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Primary Photo Now Required Within 5 Days The MLS committee has changed the MLS photo policy to require a primary photo on all listings within 5 business days. With the proliferation of digital cameras and cell phone photography, the previous requirement of 15 days was deemed too long. Only a primary image is required by policy. The auditor photo (public domain) can be used if no other image is available. It is always a good idea to upload at least a primary photo to a listing prior to upload. There is no limit to the number of photos that can be uploaded prior to going live on the MLS. There is a stigma for listings with no photos (or even “not enough” photos). Adding 10 or more photos to your incomplete listings prior to activation ensures that your listing will not be “skipped over” because it has no photos for the property. Assumptions are often made by other agents and even clients that property with limited photos has hidden damage or poor quality. This new “primary photo required after 5 days” policy is in effect now. Warnings and data maintenance fees for missing primary photo will be assessed after 5 business days. The photo waiver form is still available if your client chooses to have no photos on the listing. The photo waiver must be provided to the MLS within the same 5 business days. Upon receipt, the placeholder image “photo waiver on file” will be uploaded by MLS staff.
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MLS Taxes: Time to Update “Tax (Yrly)” and “Tax Year” It’s that time of year again to update your listings with the latest property tax information for the 2015 tax year. Most county auditors have updated their tax records for each parcel in their taxing districts for the 2015 tax year. Voter approved school and bond levies impact those figures each year along with auditor reassessments or owner appeals of property valuation. Most real estate taxes change annually. It is important that REALTORS®, clients and even sellers be kept apprised of these ever changing figures. While Realist can auto-pop the Yearly Taxes and Tax Year for you when you first enter the listing, it cannot automatically update them when those figures change. This routine remains an important manual operation for REALTORS® to complete at the beginning of each year.
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Internet Explorer 10 – Microsoft Support Officially Cut Today, Microsoft has officially cut the support for their Internet Explorer 10 software. This follows the existing end of support in previous years for Internet Explorer versions 8 and 9. Please be aware that if you are using Windows 7, you must upgrade to Internet Explorer 11 if you wish to continue to use the Internet Explorer as your browser of choice for the MLS system. Users of Google Chrome or Firefox are not affected directly by this change, but, please be aware that unpatched versions of Windows 8 are also no longer supported. To continue to use the Windows 8 series of the OS, you must upgrade to their Windows 8.1 release. This is a free, easy upgrade that will also upgrade your version of Internet Explorer to 11. Information on upgrading to Windows 8.1 can be found here Users of Windows 7 and the 8 series can also consider upgrading to Windows 10. Information of upgrading to Windows 10 can be found here
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Automatic Emails/Subscriptions Issue RESOLVED 1/9/16 8:23PM EST: We just received word from the software vendor (FBS) that the issues with automatic email/subscriptions should now be resolved. All prior emails were caught up as of 4:30pm EST and FBS monitored for a few hours afterwards, and then announced the issues to be resolved. We apologize for any inconvenience due to the automatic email delays.
1/9/16 9:12AM EST: We have just received word from the software vendor (FBS) that ASAP emails are sending since 6am this morning. Daily emails will begin sending after that. Links within emails may begin functioning throughout the day. If your client is having trouble clicking on a link in an email, please let them know to check the email periodically today. Email link functioning and prior email notices that are in queue to send since yesterday may take up to 6-10 hours to fully catch up. For some clients this problem is now resolved, for others they are partially resolved. The ETA for full resolution is 6-10 hours reports our software vendor. Our software vendor FBS apologizes for the inconvenience. If there are any new information, we will update this news post.
1/8/16 9:19PM EST: We have just received word from the software vendor (FBS) that there have been some unexpected issues encountered with the fixing processes. This outage is system-wide and affects other MLS’s across the country. The current ETA is Saturday afternoon (1/9/16) for restoration of automatic emails. There is no action required by you, the agent. The system will “catch up” and send the automatic emails that the client missed once the emails start going again. If you need to update a client quickly on any new, back on market, or price changed listings since Friday morning at 10am, you may send a manual email as this is fully functional (instructions below). We apologize for the inconvenience. We will post another update to this news item once more information is known or else the issue has been resolved.
————————————————————————— 1) Hover over the “Contacts” tab and click “Contact Management” (if your menu is on the left, you may see Contact Management and can click right on it) 2) Click the client you’d like to run a recent listing search for 3) Click the “Searches/Subscriptions” tab appx. in the middle of the page 4) Click the search you’d like 5) Click the “View New in the Last 24 Hours” option 6) Check mark the listings you’d like to send to update your client. If you’d like to email all of them, you don’t need to checkmark anything, just go to the next step. 7) From here use the email button in the general upper right corner of the screen, and follow the prompts as you normally would to send a manual email. We would recommend the “interactive” option if the system asks, and make sure to select/highlight your client’s email address(es) and give it a subject and message before hitting the “Email” button. 8) Click “Return to Contact Management” in the upper left corner to go back to your contact. From here you can do this for another search for your same contact (repeat steps 4-7), or else go to a different contact and run through steps 2-7 for another contact’s search(es).
1/8/16 4:35pm EST: The software vendor (FBS) has just notified us that the fix processes are about half way done processing, and their current ETA for emails to begin sending again is this evening in the next hours. This may get pushed into later this evening barring any unforeseen issues with the fix processes. There is no action required by you, the agent. The system will “catch up” and send the automatic emails that the client missed once the emails start going again. Until the issue is fixed, if you need to update a client on anything since this morning and cannot wait, you may send a manual email. We apologize for the inconvenience. We will post another update to this news item once more information is known or else the issue has been resolved.
1/8/16 12:46pm EST: Our software vendor (FBS) has just informed us that they have found a problem with the prospecting/automatic emails/subscriptions and has temporarily stopped emails to fix this issue. We will update this news posting with further details, including once FBS has brought the subscription emails and newsfeeds back online. Below are further details:
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Update: Realist Service Restored – 1:45 PM Realist has reported they have resolved their issue and their site is back up. We are seeing service appears normal.
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Showing Start Date – Live on MLS The Showing Start Date field is now live on MLS. The field is required entry for all new and existing listings. Members are now able to promote those listings “not quite ready for showing” while still entering them in MLS. The Showing Start Date field enables members to enter an exact date when showings will begin. It is important to note that NO SHOWINGS FOR ANYONE are permitted prior to the Showing Start Date. New showing policy is also in place. Verbiage such as “No Showings until 12/30/2015” is allowed in the Property Description field. You may also include a reason for the delayed showings such as “new carpet being installed”. All wording in the Property Description field is still subject to MLS policies, rules and regulations. Read the Full Article for more information about this new field and how it will work.
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Schedule a Showing? Don’t Forget About Showing Start Date All agents and brokerages must adjust their showing schedule to comply with the Showing Start Date on the MLS. Most 3rd party showing services offer the ability to set a start date for showings. This will mirror the Showing Start Date in MLS. Listings cannot have showings for ANYONE prior to the Showing Start Date. Any brokerage that does not use a 3rd party showing service should make sure that all staff are aware of the new Showing Start Date. Showing Start Date is now live and required entry for all listings. Please make all staff aware of this new field and it’s significance when scheduling a showing for a listing that has a future Showing Start Date.
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MLS Committee election results are in! View the full results from the MLS election
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DELAYED – Showing Start Date Field Implementation of the “Showing Start Date” field has been delayed due to programming issues. The projected release date is now December 14. New showing policy is in place. Verbiage such as “No Showings until 12/30/2015” is allowed in the Property Description field. You may also include a reason for the delayed showings such as “new carpet being installed”. All wording in the Property Description field is still subject to MLS policies, rules and regulations. Previous Message from 11/24/15: Showing Start Date field – New Field in MLS Our MLS has developed a solution to assist our members in promoting those listings “not quite ready for showing” while still entering them in MLS. A new “Showing Start Date” field will be added to our MLS to enable members to enter an exact date when showings will begin. Target date for implementation is December 1. For an explanation of the reasoning behind this new field and how it will work, Read the Full Article.
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Buyer Broker, Sub Agency, and Listing Agreement Type: Field Format Changes A recent industry-wide standardization of data fields (RESO) required a new format for several fields in the MLS. Buyer Broker Tenant Rep (BBTR),Sub Agency (SA) and Listing Agreement Type were modified. The new format for BBTR and SA is simply 3 fields for each. Previously, BB/TR Amount and SA Amount were entered as “$3000” or “3%”. There will now be a discreet field for each. The Listing Agreement Type field was split into 2 fields. See details of the new fields formats below. New Format for Buyer Broker/Tenant Rep and Sub Agency Fields: Buy Brkr/Tenant Rep (Yes/No) – Yes will require entry of fields below. Sub Agency (Yes/No) – Yes will require entry of fields below. New Format for Listing Agreement Type field (New field added): Listing Agreement Type (ERS and EA) – Required entry. The data for existing listings should have converted automatically to the new fields. It is recommended that you review these fields to make sure the automated processes correctly transferred the selections in these very important fields.
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