What the heck is the RMLS™ leadership retreat? This week, host Beth Raimer talks to John Ayers about what happens at this annual gathering and decision-making event. If you’ve ever wondered how high-level planning gets done at RMLS™, you won’t want to miss this.
Don’t forget to subscribe to Real Talk with RMLS™ on iTunes or Google Play!
Music: “Tropical Summer” by ArtIss (via MelodyLoops.com)
MLS Insight is a series about how things work at RMLS™.
RMLS™ began disaster recovery/business continuance (DR/BC) planning in earnest in 2002. The events of September 11, 2001, brought home the absolute necessity for this kind of planning, as it did for many businesses. Of course, part of running a responsible business has always been planning for emergencies and contingencies, but that process was formalized for RMLS™ starting in 2002.
Our first attempts at documenting the steps for disaster recovery were a little clumsy and hard to maintain. We are now on our third iteration of our DR/BC plan, and have refined it to identify the response needed for various types and levels of events—a snow day or an RMLSweb outage to the loss of our corporate facility due to earthquake or fire.
Everyone at RMLS™ has a role in helping to respond appropriately to situations that threaten the safety of employees and the continuity of the services we provide. Of course, the highest priority in any crisis is care for life and physical safety of anyone present, if that is an issue. After that, attention goes to reducing loss of data and assets. Since our service is critical to our subscribers, our goal is uninterrupted service, so a focus on speedy recovery and communication are key elements of our planning.
Part of that speedy recovery is having a redundant database and servers for RMLSweb. In 2008, we moved our DR/BC servers from a location in Portland to a building in Roseburg, built in partnership with the Douglas County Association of REALTORS®. Data is continually replicated to those servers, and during maintenance mode each month, RMLSweb actually operates from Roseburg while the main Portland servers receive their patches and updates.
Disaster recovery planning is not something that you can do once and forget about. It needs to be part of the business plan and a living, changing process
The next post will focus on listing data accuracy. If you have any questions you would like to have answered, I encourage you to post a comment.
Photo: iStockPhoto/Endurodog
The RMLS™ Board of Directors recently approved a set of changes to the waiver system, recommended by a Waiver Task Force.
What is a Waiver?
When a principal broker joins RMLS™, all office licensees are also expected to become dues-paying subscribers.
A variety of circumstances may necessitate a request to waive these dues. A licensee may act solely as a personal assistant. Other licensees may oversee property management inside a realty office. A broker may fall ill and need to take time off due to their illness, or stop practicing for another reason. These situations are all common waiver requests.
What is Changing?
RMLS™ is required to give written notice to subscribers about rules changes. Beginning Monday, May 13, 2013, the following changes will take place:
Need to know more? Read the redlined waiver document. Click the links to apply for an RMLS™ waiver as a new subscriber, or apply for an RMLS™ waiver as an existing subscriber.
Written by Kurt von Wasmuth, President & CEO of RMLS™
Recently, some very important actions were taken by the RMLS™ Board of Directors. The steps they took protect all RMLS™ subscribers and their businesses. These actions should be understood and celebrated by all involved with RMLS™ (subscribers, shareholders, vendors and staff).
CIVIX-DDI LLC (CIVIX) is a corporation that holds a patent that it believes every MLS in the country currently violates. CIVIX’s patent is for an online system that allows users to search, display and transmit data. As you can imagine, all MLSs and innumerable other online companies use technology that allows users to perform these functions.
CIVIX has been pursuing this patent infringement claim against many online businesses, such as companies like Microsoft, Expedia, Move Inc. (operator of Realtor.com®, Top Producer Systems®, ListHub®, etc.), which have all settled after consulting with legal attorneys regarding this claim.
In May of this year, MRIS (then-largest MLS in the country), also chose to settle with CIVIX, instead of risking the large fees involved with fighting a lengthy legal battle. In response, RMLS™ worked in conjunction with about 50 other MLS providers to ask the National Association of Realtors® to step in to see if they could negotiate a fee for CIVIX to leave the real estate industry alone.
Their response was for MLSs to pay $7.5 million dollars (roughly $9.06 per subscriber).
RMLS™ has paid this fee per subscriber, which amounted to just under $100,000, and as a result, is now covered and cannot be sued for this patent infringement. Furthermore, this settlement covers all of our shareholders, brokers, agents and software vendors in this area.
Last, and maybe the best news of all, is that the RMLS™ Board of Directors voted to pay this fee out of our RMLS™ emergency funds. This means that there will be no special assessment to subscribers and we will not have to raise dues in order to cover this payment.
I think the Board was generous as well as cognizant of today’s marketplace when they decided not to pass the cost on to our subscribers. Although there is no call to action for our subscribers, they should know that they are covered and that the fee has already been paid.
Thank you for your ongoing support of RMLS™.
To view a special video message from Kurt on this topic, go to http://bit.ly/Kurt8242011
Or, click on this image below!
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.
RMLS™ posted its first listings in 1991! To honor our anniversary, we will be holding a special promotion of a reduced Office Initiation Fee during the upcoming months of April and May, 2011. In fact, all office initiation fees (branch, etc.) will be reduced to $50. This is a great opportunity for offices to join RMLS™ and experience the benefits of sharing with more than 10,000 Realtors® accessing your client’s listings.
Main Office Initiation Fee: Regularly $500, now just $50!
Branch Office Initiation Fee: Regularly $100, now just $50!
Affiliate Office Initiation Fee: Regularly $400, now just $50!
For basic membership information, visit www.rmlsbenefits.com. Questions? Feel free to email our Accounting department at accounting@rmls.com, or call them at 503-872-8003, or stop in to the nearest RMLS™ office.
Available in April and May, 2011 ONLY!
The Center for REALTOR® Technology (CRT) holds an award each year to honor REALTORS® who have shown excellence and visionary use of technology. This year, an RMLS™ subscriber has been announced as a finalist for the 2010 REALTOR® Technology Spotlight Award. Congratulations are in order for Kelly Ranstad, principal broker and owner of Hybrid Real Estate!
According to CRT, the award aims to recognize those who have implemented, created or embraced technology in a way that shows understanding of the medium and therefore puts them in a ‘best in class’ category. In addition, these individuals utilize innovative and effective strategies and increase awareness within the real estate industry of technology trends. For more on the award, visit CRT’s website.
Kelly Ranstad has been kind enough to give us some intellectual morsels in response to questions regarding this award. Her answers provide key insights into how technology can be useful for real estate professionals. Below are her answers:
In what ways have you used or implemented technology to get you recognized for this award?
Kelly: It is very easy to get caught up with a lot of “meaningless” technology as a REALTOR®. Agents can spend a lot of time and money on programs that are ineffective and often difficult to use. One of my roles within my company, Hybrid Real Estate, is to train agents on how to implement technological tools that are relatively inexpensive, but extremely effective when used correctly. A lot of agents would like to do more with the Internet, but don’t know where to start. I offer a class called, “Tech Tuesday,” where agents get together to bring their tech questions and demystify the Web. We have covered a variety of things: From something as easy as e-mail signatures to Facebook and social networking to websites. I have agents that hardly used e-mail before and are now building individual websites for their listings. It’s beautiful!
What were your feelings when it was announced that you were a finalist?
Kelly: I was honored just to be nominated for this award and to be recognized for my efforts nationwide. I am ecstatic! We have put an enormous amount of energy to build our company’s practical implementation of technology and to not just gain Web presence, but to help our REALTORS® secure listings, buyers for those listings, and for the buyers themselves. To be associated with such a young company (only 2 years old in December) and gain this kind of attention already is truly awesome.
How do you think the use and knowledge of technology benefits REALTORS®?
Kelly: In the past many of the technology-based marketing tools that we use today were very expensive, not practical, or overly technical. The tools that make a difference today are affordable, intuitive to use, and can be quickly learned. My focus is to see technology for what it is in today’s market and implement it in a practical way. Our agents don’t want another tool that looks neat, but that doesn’t increase their bottom line. We are talking about “practical technology.” Practical technology is a tool that benefits an agent by attracting more business in an affordable way.
There is a tool right now that I’m anticipating implementing over the next year. I started looking for it a year ago, but it didn’t exist. Six months ago companies popped up and offered what I was looking for. It is very likely that in the next six months it will be affordable and I’ll look forward to implementing the tool into Hybrid Real Estate. It will save everyone time, the company money and allow everyone to do more. That is practical technology and that is what our company is about. It’s about merging everything you have come to expect from a traditional real estate company with that next step in technology. It’s also about understanding where we are with technology, looking for needs within our industry and then anticipating the changes that will happen before it’s already happened. That is what it takes to be on the cutting edge of our industry.
According to Kelly, Hybrid Real Estate’s motto is “Innovation is our Tradition.” The 2010 REALTOR® Technology Spotlight Award is designed to honor individuals such as Kelly, who believe that technology is a powerful tool in the real estate world.
The RMLS™ Communications Department has been honored with the Bronze Beacon Award of Excellence by the Oregon-Columbia Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators (OCIABC).
According to OCIABC, the annual Bronze Beacon Communicator Awards program was created to give local communications professionals the opportunity to showcase their work and receive recognition for communication excellence. Past award recipients include Kaiser Permanente, Nike, Conkling Fiskum & McCormick, and Providence Health & Services.
OCIABC also aims to provide communications professionals with networking and learning opportunities. The organization’s mission is: “To foster excellence and awareness of communications as an integral function of every organization.”
Last spring, members of the RMLS™ Communications Department submitted an entry for the Bronze Beacon Award. The entry was entitled, RMLS™ Comparative Market Analysis Release, and gave a comprehensive overview of the communications plan for the new RMLS™ Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) report feature. The entry included samples of communications tools that were used during the release, as well as a written explanation of the plan’s goals and results. These samples consisted of Twitter, Facebook, RMLSweb and blog posts, as well as printed materials and eight electronic tutorials.
This week, the RMLS™ Communications Department was notified as a recipient of the Bronze Beacon Award of Excellence. This wonderful news has instilled a sense of pride in members of the department, as well as the whole company, who all contributed in making the CMA release possible.
In case you didn’t know that we recently released a new CMA, here is some information about our new, transformed CMA report feature. View our tutorials below:
Or, print out our Creating a New CMA in RMLSweb quick reference guide.
In addition, RMLS™ is offering a new training course called CMA & Statistics. To view the training calendar, log onto RMLSweb, go to Toolkit on the toolbar at the top of the screen and scroll down to Training Calendar.
Or, you can contact the RMLS™ Training department at 503-236-7657 or call help desk toll-free at 1-877-256-2169 or via email at helpdesk@rmls.com
Last week, we chose Jessica LeDoux’s story as the winner of our CMA Success Story Contest. We also highlighted Mark Jones’ story for its ability to make us laugh. With so many other wonderful entries, we decided to share them with you. Here they are:
“We had a listing appointment to list a home. We prepared the CMA report using the new and improved CMA program found in the RMLS™ Toolkit. It has some exciting features such as pulling data from previous MLS numbers to populate and reference various cells. It also saves the current data as you go through the process. Our clients were impressed with our report. It has a professional cover with a picture of their home. The report now has a bar graph that is easily understood instead of the scatter graph. Our clients were very pleased with our report. They told us that the other agents they had interviewed had only provided flyers from the info boxes on houses for sale in the neighborhood. Using the new CMA program was not only easy but, as you know, first impressions are very important. Needless to say, we got the listing. This has been one of the best improvements made to RMLS™, our thanks to those who took the time and created such a great real estate tool.”
Sherrill and Eric Lincoln
Oregon Realty Co.
“I wanted to commend you on the new CMA. I have used it seven times already with much success! It is very well put together and adds the extra professionalism you need when asking for the clients listing business and to show clients what the market research is saying about housing prices in their specific area.
I completed one on short notice on Saturday, June 26, after looking at the home on Friday. By showing her the CMA I prepared, complete with graph; she gave me full price offer, with no closing costs, additions, or repairs. I was able to show her the home was worth full price; and asked her if she would be upset if someone came in at full price, and she offered 5k less. This was a total validation effort gone right!
In another instance, this week I used the new CMA for a past and “to be a repeat listing client” who needed back up for a loan modification request. With all the floor plans the same as hers, most were in short sale status in her community. We added the occupancy issues, kept up landscaping, current HOA dues no liens, and additional garage. This brought her home value up 20k, by noting the short sales, empty homes, no yard maintenance and stripped interiors. I believe this and the list price letter helped them receive an answer swiftly. Thanks for the effort in creating this valuable tool!”
Marleen Sperr
Keller Williams Premier Partners
“I used the new CMA when I was preparing for a new client, an investor. I needed to gather comparables nearby very quickly as he was deciding whether or not to make a bid on an auction property. Even though I hadn’t used it before, I decided to give it a try and see the changes. I found the new form to be easy to use and impressive in formatting.
With the new format, I was able to show that the property would be a good investment as the surrounding area supported the price he was considering and, my client was very happy that he received such a detailed report in just an hour’s time. He told me that even though he decided to pass on this property (his partner was out of town and couldn’t see it) he would like to continue working with me as I was the only Realtor able to gain access to the property and, gave him good resources to make decisions on!
I have also prepared the CMA for a new client for a listing and my client liked how well organized the material was for them to see the price range suggested. Thank you for the wonderful new CMA, it was a breeze to work with and a big improvement in the flow and format.”
Carol M. West
ReMax Equity Group, Inc.
“I received a call late on June 29th from a person needing to sell their mother’s home. She had recently driven her car through the garage door and on into the kitchen. Her kids understandably want to get her into supervised living right away as she has early Alzheimer’s. I know the area and house like the back of my hand and so I felt comfortable doing a CMA to take along on that first appointment. I got on RMLSweb and checked the new CMA even though I didn’t have a lot of time. I was delighted how easy it was. I just breezed through it, printed it and got home 1 hour ago with the new signed listing in my hand. Thank you RMLS™. I think the new CMA is great!”
Laurie Evans Mischel
“I initially was attempting to use Prudential’s system to input a CMA, until I became very frustrated when after uploading photos for my client and then creating the report, the photos were not included on the report. Being persistent I kept trying without using any help buttons, because I can usually figure things out quicker by observation and database experience. My attempts ended in frustration, so I turned to RMLS™, since in the past I have created CMA’s in their system. I found the new CMA process very user friendly and had no issues…although it would be nice to have the option of additional photos on the cover page. I didn’t actually experiment much since by that time I just wanted to get a complete CMA sent to my client without wasting anymore time, so maybe you can!!”
Kathleen Griffin
Prudential Northwest Properties
“I love it, I do a lot of REO and BPO work and the banks are now requiring an upload of a one page CMA. I used to have to do it in excel and since I am not that good at excel it took HOURS! With the new program I just load the three active and three sold MLS # into the MLS# page hit new CMA and the first page is exactly what I need, I save it to a PDF and load it. I also like the fact it has no contact info on that page so I can pass it around! Thanks!”
Leigh Golson
“My landscaper told me that the owner of a house in our neighborhood was in the process of preparing their house for sale and that he didn’t think she had an agent yet. I logged onto RMLSweb, clicked on the new CMA tool link, and quickly put together a reasonably comprehensive CMA for the surrounding area. I like the fact that the user interface is very clean, clear and concise, and I was able to get the report done in a fraction of the time that the old report took. I dropped by my neighbor’s house later that day with the CMA report, a business card, and a listing agreement and now I have one more house in my inventory to sell.”
Jeff Bob
“I first tried the new CMA and thought it was way too complicated so I opted for the old one. I was preparing a CMA for a rural property and the lot sized really mattered. I finished the old one and remembered the lot sizes were not included so it was rather useless. This forced me to the new one which includes the lot size in the comparables. I was able to pick and choose what I wanted to fill out for my clients needs and was done in no time. My clients thought it was very helpful. I would recommend making the plunge and checking the new one out!”
Marilyn Cooley
Coldwell Banker, BSSP
“I recently saw the new CMA module, so I thought I’d check it out. Timing was perfect. I discovered a home that was foreclosed on recently by a bank client. So, I set up a profile for the bank & did a preliminary CMA on the home. The bank then asked me for a CMA on this lot they own, and I simply went in and created it, using the bank’s profile. It took me all of 15 minutes as the new program was so much easier to use, and allowed the ability to save the CMA, thus allowing further tweaking if I missed something. I forwarded it to the client. Then, I further refined the foreclosed home and added some relevant comps, and sent it in too. Had it been with the old CMA program, I’d have had to start over the 2nd time around. The bank seemed pleased with the work.”
Eugene Lew
RE/MAX Equity Group, Inc.
“Hello just wanted to let you know a great story about the new CMA system. I am in the process of a short sale with HSBC Bank and the negotiator said they wanted 220 from an old BPO. I told them that was old and there was only 4 sales in the radius of .25 miles that are at a lower amount. The bank said to send over a CMA for the property. So I used the new CMA system and printed it out and faxed it over to HSBC. The new graphs and charts showing how we were at the top of the range worked. I got approval within 24 hours. I can not believe how fast that was. I like the new CMA it is so easy to use and also shows very well to a bank or at a listing appointment. This is just my little story.”
Gary Horton
RE/MAX Signature Properties
“I’ll make this short and sweet and to the point. I used the new CMA and was impressed at how easy it was to use. Also I love that it saves your work and allows you to go back and get more information without losing all your hours of hard work.”
Patty Aubert
“We recently used your New CMA Unit to provide our sellers with new comps in order to get a price reduction on their home, it worked after seeing the new comps they said yes to a new list price…thanks.”
Don Love
“I am considered as a fairly new real estate agent. I have knowledge about properties and real estate but I was so troubled when my clients asked me to prepare comp reports for them. In order to provide a very well prepared and thorough comp report, I had to visit different websites to obtain detailed information about each property. It usually took me about one or two whole day to prepare a report with only 3 to 5 properties to compare with.
Now with RMLS’ help by creating the CMA tool, it really saves me so much time so I can spend more time on taking care of more clients. I can now enter the information about the subject property, the tool then generates tones of properties that are comparable to the subject property. With the list, I can easily browse through and change any specification if necessary and only select the ones I think that most fit my clients needs. I can also add information about my experience and any other information I would like my clients to know about in one single report. It is just one click away – a complete and professional looking report is created and ready to be sent to serve my client.”
Shih-Han Lu
Keller Williams/PDX Central
RMLS™ has added the following new search options on RMLS.com. There is now the ability to search for properties in Oregon only, Washington only or both states combined. The ability to search for upcoming open houses for Residential, Multifamily and Farm properties has also been added.