News & Past Hot Tips

February 2011

-Disclosing Limited Service – Please remember that a Limited Service listing is an agreement under which the listing broker will not provide one or more of the services listed below. Even if just one of these is not being offered, you must answer the Limited Service question as Yes, and attach the required Limited Service Disclosure Form as an Associated Document.

– Arrange showings
-Accept and present offers
-Advise on the merits of the offer
-Assist with counter offers
-Participate in negotiations on the seller’s behalf
-Schedule and coordinate the closing
-Order title insurance
-Hold earnest money

-Disclosing Licensee Interest: If you, as the listing agent, have a personal interest in a property you have listed on the MLS, you must answer “yes” to the Licensee Interest Y/N question. Licensee interest would apply if you are acting on your own behalf, on behalf of your immediate family, on behalf of your firm, or on behalf of any other organization or business entity in which you have an interest. Answering “yes” alerts the agent working with the buyer that you have a personal interest in the transaction, so that further disclosure, as required by license law, can be included should an offer to purchase be written. In addition, it is helpful if you include the nature of your interest in the private broker-to-broker remarks so that the agent writing the offer can include the appropriate disclosure language.

January 2011

-The MLS Committee makes decisions about changes to Paragon, the keycard system, and MLS rules. If you would like to discuss an item you feel would make our MLS better, please feel free to contact a member of the MLS Committee. Contact information for the 2011 MLS Committee can be found here. MLS staff is also available to discuss MLS services with you, but we recognize that sometimes it is easier to talk to a fellow Realtor.

-WIREX Update: We have recently loaded listings for Western Wisconsin MLS into WIREX. This includes 57,000+ listings (5,200 actives plus off markets back to July of 2005) located north and west of Eau Claire up to Hayward and over to the Minnesota border. Click the MLS Switcher above or select WIREX at login to search statewide MLS listings.

December 2010

-Checking for Listings not Mapped – Searching by map has become very popular. If your listing is not mapped correctly, it may be missed if an agent is searching by map. Please make it part of your routine to always check the map placement when adding a new listing. You can either select the blue M from an agent full or select one of the views with a map. If the map placement is not correct, you can adjust it under Listing Maintain. For a list of all your properties (or all properties in your office if you have administrative access) that are currently not mapped at all, click on Listings and Missing Geocode Search. From the list that displays, you can only fix one listing at a time via the Change Geocode link at the top. Click the grey Map It button next to the address that most closely matches the listing. When the map displays you can fine tune the placement by clicking once on the map where the property should be located. Note there is a Zoom feature that will help in your placement. Click Save & Close above the map to save your changes. There are currently over 2800 active listings that do not have a map associated with them in Paragon. That means over 2800 active listings do not come up as matches when searching by map. Please check your listings.

-Is Your Listing Being Missed? When entering a new listing into Paragon, please select all the features that apply. If you select just 2 car garage, for instance, and do not indicate attached, your listing will not come up as a match if a search is done for homes with a 2-car attached garage. Also, please do not use Call School District in place of school names unless the school district cannot provide you with specific schools. Again, if a search is done including a specific school, and you have Call School District entered instead of the actual school name, your listing will be missed.

November 2010

– Unsure about whether the home you just listed is a bi-level or raised ranch? Do you want to know what the difference is between a bungalow and a Cape Cod? How about condos- what is a garden and how is it different from a townhouse style? Check out the Home Style Guide on the MLS website under Resources for answers to these and many other questions, including how to measure square footage the right way .

October 2010

-The Agent Full report includes all the information and links to additional info needed for a showing agent. What it does not include is the listing side information such as marketing information (i.e. other market area & internet Y/N) and showing instructions for those using the MLS-sponsored ShowingTime Appointment Center. We have created a new report called All Fields-For Office to combine the Agent Full report and listing side information. This new two-page report can be found under the Detail Report section of Available Reports. We hope this new report will be a helpful tool for listing office staff.

-Under the Type feature for Single Family and the Style feature for Condo, a new choice has been added for Building Plans with Lot. Please use this feature if you are marketing a building contract with a lot. The MLS does not allow building contracts to be marketed unless a lot is included. In addition, only one building plan can be marketed per lot.

-If your office uses the MLS-sponsored ShowingTime Appointment Center, you may now enter your showing instructions at the same time you enter your listings in Paragon. This information will be automatically sent to the ShowingTime Appointment Center software. Revised MLS Profile Sheets can be found here. If you do not currently subscribe to the ShowingTime Appointment Center, please skip over the MLS/ShowingTime Appointment Center information on the profile sheet and within that section during the add listing process.

-If your property is an REO (Real Estate Owned, which is how banks carry a property acquired through foreclosure on their books), PLEASE include the REO feature located under Terms/Misc. Fannie/Freddie require that REO properties be scrutinized for their effect on the market as they often sell for a lower price due to their liquidation status. If an REO property is not marked as such, it may go through valuation channels as a “normal” sale which could lower the market value for an area, especially if there are multiple REOs in one area.

September 2010

-New Statistical Graphs Available: The MLS is now publishing four new statistical graphs as part of a monthly composite of statistics. The new graphs track the number sales, the median sale price, total inventory, and the month’s supply of inventory by month for the last two years for Dane County and for the combined eight-county South Central Wisconsin MLS region. The statistical composite also includes a statistical narrative, monthly and year-to-date sales figures and sales by price range and bedrooms. You can find this Monthly Statistical Reports icon on the right panel of the www.scwmls.com home page.

-Change to Customer Reports: In response to member requests, we have removed the assessment amounts from the customer reports in Paragon. The land, improvements, and total assessments are still available on the Agent Full report.

August 2010

– Notification of Potential Short Sale: Participants may, but are not required to, disclose potential short sales (defined as a transaction where title transfers, where the sale price is insufficient to pay the total of all liens and costs of sale and where the seller does not bring sufficient liquid assets to the closing to cure all deficiencies) to other Participants and subscribers.

– Are You Updating Your Remarks? There are listings on Paragon that still reference the $8,000 Tax Credit. There are also some that say things like “no showings until June 30th”. When you put time specific references in your remarks, please update those remarks when circumstances change.

-Northwest Wisconsin Listings added to WIREX: Listings from the Northwestern Wisconsin MLS have been added to WIREX. Communities covered include Eau Claire, Menomonie, Chippewa Falls, down to Black River Falls, and up past Rice Lake to Hayward and Cable. Click the MLS Switcher above to search the WIREX database. Click here for an updated WIREX coverage map.

Do you WIREX? There are currently 97,000+ active listings in the WIREX database from 5 separate MLSs as follows:
Metro Milwaukee: 36,000
South Central WI: 24,500
Northeast WI: 18,500
Northwest WI: 12,000
Central WI: 6,000

-Open Houses on Realtor.com: Open House date and time as entered in Paragon now display on listings within Relator.com. To load Open House information, open the OPEN HOUSE/TOUR section of the listing input screen and add the appropriate date and times.

June 2010

-A field for agent fax number has been added to the agent full report. If you have a personal fax number you would like displayed on your listings, please email your fax number to support@wisre.com. Our membership database has had this field for awhile, but we were unable to display it on custom reports until now. There are over 500 agents that over time have provided their personal fax number. If you have ever reported a fax number to us, please check one of your listings to be sure it displays your current fax number. If you don’t know if you have ever reported a fax number to us, please check one of your listings. The fax number appears along with listing agent name, phone, email, etc. at the bottom of the agent full report.

Here are a few tips for marketing township properties:
-Use the “Other Market Area” field. If you add what you think is the most appropriate contiguous city or village as the Other Market Area, your township listing will come up in searches for that city or village on Paragon and on wisconsinhomes.com. You may want to consider location, school district or mailing address when making this decision. The city or village you select must be contiguous (touching) the township your property is in.

-Start your remarks with something like “Only 2 miles east of the City of Sun Prairie.” Most of the public websites, including just recently Realtor.com, include the remarks section of your listing.

-If the street number of your rural listing begins with an alpha character, do not move the alpha character to the street direction field. The W or N before the street number is part of the street number, not a street direction. This is very important for correct mapping placement.

May 2010

New Auction Form: The mandatory associated document for auctions has been updated to better accommodate online auctions, and to indicate the type of auction. Please begin using this new form for all properties being sold via an auction. The most recent MLS profile sheets and mandatory associated documents (auction, limited service, farm) can always be found by clicking on MLS Documents at the top of the screen. Profile sheets are also available within ZipForms and can be completed electronically there.

-Realtor.com is now including a free Foreclosure badge on all properties from our MLS that are marked as REO. If you have a property that has been foreclosed on, please make sure you select REO under the Terms pick list to take advantage of this new marketing badge.

-MLS Rule Reminder: A new listing contract must be obtained before re-entering an existing listing into the MLS as new. If the MLS discovers a new listing contract was not obtained, the new listing will be deleted and the listing broker will be fined $50. It is not acceptable to draft only an amendment to create a new MLS listing.

April 2010

-New Total Bath Search Option: On February 11, the four digit bath field as we knew it was removed from Paragon, and a minimum and maximum Full Bath field was added as a search parameter in its place. After that change, we received calls requesting the ability to be able to search for Half Baths along with Full Baths. Because Full Baths and Half Baths were separate fields, when a Half Bath was included in search parameter along with Full Baths, homes that had no half baths but had over the minimum number of full baths requested would not come up. We have fixed this by adding a new Minimum and Maximum Total Bath field for searching. These fields are set up to accept 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, etc. For example, if you are looking for a home with at least one full and one half bath, enter 1.5 in the Minimum Total Bath field.

-New School & Neighborhood Info: A link to School and Neighborhood data has been added to agent full listing reports within Paragon. You will now see a blue circle marked with an N along with the D for Documents, H for History, M for Map, and T for Tax “skittles”. Data on Schools, Housing, Economy, People, and Environment can be found for each property. Reports contain city, zip code, county, and national statistics. You can also find these reports for addresses that are not listed by clicking on Resources and then School & Neighborhood Reports.

March 2010

-New MLS Rule: At their March meeting, the MLS Board of Directors approved the following in regards to MLS Remarks. This new rule will take effect on Monday, April 5.

If, in the judgment of the SCWMLS Board of Directors, the information contained in a property profile entered into the SCWMLS system displays content or links to other sources that contain content that is illegal, obscene, indecent, disparaging, discriminating or otherwise offensive, the listing broker shall have 2 business days to remove this content or link(s). In the event that listing broker fails to comply with this obligation, the property shall be deleted from the system by the SCWMLS.

-Expanded Agent Access to Maintain Listings: In the past, the standard agent level security in Paragon allowed agents to add photos, add virtual tours, add associated documents, and modify the map location for their listed properties. These options are available by clicking Listings and Maintain Listings from the Paragon Menu Bar. On Wednesday, security on the following fields were opened up so agents can maintain them on their own listings:

Under the Remarks Section
-MLS Remarks
-Additional Wisconsinhomes.com Remarks

Under the Open House/Tour Section
-Showing Instructions
-Open House Date and Time
-Broker Open House Date, Time and Comments

Please remember that MLS Remarks are limited to information about the property. Comments regarding company or self promotion are not allowed in MLS Remarks.

Also, please note that after the date has passed for an open house or broker open, Paragon automatically deletes the date, time and comments. You do not have to delete past open house information

-If you have a home listed that has a first floor bedroom and/or bathroom, please indicate this under the Barrier Free Feature. Even if you do not consider the property to be “barrier free” in other respects, having a first floor bedroom and/or bath may be “barrier free” enough for certain buyers, such as seniors.

Is There Really a Water View? In response to recent complaints, the MLS Board of Directors clarified the following in our rules regarding photos allowed on MLS listings: No photos of bodies of water are allowed unless the view is visible from the property, or from deeded access.

-To facilitate easier searching for properties that have only one dwelling unit, but are being used for student housing and allow unrelated occupants, a new feature under Terms/Misc has been added for Zoned Multi-Family.

February 2010

-New Open House Y/N Search Option: If you enter an open house date and time for your listing, a yes will automatically be triggered in a new Open House Y/N field. You can now set up auto emails for prospects looking for open houses. The Open House Y/N search field can be found on the Advanced Criteria tab along with the open house date. You can still search by open house date, but dates are not able to be stored in auto searches, hence the reason for the new Yes/No field. The Yes flag will be automatically flipped to No when the open house date is passed.

-Craig’s List Alert: We have received notice that a vacant MLS listed property was again posted for rent on Craig’s List by a bogus party. If you have a vacant property listed, you may want to check to be sure it is not posted on Craig’s List. If you find your property is being advertised falsely for rent, report it as a scam to Craig’s List and request that it be removed immediately.

-Data Conversion and Profile Sheet Changes: On 2/11, three quarter baths were combined with full baths, and Total Baths were replaced with a Full Bath search option (click here for details). If you have prospects that have specified a certain number of bathrooms, you will need to update the criteria for those prospects. A new field for Mailing City (to be used for data exports to websites) and several new features have also been added. Click here for updated profile sheets.

-2009 Tax/Mill Rates are available under Resources on www.scwmls.com.

January 2010

-The MLS requires that closings be reported to the MLS within 10 calendar days of the closing. If a closing is not reported within 10 calendar days, the broker is subject to a late fee of $5 per day up to $25. MLS staff has not gone looking for solds reported late in the past, but in light of recent complaints, we have unfortunately had to re-assign staff to check for solds reported late, and will follow up with late fees of $5 per day invoiced to the broker. In addition, if an office falsifies the closing date to avoid this penalty, that office is subject to a $100 penalty on top of the $5 per day fee. Please report your closings within 10 days so we don’t have to fine you.

-We are grateful to have building contracts included in our MLS data. They are very helpful for appraisers and for Realtors doing market analysis. If you would like to enter your building contract, please wait until after it closes, and then enter it directly into sold (choose sold rather than active). Enter the actual list date, accepted offer date, and closing date. Please note that only building contracts with land included are allowed in the MLS.

If you have a building plan (with land) or a property under construction listed as active, please make sure you update the property characteristics (square footage changes, lower level finish, deck addition, etc.) when they change. If you end up making additions, please remember to update the list price as well. Please note that you must include the estimated completion date for all properties under construction within the first line of the public remarks.

-The MLS Committee makes decisions about changes to Paragon, the keycard system, and MLS rules. If you would like to discuss an item you feel would make our MLS better, please feel free to contact a member of the MLS Committee. Contact information for the 2010 MLS Committee can be found here. MLS staff is also available to discuss MLS services with you, but we recognize that sometimes it is easier to talk to a fellow Realtor.

December 2009

-Central Wisconsin MLS Listings added to WIREX: Listings for the Central Wisconsin MLS (Stevens Point, Marshfield, Wausau, Wisconsin Rapids areas) have been added to WIREX. WIREX now contains listings from Central WI, Metro Milwaukee, Northeast WI and South Central WI MLSs. The WIREX database is available via the login drop down or the MLS Switcher at the top of the Paragon screen.

-Kevin King Returns as RASCW/SCWMLS EVP — We are excited to announce that Kevin King has agreed to come back to serve as the Executive Vice President of the Realtors Association of South Central Wisconsin and the South Central Wisconsin MLS. For those of you who do not know Kevin, he has served as the WRA General Counsel for the last 3 ½ years, and before that was our EVP for 10 years. We are looking forward to having him back! Kevin will be honoring commitments for the WRA through February 15th, and will start as our EVP on February 16. If you have a chance to talk to Kevin, please welcome him back.

-Is there a report that will help me fill out the Fannie Mae Form 1004MC? Yes, after performing a search for comparables, click on Specialty Views and select the Market Conditions Addendum Report.

November 2009

-If you have listed a property that is an REO or will result in a Short Sale, please indicate such by selecting the appropriate choice under the Terms Feature. We often see properties marketed as an REO or Short Sale in the remarks, but the listing does not include this choice under the Features. Most agents use the Feature pick lists when searching, not the Remarks.

-New Advertising Rule: At their October meeting, the MLS Board of Directors voted to incorporate the rule below, which is an extension of a current rule that prohibits members from making statements on their websites that suggest the public has access to the MLS, or can search and view listings from the MLS. This new rule extends the same prohibition to other forms of advertising. Effective November 20th, members are prohibited from making statements to suggest that the public has access to the MLS, or can search or view listings from the MLS, in any from of advertising including print, television and radio.

USE OF THE TERMS MLS AND MULTIPLE LISTING SERVICE: No MLS participant, subscriber, or licensee affiliated with any participant shall, through the name of their firm, their URLs, their e-mail addresses, their website addresses, or in any other way represent, suggest, or imply that the individual or firm is an MLS, or that they operate an MLS. Participants, subscribers and licensees affiliated with participants shall not represent, suggest, or imply that consumers or others have direct access to MLS databases, or that consumers or others are able to search MLS databases available only to participants and subscribers. This does not prohibit participants and subscribers from representing that any information they are authorized under MLS rules to provide to clients or customers is available on their websites or otherwise.

October 2009

Website Reminder: If you have a website that allows the public to search for properties, please double check to be sure the property search button does not say something like Search MLS. MLS rules state, “There should be no statements or graphics that imply the viewer is searching the MLS.”

September 2009

-If you are looking for a quick way to send an email to all your prospects at the same time, click on the Compose E-mail button above the menu bar on the Paragon home page. Click on the To link to pull up a list of your prospects. Here you can either move each email address over separately, filter for just a group of Prospects, or click on All to move them all at once. If you don’t want your prospects to see that you have sent your message to many, you can put your own email address in the To field, and use the Bcc field for your prospects.

August 2009

If a seller is still obligated under the terms of a listing contract, but the property is no longer available to be shown, the property should be moved to a Withdrawn status in the MLS. If a seller is released from their contract before the actual expiration date, the listing should be Expired.

-If you work within a team and would like your team name to be included on the bottom of the customer full reports, email support@wisre.com with your team name. After we add your team name to your member record, you can customize the customer reports by clicking on Preferences, Views/Reports, and the Details tab. Open up the report you would like to change and scroll down to the bottom section in white. Double click on the white box to display the fields you can include. Select My Info – Team Name, which is located a little more than half way down. Highlight this field and click Add. Place a check mark next to the Team Name and next to No Label at the bottom and hit Save & Close. At this point, the Residential report is done. You will need to do this for each class of property. Your personal slogan can also be added in this same fashion.