The NWMLS recently implemented a 3-month period where they will be starting electronic monitoring of listings to look for violations of the MLS rules. Some of these are going to be great for agents and the public we serve in that a bit of the sloppy work that sometimes occurs will be cleaned up. One item in particular that drives and agents and buyers crazy is when no pictures (not even 1!) are shown for a property.
All I can wonder in the situations where photos go missing is “did this guy miss the marketing class, the article, the office discussion, the client commentary, or INSERT METHOD OF AWARENESS HERE where it’s been shown or demonstrated by consumer demand that photos help sell listings?” So, thankfully for all of us the NWMLS has decided to set up an automated program that will scan listings looking specifically for properties where no photos have been input. HOORAY!!!!
The bad news of this post is that the agents that aren’t in compliance will receive an automatic fine after the 3 month period runs out. I’m less concerned about that because I think controls do need to be in place to make sure there is a quality assurance aspect to the data provided to the public via the MLS. Even if you have a client that doesn’t want the interior of the home photographed (it happens) you can always get an exterior shot so people can at least know what the property is that is for sale and how to recognize it when they go to drive by. Or even decide if it’s worth going to look at because you’ll know if you like the looks of the outside – does it have what everyone refers to in this industry as “curb appeal”.
Some folks may say, “well, won’t there be a sign?” Not always. Sellers can determine if they want a sign or not and in some cases they aren’t allowed (some condo buildings) or perhaps a landlord doesn’t yet want his/her tenants to know the building is for sale. These would be common instances where photos and signs would be in limited use.
Other elements I love about the new tracking system in the MLS is review of when changes are made to listings that violate MLS rules. One good one is for those times when an agent might change the price $1 to force a property to show up on what they call the “hot sheet”, basically a list of all newly listed properties or listings that have experienced a price change. Some folks abuse the price change and will change a listing weekly so it keeps coming up again and again but there is no real difference in the listing at all. Another is making sure that changes are made to reflect accurate sale data – some agents “forget” to mark their listing as sold, sometimes for longer than a year, and it skews the data that the MLS works so diligently to make available and preserve. Having more accurate data means that agents can do a better job too. If we’ve got skewed data regarding final sales prices or time on market it might affect the recommendations for marketing and pricing which in the end impacts our selling clients the most.
With the automatic program there will be no “get out of jail free” option although to get agents up to speed on the new program and to provide an education period before implementing the fines there is a 3 month trial period where reminders and notices will be sent out to agents who are in violation of the rules that are part of this program. That alone should help begin cleaning up the data.
“We didn’t know the photos were supposed to be up in 5 days!”
There isn’t enough room in this post (you don’t want to be reading all day, do you?)to cover all of the items that will be tracked but the overall gist is that the MLS is cracking down on violations and working to help improve the experience and information that is provided to the agents and the public that we serve. Now, THAT is a good thing.
