News & Past Hot Tips

Within Paragon Connect, the new Paragon Mobile product, when looking at a listing in detail, click the three dots on the right side of the top banner to access Associated Docs, ShowingTime, TrustFunds, and Community Reports.

Upgrade your mobile access to Paragon Connect. Currently, your options for mobile access to Paragon include Paragon Mobile and Homes.com. Paragon Mobile will soon be replaced with the next generation of mobile access. Paragon Connect is a web application that utilizes the same database as Paragon Online, which allows real-time access to your listings, contacts, saved searches and customized search defaults. Within Paragon Connect you have full search capability with links to not only full property data, but also history, associated documents, public records, and access to schedule a showing via ShowingTime. Paragon Connect has a very tight integration with Collaboration Center for those who have converted their contacts from legacy email notifications.

Click here to learn more about Paragon Connect in 15 minutes from our very own SCWMLS trainer, Dave Bass.

Access Paragon Connect from the Paragon login page or directly at https://scwmls.paragonrels.com/ParagonConnect/scwmls/Account/Login.

Please note that Paragon Connect is a web app accessible from your browser, and is not available in the app stores.

If you have blocked out dates or times for showings via the ShowingTime calendar, no showings are allowed during those times…..not even for the listing agent.

On October 1, the show date will again be required, and the maximum number of days a listing can be in Delayed, or Active with no showings will again be 45 days. As you know, show date was changed to optional, and the 45-day limit was removed at the onset of COVID-19. As there has been adequate time to employ best practices in safe selling, we feel reverting to the requirement of the show date, and the 45-day maximum is now warranted. All listings entered or modified on or after October 1 will trigger the requirement for show date.

If a listing agent has a personal interest in a property they have listed, they must disclose this by flagging the property with a “yes” under Licensee Interest. A real estate agent may not act in a transaction on their own behalf, on behalf of their immediate family, or on behalf of any other organization or business entity in which they have an interest, without the prior written consent of all parties to the transaction. The purpose of flagging the property with a “yes”, is to alert the agent working with the buyer that the listing agent has a personal interest in the transaction, so that further disclosure can be included should an offer to purchase be written.

If you want to pull up multiple CRS tax records for a list of properties from Paragon, pull up the list of properties in Paragon via a search or lookup and select the listings. Once selected, click on the Actions drop down and select View in CRS Data. The selected listings will be imported into CRS, and all CRS functions, such as reviewing the assessment/tax info, viewing on the CRS map, and creating mailing labels will be available for this group of listings.

Within Paragon, you can change the fields that display on the spreadsheet of properties that come up after a search. Click Customize from the closest toolbar above the spreadsheet, and select Fields. The box on the right lists the fields that currently display on your spreadsheet. If you want to remove a field, simply click on the field and click Remove. If you want to add a field from the left box, click on the field and then on Add. If you do not see the field you would like to add, click on the Group box at the top to display different types of fields (i.e. Feature Categories). You can also use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to change the order the fields appear on your spreadsheet. Click Save to apply your changes. Your customized spreadsheet will now come up each time you display the spreadsheet. There is a Revert to Default button on the bottom if you mess up.

If you find yourself in a situation where your new seller directs you not to include their listing on the MLS, your options for marketing their property are very limited. If an office exclusive listing is not handled correctly, it can result in a large fine. If you are at all unsure about the rules pertaining to office exclusive listings, please call 608-240-2800 or email us at listings@wisre.com. We would much rather talk to you ahead of time, than follow up on a report that you have strayed outside MLS rules.

If you receive an email alerting you that a client has opted out of receiving emails from you via Paragon, this may be because they accidently clicked on the opt out link within an email, or because Paragon received multiple bounce backs from your clients email provider. To opt them back in, email them the following link or open the link and type in their email address: https://scwmls.paragonrels.com/CCR/paragonsubscriptions?action=optin. Your client will be sent a confirmation email containing an opt-in option they will need to click on within 72 hours to opt back in. This opt in link can also be found as the last link in the orange banner on the top of the Paragon home page.

You can proactively check for clients that have been opted out by clicking on Contacts and View/Manage Contacts within Paragon. Look at the Email column. Clients should have an orange envelope indicating a valid email address. If you see a white envelope with a red exclamation point, this client is opted out and is not receiving emails.

If your company uses ShowingTime Appointment Center, you can run target market analysis by location for the number of showings within price ranges. Click here for a 1 minute overview. This report can be found at the bottom of the Reports menu within ShowingTime Appointment Center.

If you are marketing your delayed listing to the public (for example, as coming soon or by placing a sign in the yard), you must input that listing in the MLS within 1 business day of when marketing begins. If you are not yet marketing to the public, you have 4 calendar days to input the listing in the MLS. Your listing can be entered with the status of Delayed, or as Active with a note in the first line of the public remarks as to when showings will begin. If you miss the input deadline, there is a $100 per day fine if you are not advertising, and a $500 per day fine if you are advertising.

If you have a buyer requesting to be in a specific school district, do not simply search by the municipality or mailing city you think is serviced by that school district, but rather use the School District search field. There are many instances where school districts span several municipalities and mailing cities, and it is easy to miss listings if you are not aware of all of them. For example, the school district of DeForest spans six different municipalities and seven different mailing cities. If you limit your search to the Village of DeForest, you would miss over 50% of properties serviced by the DeForest School District.

If you have a property in the status of Delayed, or as Active with a note that the property is not yet ready for showings, no showings to potential buyers are allowed for anyone. This includes virtual showings and virtual open houses hosted on Facebook Live, Zoom, Goggle Meet, Face Time, etc.

A virtual showing or a virtual open house is a real-time (live) showing, conducted virtually via live stream for a potential buyer or a group of potential buyers. Typically, this live video features a tour of the home, allows dialog between the agent and the buyer(s), and allows the buyer(s) to request to see what specifically interests them. This is different than a virtual tour, which is a pre-recorded slide show or video hosted online and available to watch any time.

If the only service that is not being provided by the listing broker for a particular listing is that of holding earnest money, that listing is not a limited service listing. We have clarified this via an update to our Disclosure Form for Limited Service Listings.

Photos loaded into Paragon should not contain office/agent names, logos, or contact information. Please take photos from an angle to avoid your for sale sign, or from an angle such that your sign is not readable. If this is not possible, please edit your photo to blur or cover the sign before loading it into Paragon. This rule extends to unbranded virtual tours loaded into Paragon as well.

When a listing agent advertises a set date for review of, consideration of, or response to an offer, please understand that the seller is free to change that date at any time without notice. It is best to submit your offer in a timely manner, and not wait until the deadline.

Agents with basic Realtor level access now have the ability to add partial listings via the Listings menu. This new option will streamline the add listing process by allowing agents to directly key in listing data as opposed to filling out profile sheets. Partial listings can then be reviewed and saved as live listings by users with office administrative access. This functionality was being done by some agents under the CMA Subject Property option, but there were some limitations, such as the inability to add documents and poor workflow when converting a subject property to a sold comp.

When entering a partial listing, an agent should make note of the partial listing number assigned to pass on to their office listing administrator, along with any documentation required by their office. If the listing should be entered in a status other than Active, that should also be noted. Administrators can then pull up the partial listing to complete under Listings – Maintain Partials.

A Few Tips:

• Selecting Tax Autofill will pull in data from public records.
• Select Save As Partial Listing and select Continue Input to load photos & documents. You can select to save as a partial several times along the way to save your work.
• Before handing off to your administrator, click Save Listing to trigger input rules to make sure you have not missed any required information. Click the red triangle to jump to the field that contains missing information. Status will be entered by your administrator.

If you are still sending your clients legacy auto emails, please consider upgrading to Collaboration Center. Collaboration Center gives your clients access to their own website where they can save and organize their favorite, possible and rejected listings. Click here to view an instructional video on Collaboration Center.

To accommodate virtual open houses, we have added a new field for the link to the live virtual open house session. This new field can be found within Listing Add/Maintain, directly before the Open House Date and Time fields. Public website providers such as Zillow and Realtor.com are now pulling info for virtual open houses from our new link, and are removing all URL links as previously added to public remarks. Please note that Realtor.com allows virtual open house links only if they are set up on the following platforms: Zoom, GoogleMeet/Hangouts, Webex, BlueJeans, Join.me, Zoho meeting.