News & Past Hot Tips

October 2008

-Are your listings being missed in a search? When filling out the MLS profile sheet, please check every item that applies as you never know when the perfect buyer is looking for something slightly unusual that your listing may have. Also, school names are often used in searches, so please do not select “Call School District” unless the school district cannot provide you with the school names.

-4th quarter MLS dues will be billed in October. Offices can check their agent roster for a list of active agents that will be billed. From the Paragon home page, click on Membership and either the Agent or Membership Roster. If there are agents or administrative staff listed as active that are no longer with your company, please email support@wisre.com.

September 2008

-School Reminder: Please double check to be sure the schools have not changed for your active properties. A few examples of new schools are Olson Elementary in Madison and Creekside Elementary in Sun Prairie.

August 2008

-New Feature Choices: Additional choices under the Terms feature have been added for Short Sale and Bank Owned. Additional choices under the Waterfront feature have been added for No Motor Lake, No Wake Lake, and Water Ski Lake. Please modify your current listings if appropriate.

-Blast Agent E-Mails from Paragon: By design, your Paragon system does not have the ability to blast email other agents. It has been determined that this feature would not be popular with most agents. If you would like to notice other agents of an upcoming open house or a broker open, please enter this information within the listing itself.

July 2008

-Photo Reminder – It is against MLS rules and copyright law to copy another agent’s property photos for use on your listing without permission. Those submitting photographs with the knowledge that they do not have the right to authorize the MLS to publish the photograph(s) shall be subject to a fine of $25 per photograph in addition to any legal or equitable remedies available to the owner of the photograph(s).

-Condos and Single Family:
Q: When can you list a condo under the single family class in Paragon? When can you list a single family dwelling as a condo?
A: A single-family residential property can only be entered as a condo if it has condo documents, a shared wall, or a monthly maintenance fee associated with the property. A condo can only be entered under the single family class if it is stand-alone or a half-duplex.

June 2008

-New Fields Added to Paragon: The following field/features have been added to Paragon. These new options will be included on the next revision of MLS Profile Sheets which is scheduled for the Fall.

-Showing Instructions: On the last tab during the add/maintain listing process, a new 512 character field has been added for Showing Instructions. These instructions are being automatically loaded to the ShowingAssist program and have been added to the Showing Set Up Report.

-Additional choices under the Waterfront feature have been added for No Motor Lake, No Wake Lake, and Water Ski Lake. Please modify your current waterfront listings as appropriate.

-Additional choices under the Terms feature have been added for Short Sale and Bank Owned. Please modify your current listings if appropriate.

May 2008

-Listing Reminder: Please remember to update information such as assessments, taxes, stage of completion for new construction, and age if your listing has been on the market awhile. Also, if you include time-specific information in the remarks (such as no showings until a certain date), please remove that information once the situation no longer applies.

-Updates to Paragon History Program & Report: The history program and report received a few upgrades/bug fixes last week. For a long time now we have been struggling with history entries that appear out of date order. This problem has been fixed. Another issue we have struggled with is not being able to run a history on a specific unit within a condo project. This functionality has been added. In addition, the map on the history report was upgraded to a Virtual Earth Map which allows you to right click to zoom in and out and switch to an aerial view, and the photo box was upgraded to include a slide show. Simply click the photo to open a slide show box.

April 2008

-Adding Virtual Tours: Included in one of the recent Paragon upgrades was the ability for agents to add virtual tours to their listings. Although most agents do not have the security level needed to add and maintain listings, they do have the ability to add photos, associated documents, and virtual tours to their listings, as well as change the map location for their listings. These functions are located under Listings and Maintain from the Paragon Main Menu. Now that agents have the ability to add their own tours, starting May 1, the MLS will no longer be accepting tours directly from providers on behalf of agents. Please direct your tour provider to send your virtual tour to you for inclusion on the MLS instead of directly to the MLS. As virtual tours are becoming more popular, we are finding that without hiring additional MLS staff, we no longer have the time needed on a daily basis to load tours for agents. This does not mean we are not available to help you load your tours if you need help. We are always happy to help you with Paragon. Please keep in mind that the MLS does not allow tours that are branded with the agent name or agent/company information. The name of the company is allowed. Often times tour providers send both branded and unbranded tours. Please make sure the unbranded tour is the one that is added to listings on MLS.

-Customizing the Paragon Spreadsheet – Adding # of Acres: The spreadsheet that displays after doing a search in Paragon is customizable for each agent. To add a field such as Lot Size/Acres to your spreadsheet, click on Customize on the tool bar directly above the spreadsheet. A box will pop up showing two lists of fields. The list on the right contains fields already on your spreadsheet, and the list on the left contains fields that can be added. Please note that the list on the left is alphabetical. Find the field you want to add, click on it, and then click the Add button between the two boxes. The new field will be added to the bottom of the list on the right. You may need to scroll down to see it. You can also remove fields by moving them from the right box to the left box. There are also move up and move down buttons in between the two boxes that will allow you to set the order of display. Click the Save & Close button at the bottom when you are done. This new format will be your default. If you want to switch back or if you make a mistake, there is a Revert to Default button next to the Save & Close.

March 2008

-Recent Changes: The MLS database has been modified as follows: Farm listings have been merged with Residential, a new feature group has been added for Environmentally Friendly Features, a new School District field has been added, and the class Residential has been renamed Single Family & Residential Income has been renamed Multi Family. Click here for detailed information.

February 2008

-The MLS also offers customized office training. If you have at least 8 people in your offices who would like instruction on a common feature or features within Paragon, please call Dave at the MLS or email support@wisre.com to schedule a training session for your office. There is no charge for this customized Paragon office training.

-New Report Added — We have recently created a new report that is a cross between the Agent Full and the Customer Full. This report does not include the confidential broker-to-broker fields, but does include the listing agent information. We foresee this report will be used when a listing agent wants to print his/her own listings for use in brochure boxes or for other public distribution. This report can be found under Available Reports and Details. It is called Customer w/ Agent.

-If the electricity has been turned off for a property you have listed, PLEASE indicate this in the broker-to-broker remarks so showing agents know to make appointments earlier in the day.

-It is against MLS rules and copyright law to copy another agent’s property photos for use on your listing without permission. Those submitting photographs with the knowledge that they do not have the right to authorize the MLS to publish the photograph(s) shall be subject to a fine of $25 per photograph in addition to any legal or equitable remedies available to the owner of the photograph(s).

-Certain data fields in the MLS, such as expiration date, are considered confidential, and therefore available only in broker-to-broker reports. Reports containing these fields may not be distributed to the public. As the agent full report in Paragon contains these fields, this report should be used internally by Members of the MLS only, and not given to the public. We have had recent reports of the Agent Full report being left in brochure boxes. This is against MLS rules. Please remove Agent Full reports and replace them with Customer Full reports if you have been including them in brochure boxes. Thank you for your cooperation.

-When searching in Paragon, you can enter multiple entries for most fields. If there is no pick list to choose from, you simply include a comma between entries. Examples of a couple non-pick list fields are Lake/River Name and Subdivision. If you want to search both Lake Mendota and Lake Monona for example, you would type Mendota, Monona.

December 2007

– If you have a listing for which circumstances exist that cause the sale price to be less than market value, please use the MLS remarks to explain those circumstances.

-When entering a property that is under construction, you may include a sketch or a photo of a similar model. If you use a photo of a similar model, please make sure the photo has the words “similar model” included as part of the photo.

-Concern from the appraiser community: We recently received this email and agree this is an area our members could do better at:
“When sales concessions are involved in a transaction, it is most helpful if they are included on the MLS data sheet. There is a special area just for this called Points Paid/Seller Credits that is not being used. As appraisers we have to track down the Realtors® involved in the sale to get the concession amount which is both a bother for the Realtors® and a time burner for the appraiser. In a market where all details truly matter and where efficiency is critical, I ask that Realtors® kindly take the extra minute to specify the concession amount. Thank you.”

If the seller made concessions, such as paying closing costs or points on behalf of the buyer, please indicate that amount in the Points Paid/Seller Credits field when closing out the listing in Paragon.

September 2007

-Our MLS covers mainly South Central and Southwest Wisconsin (click here for a map). Occasionally an agent will list a property located outside of this region. The location codes used for these listings are Y01 for other parts of Wisconsin, Y02 for Illinois, Y03 for Minnesota, and Y04 for Iowa. If you are looking for a specific county or municipality outside the South Central/Southwest Wisconsin region, it works best to skip the location box and use the County or Municipality search boxes which are located on the bottom of the Primary Criteria search screen.

– We have had increased reports of agents contacting sellers before their listing contract expires with another agent. This is a violation of both MLS Rules and the Realtor® Code of Ethics. Please take a minute to read the article titled How to Avoid Jumping a Listing. Click here for a copy.

July 2007

-When viewing a listing in Paragon, one of the links at the top is “correction”. If you click on this link, an email box will open. Use this link to report to the MLS what you believe to be inaccuracies on that listing.

-The MLS Market area within the Market Monitor is a great place to track activity for a specific geographic market. By default, the MLS Market is defined as the whole MLS. You can limit that to just the market you would like to monitor by clicking on the gear button on the Market Monitor title bar, and then enter any locations or counties you want.

March 2007

-To better identify properties being offered at auction, a new feature has been added under the Terms Feature. Each listing flagged with the new Auction feature is also flagged with an AUC directly following the price. To help convey necessary information about the auction process to potential selling agents, all auction properties must include the SCWMLS Information Form for Properties being Sold at Auction as an associated document. This form can be found under the Forms section on our member website at www.scwmls.com.

February 2007

-The following are recent changes to the wording of current features:

December 2006

-The correct placement of your property on maps within Paragon is often dependent on the correct street tag (i.e. St, Ave, Dr). Please be sure you include the correct street tag when entering a new listing. Click here for a list of proper Paragon street tag abbreviations.

October 2006

-Properties in our MLS that include instruction to contact the seller for showings are protected from solicitation by REALTORS, just like all other exclusive listings. Your conversation with the seller should be limited to setting up the showing. Properties in our MLS that are being sold at auction are also protected from solicitation by REALTORS. It is against MLS rules and the REALTOR Code of Ethics to solicit these listings prior to their expiration.

September 2006

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 bordering 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.

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.

-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.

August 2006

-You can search for upcoming open houses under the Search Program in Paragon. Click on Search, Property, and select the property class. Open up the Advanced Criteria section at the bottom to find the Open House Date search prompt.