Later this month, we’ll be adding a feature to RMLSweb that allows you to search our Forms & Documents menu by entering keywords or phrases like “short addendum” or “listing abbreviations.” We’ll post more information about this new keyword search soon.

With the recent changes to maps in RMLSweb it’s more important than ever that you make sure your listings are mapping correctly so other agents can find them later when running a map search.

Watch this short tutorial to learn more about how to double check and edit your map point if needed.

Need Help with New Mapping Features?
– Read: 5 Ways to Use the New Mapping Features in RMLSweb
– Watch: Searching with Map Ranges Tutorial
– Read: Mapping Tip Sheet
– Watch: Create a Prospect Profile or Hotsheet with a map
– Watch: Save a custom map and use it later in other searches

If you have questions please feel free to contact our help desk at 503-872-8002 or toll-free at 1-877-256-2169.

While, the number of lockboxes that were accessed dipped during the week of the 4th of July, they seem to have rebounded nicely. Comparing June 29, 2009 through July 12, 2009 the number of times RMLS™ subscribers opened Supra lockboxes increased 23.9% in Washington and 21.9% in Oregon.

Click the chart for a larger view (Oregon, left; Washington, right)

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

As you know, we’ve been tracking the number of times RMLS™ subscribers open Supra lockboxes in Oregon and Washington. Here’s how it looks mid-way through 2009.

In Oregon, May was the high point with nearly 109,000 opens. For the year so far, total, there were 520,900 lockbox opens.

The same held true in Southern Washington, as May was tops with over 20,000 opens. The total for the year so far was 97,100 lockbox opens.

These numbers should be interesting to watch as we head into the typically hot summer months of July and August. Follow all the latest lockbox activity on our Flickr page.

Here’s a quick rundown of upcoming Realtor® events & education in our service areas for July. 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.  

– July 16: OAR (Oregon Association of Realtors) hosts Dealing with Foreclosure Consultants – webinar

– July 23: PMAR (Portland Metropolitan Assocition of Realtors) hosts Short Sales and Foreclosure: An Accredited Buyer Representative (ABR) Course

– July 23: CCAR (Clark Co. Association of Realtors) hosts its 28th Annual Golf Tournament

– July 23: EAR (Eugene Association of Realtors) hosts Membership Luncheon, featured speaker is Lennox Scott, CEO John L. Scott

– July 23: SAR (Salem Association of Realtors) – SAR Night at Volconoes Baseball 

– July 24: CCAR hosts Realtor Foundation Texas Hold’em Tournament & Casino Night

– July 29: OAR  hosts Internet Marketing Skills – webinar (free)

– July 30: OAR hosts Dealing with REO Properties – webinar

– July 30: EAR hosts Stock the Pantry, a benefit for Food for Lane County

Also, if you’re an RMLS subscriber, we have lots of FREE opportunities for continuing education credit at a location near you, click the link for your area to view the July Training Calendar:

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

Image courtesy of Ayhan Yildiz

We’re excited because we just released some upgrades to the maps in RMLSweb. Now you can use a map instead of MLS area in several searches, save a custom map to use with other searches later and navigate the RMLSweb maps with ease.

But what does that really mean with regard to how you do business? Here are some ideas that we came up with of how you can use these new features in your everyday life to save time or get better information for you and your clients:

1. Let’s say you tend to work in a particular area or neighborhood, but you’re constantly working with different styles of homes. Now you can draw a map of your farm area and save it. Then you can create several Hotsheets, Prospect Profiles or Summary Only reports based off of the same map, but with a wide variety of criteria.

2. If you’re working with a client who is worried about living in a good school district, our upgrades to the school information on the listing maps should come in handy. When you’re looking at a map of a particular listing, click on the Schools tab to see a list of schools nearby. (The default is set to look for schools within one mile but you can increase the radius in the upper right hand corner to up to 20 miles.) You’ll notice that we’ve added some demographic information about the schools like pupil to teacher ratio to help you look smart.

3. Rumor has it a lot of appraisers are looking approximately one mile out when getting comps for their appraisals. Now you can look for comps in that same proximity to get an idea of what the appraiser may be looking at. How? Use the circle search and watch the distance indicator when you’re dragging out the line. It’ll tell you how many miles you’re covering in your search.

4. I don’t know about you, but for me it’s much easier to remember a property from the picture than the address. So when I’ve mapped several checked listings from search results, I love the new feature that allows me to see a thumbnail of the property.

5. Now that more agents are going to search with maps instead of MLS area number it’s more important than ever to make sure your listings are mapping correctly. We’ve tried to make this easy for you. We’ve increased the size of the map on the Listing Load page so you can easily see if the listing is missing a map or mapped incorrectly. If that’s the case, just click Adjust map location, click the right location and click Accept.

For a detailed tutorial on how to search using map ranges, click the image above. We’ve also created a printable tip sheet for your reference. To schedule a training session on this new release, call your local RMLS™ office, or e-mail training@rmls.com.

I think one of the coolest things about our upcoming release for mapping on RMLSweb is that you’ll be able to save custom Map Ranges & use them in several different searches (including Advanced Search, Hotsheet Search, Open House Search, Broker/MLS Tour Search, Actual Expired Search and Prospecting).

What does that mean to you, though? I think it will mean different things to different agents, but here’s one scenario:

You have buyers that absolutely want to buy in a particular neighborhood, let’s say St. Johns in Portland. You can set up a Prospecting profile for them and draw the custom map around JUST that area. Now the Prospecting results will only send them listings from the St. Johns neighborhood (as you define it).

Your buyers then find the house of their dreams. They’re ready to put in an offer. Since you’ve saved your Map Range for St. John’s,  you can now use it to find comparables through Advanced Search when you are putting together the offer.

Here’s a quick demonstration from John Ayers, our Help Desk Manager:

To schedule a training session on this new release, call your local RMLS™ office, or e-mail training@rmls.com.

Later this month we will be adding mapping to several searches in RMLSweb including Advanced Search and Prospecting. This will allow you to choose between searching via custom Map Ranges or Area Numbers in the future.

To schedule a training session on this new release, call your local RMLS™ office, or e-mail training@rmls.com.

We sometimes get reports of homes being entered into RMLSweb as detached homes, when they are in fact, attached (or vice versa).  We realize this can be confusing at times, so let’s briefly review the attached v. detached question. 

Let’s start with the textbook definitions:

“Attached: An element of the residence’s construction (such as a wall, ceiling, or floor) is shared with another property. Condominiums excluded.” 

“Detached: A stand-alone residence, excluding manufactured homes, for which the sale includes the land on which the residence is located.”

Now – remember how your teachers would have you come up with acrostic poems? It’s when you take each letter of your name or a word & you have to use it as the first letter in each line of the poem (here are instructions on how to write an acrostic poem… in  case you wanted to know).   

We came up with one each for Attached & Detached houses to help you remember the difference!

ATTACHED: 

Adjoined

To 

Things, such  

As

Ceilings and walls of other

Houses,

Especially  

Duplexes

DETACHED: 

Disconnected from  

Everyone, especially from

Those

Adjacent buildings,

Construction, and 

Housing. But, connected to

Earth and

Dirt 

Ok, I’m aware that acrostic poems probably won’t be particularly helpful in remembering what’s attached v. detached, but just let this silly attempt at a mnemonic device serve as a reminder to be cogniscent cognizant of the issue when entering listings. And if you’re ever unsure, feel free to give us a call!

Oh, and in case you want the original poems, I wrote them on this cool writing paper I found online: 

My originals, missing is the "F" for poor penmanship.

We know you’re curious how the market is doing. We are too! We’re guessing that you’ve probably had buyers asking if “we’ve hit the bottom yet” and sellers asking you how much longer it will take to sell their house. We don’t have a crystal ball, but we’ve been trying to provide you with more information to help you answer your clients’ questions.

 You may have noticed Supra lockbox access graphs and charts. These stats should give you a sense of how many lockboxes are opened on a daily and weekly basis. Plus, we’ve added a graph to show you how that activity has changed through 2009.

 Today, we’re releasing some brand new information: the number of new saved searches and the number of new prospects by RMLS™ subscribers per week since January 1! We hope these stats will be useful in helping you get an idea of when new buyers are joining the house hunt.

Saved Searches 5-24-2009

New Prospects 5-24-2009

We welcome your ideas of other stats you think might be useful. We can’t promise that we’ll be able to gather them for you, but we will try to incorporate those ideas whenever we can.