD” in the remarks field is a rules violation.

As a general rule of thumb, we recommend that the Public Remarks be used for information about the property and the Private Remarks be reserved for information pertinent to other agents. But, apart from the following two sections of RMLS™ Rules that mention the Private Remarks directly, we don’t have any official guidelines for how to use these fields in the listing input forms:

3.12: … “A listing which excludes individually named prospective Purchasers, as may be agreed to by the Seller and Listing Broker, shall clearly indicate such exemption in the Agent/Private Remarks when loaded into the RMLS™ System by the Listing Broker or (in the case of RMLS™ load) on the Listing Data Input Form. Commercial Lease listings do not have the List Type field.”
3.25: … “How the reduction is allocated in a Short Sale is at the listing broker’s sole discretion, as long as the method (not the amount) of such allocation is set forth in the Listing’s private remarks, or the cooperating broker, in his discretion, has agreed to the allocation in writing after the offer has been presented. This section does not apply to the Commercial Lease category.”

So, what do you think? What are some examples of your best practices regarding Private Remarks? What would you like to see from other agents? Let them know by commenting below.

Save Time with Listing Load in RMLSweb

RMLS™ Subscribers: Use ‘Finish Later’ in Listing Load

Our latest release brought some relatively minor changes to Listing Load on RMLSweb. The first change is that the “Save and Add” function is now called “Publish”. The other change is that we now allow you to enter a future list date.

We thought this would be a good time, however, to re-introduce you to a time-saving feature in Listing Load. This feature has been around for awhile, but we often hear that subscribers don’t know about it.

When you’re entering a listing, you can click “Finish Later” and it allows you to print the listing agreement form with the information you entered in Listing Load on the form.

So, instead of having to fill out a listing agreeement form prior to entering it in Listing Load, you can actually just start by entering the information that you know in Listing Load and if you need more time or more information from your clients, you can click “Finish Later”. Just follow these steps:

1) Enter your listing information in Listing Load and click the Finish Later button to save it for your eyes only.

2) Then, with the Preview/Print button, print out the Listing Input Form, as well as the Contract, and present it to your seller.

3) After reviewing the forms with your seller, you can make any necessary changes to the In-Progress listing in Listing Load.

4) Next, simply click the Publish button when you’re ready to start marketing.

Watch “Printing Listing Agreements from Listing Load” for a short demonstration. If you have questions the staff at the RMLS™ Help Desk is happy to walk you through this process. Call them today at 877-256-2169.

Become a Local Hero

Rid the Neighborhood of Pests and Save the Pets

Nothing puts a damper on a showing like a rat running around the house or a trail of ants marching across the counter. Naturally, as a showing agent you may want to use some form of pest control to remove these unwelcome intruders. But would you use rat poison?

I don’t know how common the practice is, but a concerned subscriber recently wrote in to ask that we post a message discouraging the use of rat poison around the parameter of a home or other building for sale because of the fatal effect it can have on neighborhood pets.

Tater And Pumpkins While it’s not my place to take a formal stance on an issue like this, I do have a little black pug named Tater and I know I would be devastated if he died from eating someone else’s pest poison. So I did a little research and I thought I’d pass along the information I found as something to consider.

According to About.com these types of poisons can be especially dangerous because “they are made to be attractive and tasty, even to the curious pet.” This goes for all pest removal baits: rat, slug, snail, mice, and ant. It also means that hiding them in the ivy may not be enough to keep other animals from getting into them.

About.com goes on to say it’s best to “make sure that they are safely out of any pet’s reach (and that the pets aren’t able to chew through something to get at them).” The aforementioned subscriber suggests strategically placing traps or poison inside the for sale structure away from other neighborhood animals.

Thanks for considering the nearby animals and their owners when dealing with pest control issues. For more information on poisonous substances for pets see the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center.

Alert: Listings on Craigslist Being Re-Listed as Rentals in Possible Wire Scam

Tip: Use RSS Feeds or Google Alerts to monitor your listings on Craigslist

We’ve received reports of homes that were listed for sale on Craigslist being fraudulently re-posted as a low-rate rental listings. These types of scams may be aimed at getting prospective renters to wire or send first and last month’s rent. For example, a case was reported where a home listed at over $400,000 was fraudulently offered for just $700 a month.

Craigslist

Suggestion: If you’re concerned that listings you have posted on Craigslist may be at risk, you can setup an alert using RSS feeds – here’s how:

1. If you don’t use an RSS Reader currently, sign up for an RSS Reader, such as Google Reader or Bloglines (these are just a couple examples of free programs you can use).
2. Visit craigslist.org and find your region’s Craigslist page.
3. Click on the “Housing” section and type your property address or a unique phrase from your property description into the search field and click search.
4. At the bottom of the page, there is a button that reads “RSS” – click on this.
5. Copy the link of the page that opens and add it to your RSS Reader.

By doing this, you would be notified when you check your RSS Reader if someone has copied information from your listing & re-posted it on Craigslist in the housing section.

Another option would be to use Google Alerts:

1. Visit google.com/alerts.
2. In the search terms field, enter the property address or a unique phrase from your listing.
3. Select “Comprehensive” as the type of search.
4. Select how often you want to be notified if it returns search results.
5. Enter the e-mail address you want notification sent to.

Google Alerts searches the web, news articles, etc. and will return any results that match your search criteria.

If you see any fraudulent listings on Craigslist, report it to Craigslist.

Please also notify RMLS™ of any similar activity by e-mailing Kelly McKenna at Kelly.m (at) rmls (dot) com.

When’s the Next Market Action Coming Out?

When to Expect the Latest Market Reports from RMLS™

This is a frequently asked question from subscribers here in my cubicle, so I thought I’d put the answer in writing.

My standard line is that Market Action is released around the 15th of each month. “Around” means it could be a day or two before, or a day or two after. It all depends on where the weekend falls.

We don’t generate any statistical reports for Market Action until the 10th day of each month. The reason we wait is to assure that almost all transactions are recorded in our database. If we were to run the reports on the 1st or 5th of each month, there’s a chance that many sales that occurred in the prior month might not be reported on RMLSweb yet. So, to assure what we report is an accurate reflection of what happened in the market that month, we wait until the 10th.

Editing time.

However, sometimes due to where the weekend falls, we can’t start working on the reports until the 11th, 12th, or sometimes even the 13th. Generating the reports, publishing, editing, posting and e-mailing then takes roughly 2.5 days of work.

So, for example, this month, I’ll start working on Thursday the 10th. But, I have to pause for the weekend, so the likely release date is Monday, September 14 or Tuesday, September 15.

Tip: If you’re eager to see the data, you can get a basic report on RMLSweb on the 11th of each month. The Home Sales Report (HSR) has a lot of the same data that we report in Market Action (number of sales, sale price, active listings).

The HSR can be accessed on RMLSweb by scrolling over Back Office and clicking on Home Sales Report. Then expand the folder for the year that you want, then the month, and then select the area you want to look at. If you want to look at the report for a broad area (such as the Portland Metro area), open the document that reads “combined report”. You can also look at reports for individual MLS areas or counties.

RMLSweb and Non-IE Browsers

Other-Browsers

We know there are a lot of you out there who use Web browsers other than Internet Explorer… and as you are well aware… RMLSweb primarily supports Internet Explorer (IE).

However, we do want to clear the air about this situation, because things have changed a bit.

RMLSweb is now accessible utilizing most browsers. By accessible, I mean that you can log in and use the website, but we still highly recommend that you use Internet Explorer. We haven’t talked about it much because you should bear no expectation of being able to do all the same things that you can when using RMLSweb on Internet Explorer. But you can do many things and here is a list of what.

One omission you’ll notice is Listing Load. We aren’t allowing access to Listing Load in non-IE browsers because we know it has some limitations and we don’t want the listing content to suffer.

For Simplicity Sake: Scenarios When You Shouldn’t Use RMLSweb on Another Browser & When You Can
– If you want to get down to serious business (send reports, create a CMA, run statistics, enter a listing, prospecting/hotsheets), you should still use Internet Explorer.
– If you’re using a non-IE browser and just want to view a listing, do a search, or view a document – you should be okay.

But Why? Why is RMLSweb not compatible with all browsers?
Our focus has been and continues to be on updating RMLSweb in ways that will benefit all of our subscribers. But, while we’ve been doing that, we’ve also been working on browser compatibility – we’re just not doing it in one fell swoop.

RMLSweb was originally a system that we purchased. We then brought on our own development staff and through the years, they have been making RMLSweb our own system. However, there are still parts of it that are all written in the original code – which means those parts don’t work with other browsers.

However, each time we update something (like the recent mapping upgrades and new Forms & Documents search) we are writing it in code that should work with Firefox and other browsers. And, we still have some big updates to do, including CMA & statistics, which we tentatively plan to release in the next six months.

In other words, we could spend time rewriting the dated features of RMLSweb in code that will make it work with other browsers – but why spend time reinventing a dated product? Instead, the approach is to improve our existing product, and as we’re doing that, we are taking steps toward compatibility with each improvement.

You Can Help!
While we continue to work toward compatibility, there is limited functionality on non-IE browsers and we have not officially tested anything on them. So if you use a different browser and notice any issues – please e-mail those issues to helpdesk@rmls.com.

Hot Weather Tips for Real Estate Agents

Here’s a few hot weather tips I came up with for real estate agents as we all cope with a potential high of 107 today here in Portland!

1. If buyers close on 100+ degree day, offer a window A/C unit as a closing gift (good luck finding one right now, though).
2. Selling agents: if your listing has A/C or is A/C ready – make sure you’re showing those houses now! The heat should really make that selling point stick in the buyer’s mind (and their shirt stick to their back).
3. Keep a cooler full of water bottles for your clients in your trunk when showing homes.
4. Always offer to purchase a Slurpee for your clients.
5. If you happen to be rolling in a convertible while showing homes – apply sunscreen between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., or put the top up.

PS: If you use an ActiveKEY, make sure not to leave it in a hot car for long:

A Realtor’s ActiveKEY + Frozen Pizza + Peanut Butter Cup + GEO Metro in the Sun = ?

Short video shows why RMLS™ subscribers should keep their ActiveKEYs out of the heat this week

We’re going to have some serious heat in most of Oregon & Southwest Washington this week. As you try to stay cool in the hot weather, keep in mind this friendly ActiveKEY battery tip from Supra:

“Temperature extremes can affect battery performance. If the ActiveKEY is below 0° C (32° F) or above 40 ° C (104° F), it will not charge. During very cold or hot times of the year, bring your ActiveKEY in from your car at night and between showings.”

Also, watch this short video that poses the question – what happens when you leave an ActiveKEY, a frozen pizza and a frozen peanut butter cup in my 1997 Geo Metro that is parked in direct sunlight?

We filmed this a few weeks ago when it was up to about 94 degrees, so keep in mind that you might see more dramatic results in the next few days. Anyone have any other suggestions for things we should try to melt in my car?

PS: We really do recommend that you remove your key from your car if it’s going to be parked in the sun for a long time – especially for agents that go to our Portland office – because we currently have a limited supply of ActiveKEYs due to a parts shortage at Supra. If you do need to get a new ActiveKEY, please call ahead at 503-236-7657 to ensure that we have one available for you.

Oregon Real Estate Agency Issues Fingerprint Card Fraud Alert

The State of Oregon Real Estate Agency has issued the following alert on its website:

The Agency is receiving calls from licensees asking if their fingerprint cards have expired. The licensees explain that someone stating to be from the Agency has called them and informed them that their fingerprints are going to expire. The caller is asking for credit card and social security numbers.

Fingerprint cards and criminal background checks do not expire with the Agency. Also the Agency does not accept any personal or confidential information over the phone. If you receive one of these calls, do not give your information out.