- Your Year, Your Business: Key 2011 Accomplishments and Opportunities in 2012
- 7-MLS Lockbox Access Agreement Spans Northern California
- Reciprocal Access to CLAW, Sandicor MLSs Increases Exposure to Southern California
- 2012 Board of Directors
- Executive Staff Updates: National Appointments, Promotions, New Additions
- iBox Lockbox Upgrade and Listing Modifications : User Action Required
- VirtualTourCafe Added to MLSListings PERKS Offerings
- Matrix Learning

• MLS Source mobile app coming mid-February
• Video message from Chairman Robert Bailey
• 7-MLS lockbox agreement spans Northern California
• Walk Score coming soon to Matrix Reports
• MLSListings joins with CoreLogic for Parter Infonet
• and much more!

Jim Harrison, President and CEO, MLSListings, Inc.

While MLSListings has great respect for the ability to use technology to advance the business of real estate, we agree with legal guidance from the California Association of REALTORS® (CAR) which suggests that a broker or agent using private MLSs should use extreme caution.

Companies such as Producers Forum walk a fine line of risk in the use of MLS data that can prove to be real estate quicksand for an unsuspecting broker or agent. In addition, it has been falsely reported that I am in support of their product. I have never supported this product or products like Producers Forum.

As CAR states, “The law imposes on an agent the overall fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of one’s client, in this case, the seller. Usually, a greater exposure to the market increases the likelihood of getting the highest price on the best terms for the seller because more prospects will know of the property’s availability and therefore more people will express an interest in or make an offer on the property. Theoretically, narrowing the band of buyer prospects by only marketing through a “private MLS” negatively affects the seller by reducing the pool of potential purchasers.”

At MLSListings, we take it a step further. We do not agree with the use of private MLSs and we strongly urge you to avoid these operations. We believe that the risk of violating fiduciary duty is much higher than the return on these limited operations.
Sincerely,
James Harrison, RCE, CAE
President and CEO
MLSListings Inc

Update – additional info:
In response to the growing trend of online private MLS groups, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.) has developed a legal brief reminding agents and brokers of the various MLS and COE rules implicated by participation in these private MLSs, as well as the legal concerns and risks.

We encourage subscribers to review this briefing document, found at the C.A.R. website at www.car.org/legal/mls/legal-brief-private-mls-clubs/, for specific guidance.

Reverse Prospecting On January 16th, MLSListings released the Matrix Reverse Prospecting feature, which allows the listing agent to see a list of specific agents who have sent the listing on to themselves or their clients via auto-email from Matrix. This provides an additional metric for the listing agent to provide to the seller on qualified exposure of their property to other agents, and also enables the listing agent to follow up with those agents who may be interested in their listing. This feature has been long-requested by many of our subscribers, and provides an additional linkage between listing agents and buyers agents.

All subscribers are automatically enrolled in reverse prospecting, where each of their auto-emails from Matrix is tracked by Matrix. Subscribers who do not wish to have their auto-email activity exposed to listing agents can remove this visibility by un-clicking the “Enable Reverse Prospecting” checkbox for each saved auto-email.

 See details in the Training How-To at: http://portal.mlslistings.com/help/2012/01/16/reverse-prospecting/

Financial Calculator On January 30^th, MLSListings released a new Financial Calculators section to the Matrix Financial tab. This section contains user requested features from a third party resource with scenario planning and calculations for Home Financing and other financial questions. Clicking on each of the FAQs like “Should I refinance?” Or “How much home can I afford?” bring up a sample worksheet for user input. To access a sample worksheet, click on Financial > Financial Calculators > Should I refinance?

Matrix Displays/ Reports On January 30th, MLSListings released the following updates to Matrix Displays and Reports:

• Better Status Short Names – for example, Pending Release instead of Pend w/Rls, Pending Show instead of Pend w/S, and Pending No Show instead of Pend w/DNS
• Postal City instead of MLS City in the Address Line, as well as showing Postal City in the Client 1 Line display
• Disclaimer Text to the bottom of most PDF Reports
• Quick CMA fixes to some calculations in the MultiFamily and Commercial classes. Specifically, suppressing $0 numbers in $/SqFt from being calculated in Averages; suppressing $0 values (NULL values) from being calculated in Averages for Annual Income and Net Income.
• Showing Phone and Occupant Type added back to Agent Page. Note that Showing Phone is not always the Occupant Phone, and not all listings require a pre-call before showing; however this is the number the listing agent lists as the pre-call number if applicable. Often it is the listing agent’s preferred phone.
• Mobile Homes Park Features now have more room to display long lists of choices, including any Age Restrictions data.
• And other minor fixes to improve Displays and Reports: From Agent ½ Page and Agent Thumbnail, link to Tax Record and show Short Sale and REO icons when relevant; removing the $ label from Cap Rate columns and fields, and Vacancy Factor fields.

Walk Score Display On January 31st, MLSListings plans to release Walk Score into Agent Full, Agent Page, Client Full, and Client Page Displays! These flyers will show a Walk Score number, as well as provide a convenient link from that number to the Walk Score website showing nearby amenities.

Related Documents:

More Release Notes

January 9th RE Executive Newsletter

January 23rd RE Executive Newsletter

Top stories:

• Your Year, Your Business: Key 2011 Accomplishments and Opportunities in 2012
• 7-MLS Lockbox Access Agreement Spans Northern California
• Reciprocal Access to CLAW, Sandicor MLSs Increases Exposure to Southern California
• 2012 Board of Directors
• Executive Staff Updates: National Appointments, Promotions, New Additions
• iBox Lockbox Upgrade and Listing Modifications : User Action Required
• VirtualTourCafe Added to MLSListings PERKS Offerings

• and much more!

The seven Multiple Listing Services entered into regional data sharing and exchange arrangements in 2008 to provide membership-level access to each other’s MLS systems throughout Northern California. Members from MLSListings, Inc., the Bay East Association of REALTORS® MLS, Contra Costa Association of REALTORS® MLS, EBRDI, the San Francisco Association of REALTORS® MLS, BAREIS MLS® and MetroList® benefit from the exchange arrangement.

The reciprocal arrangement allows MLS members to receive a cooperative code and electronic key privileges from the participating organizations without having to be a member of the cooperating agency. Membership in a primary participating MLS confirms professional status to other MLSs in the Northern California marketplace. All of the participating MLS organizations utilize the SUPRA lockbox system, which helped resolve technical issues in providing access.

Cooperating your key at any one of the following MLS’s or at their Associations/Service Centers will grant you lockbox access at all of them:
- MLSListings®
- Bay East Association of REALTORS® MLS
- Contra Costa Association of REALTORS® MLS
- EBRDI
- San Francisco Association of REALTORS® MLS

The reciprocal efforts in Northern California have been driven by changes in the real estate market that revealed a need to have both locally-focused and customized MLS services, as well as access to multi-regional data. The lockbox access agreements are made possible in large part due to cooperative efforts among each MLS’s Association partners, including MLSListings’ Association owners:
- Central Valley Association of REALTORS®
- Monterey County Association of REALTORS®
- Pajaro Valley Association of REALTORS®
- San Benito County Association of REALTORS®
- San Mateo County Association of REALTORS®
- Santa Clara County Association of REALTORS®
- Santa Cruz County Association of REALTORS®
- Silicon Valley Association of REALTORS®

Top stories:

• Reverse Prospecting Coming Mid-January for Auto Emails

• Reciprocal Access for CLAW MLS, Sandicor Coming This Week

• Free Stocking Stuffers from MLSListings, Inc.

• Matrix Learning Opportunities – December 2011

• and much more!

In addition to physically changing the lockbox to the new iBoxes, it is important that agents also update the showing instructions of their active and pending listings in the MLS.

Last month, MLSListings added Supra iBox and Supra iBox Bluetooth checkboxes as choices in listing management.

Action required: Please update listing management for each of your listings, as follows:

• Step 1: Remove any checkmarks on Gray Lockbox, Blue Lockbox, and Supra LockBox.

• Step 2: Check the appropriate new lock box choice.

We encourage you to update your listings as soon as possible.

If you have any questions, please contact MLSListings Compliance at 408-874-0200 option 5

Top stories:

• VirtualTourCafe added to MLSListings’ PERKS offerings
• Matrix Learning Opportunities – December 2011
• REALTOR.com Account Holders: Look for MLSListings at Login
• By the Numbers: Progression to Matrix Deemed a Success
• MLSListings Holiday Hours – December 2011
• and much more!