August 2009
General
Updates/Changes to the MLS
Enhancements to the
MLS
Several
exciting enhancements have been made to the MLS in the past month and you may
have already noticed the changes!!
Client
Portals in Contacts/Prospects – EASIER ACCESS!!!
The
icons on the Contact/Prospects page, as well as the Prospect Cart, that show you have enabled a Client Portal
for a prospect are now quick links into a preview of the Portal. This allows you to quickly see a preview
without clicking the prospect’s name and scrolling down to the preview link.
New Fields Available for One Line Grid – CHANGE THE WAY YOU VIEW SEARCH
RESULTS!!!
You can now add an “Address Cluster” and/or “Thumbnail
Property Picture” to your One Line Grid search display format. Both of these new fields allow you to see
important information without taking up much space. You can view the listing’s address, price and
status in one block and the photo in another.
To use these add these new fields to your One Line grid
select:
·
Admin
·
One
Line Grid Setup
Notice the tabs at the top, there is a different one line grid available
for each type of property!
·
In
the Available Fields box on the left, scroll down to find Address Cluster
·
Click
on Address Cluster and/or Thumbnail Primary Picture (To select multiple fields
click on the first field you would like, then hold the CTRL key and select the
other fields. For example, click on
Address Cluster and CTRL click Thumbnail Primary Picture)
·
Click
on Add button in the middle
This will add the new Address Cluster to the
last (or bottom) field in the Selected Fields box on the right. You will
probably want to move this field up to the TOP of the Selected Fields. Why?
Because the first field that appears in your Selected Fields box, is the
field that appears on the far left of your one line grid! (see below examples)
To move this field, select it then click on the Move Up button in the middle!
Now it’s time to remove the fields
in your Selected Fields box that are duplicates of the Address Cluster field.
·
In
the Selected Fields box on the right, look for any of the following fields:
Address (any of the fields that start with Address), Status Display, Price
·
Select
these fields you want removed and click on the Remove button in the middle
·
SELECT SAVE BUTTON on top left of page (this is a VERY
important step)
Prospect
Searching – EASIER ACCESS AND EXPANDED!!!
A new search field has been added to the Prospect Management
module allowing you to enter a prospect’s name, email address or prospect code.
Can’t see your Prospect Management
module on your home page? Turn it on by
selecting Customize Home Page on the top right of your home screen (look under
the Log Off and printer icons), then make sure there is a check next to
Prospect Management.
Also, the search field on the Contact/Prospects page has
been improved and now allows you to search by email address (as well as name
and prospect code)!
Inactive Prospects Notice Enhanced
The next time you receive an Inactive Propsect
notification you will notice that it now features radio buttons at the top of
each column, allowing you to make the same selection for all prospects with a
single click!
Updates to MLS Rules
& Regulations
There
have been NO changes to the MLS Rules & Regs since the last
newsletter. However, make sure you are
familiar with what did change in July, as there were several significant
changes.
The
following are highlights of these changes and does not reflect ALL of the
changes that occurred. It also reflects
the most calls and questions we have received in the past 30+ days.
#1) Remember,
compensation in the MLS MUST BE
GREATER THAN 0 according to Section 5.1.
#2) If
compensation is based on NET SELLING price, the ONLY things that can be
deducted from the Gross selling price are, any
portion of buyer’s financing, taxes, insurance and/or closing costs if paid by
seller according to Section 5.2.
There are no other circumstances that any amounts can be deducted from
Gross in order to calculate Net. This
includes golf memberships.
#3) The only
time Corporate Owned should be selected, is when the property is an REO. This field is NOT to be used if a company or
LLC owns several properties. For example
if Sunshine Developers owns 3 houses in the Sunshine Subdivision, DO NOT select
corporate owned when entering them in the MLS.
There may be another field added to accommodate this in the future.
We
will be cleaning up any violations based on these new changes in the next 30
days. Please take a minute, print out
and read the new MLS Rules & Regs and take a look at last month’s
newsletter for details on all of the changes that were recently made.
Supra
UPDATES
eKey Fob for FREE!
GE
Security has just announced a new promotion!
For a limited time, when a GE Security customer purchases a new
BlackBerry smartphone from Verizon Wireless or
Sprint, they will receive a free eKEY Fob (this
allows access to the lockboxes). This
offer is valid until August 31, 2009 or while quantities last. Click here for
more information.
UPDATES
Announcing a Partnership with Fannie
Mae!
Listhub
has recently been selected to provide data services to Fannie Mae as part of a
project to re-launch their premier site for foreclosure listings,
HomePath.com! This means that brokers
nationwide who list Fannie Mae properties will be using the ListHub
platform to syndicate these specific listings.
NEW Channels Announced !!!
Coming
soon, Showing Suite and DotHomes to the ListHub dashboard!
Showing Suite will be an affiliate channel of Listhub
– meaning in order to send listing to this channel, you must be a current
Showing Suite customer and be provided with an affiliate code that will allow
you to subscribe to Showing Suite through your ListHub
account. What is Showing Suite? It is a web based real estate software
solution that offers such products as HomeFeedbackTM, HomeFollowupTM, ShowingSyncTM, ShowingCalendarTM, ForeclosureFeedbackTM and the integrated Showing SuiteTM. To learn more visit http://www.showingsuite.com.
DotHomes
is a real estate search engine that has the largest index of
real estate listings in
Notice
will be sent when these channels are live and you can take advantage of them
through your ListHub dashboard.
VOW Changes and ListHub
You
need to be aware that due to the changes that were made to the MLS earlier in
the year, as a result of the mandatory VOW Rules & Regs updates, that
listings may NOT be displaying on certain ListHub
partners.
If
you have selected Show AVM on VOW = NO in your MLS listing it is NOT being
displayed on:
·
Zillow
·
Yahoo! Real
Estate
·
Investor Loft
If
you have selected Show Comments on VOW = NO in your MLS listing it is NOT being
displayed on:
·
Zillow
·
Trulia
This
is important to let your sellers know that by selected “No” they are decreasing
the listing exposure to some Internet sites.
UPDATES
Technical Tips – direct from iMapp, click here to read iMapp’s latest
tips of the month!
Troubleshooting Printing Labels
If
you are using the Create Mail Label feature for the first time, it is a good
idea to print out a page on a blank sheet of paper. Hold the print up to
a page of the mailing labels, and check for offsets.
If
you find that adjustments need to be made in terms of the text placement for
the labels, you can accomplish in one of two ways.
In
most cases, changes to some specific settings in the Adobe Acrobat viewer will
correct any print issues you might encounter. In order to change the settings,
the first step is to open the print dialog box in Acrobat.
Then,
in the section titled Page Handling, change the following settings:
1. Page Scaling set to 'None'.
2. Uncheck the option for 'Auto-Rotate and Center.
3. Uncheck the option for 'Choose Paper by PDF page size.
In
most cases, the labels will now print out with the text formatted properly.
If
you find you still need to make incremental adjustments, there is a feature on
the Download Search Results As Mail Labels page to
help you accomplish this.
In
the bottom portion of the screen, locate the feature titled Fine Tune Page
Positioning and select it.
To
the right, drop down boxes will appear that will allow you to choose
incremental adjustments to the position of the text in the labels. The
adjustments can be made to the vertical position, the horizontal position, or
both.