Welcome to the April 2021 Broker Report. This information is available for you to share with your agents and office staff. Resources for you and your agents on any modifications to how you do business are available on our webpage: CRMLS COVID-19 Resources.
New Consumer Protection rules are coming in 2021. Click here for more information.
The Saturday business day for 5/1 is delayed indefinitely
Business days will remain Monday to Friday except holidays. This planned rule change has been delayed for the foreseeable future based on feedback we’ve received.
All other rule changes planned for May 1, 2021, will take place as planned. As a reminder:
Effective May 1, 2021, we will update the CRMLS Rules and Regulations and publish them on the Compliance page of the CRMLS website.
We encourage you to read a two-page summary of the rule changes, located here: https://go.crmls.org/crmls-policy-change-summary/
Additional resources are available here:
Fair Housing Resources
- CRMLS supports fair housing for all. Find resources to help you understand fair housing laws and best practices.
- We’ve refreshed our list of Fair Housing Keywords and Phrases. Click here for more info.
Are you interested in being on the cutting edge of real estate technology?
Have your brokerage’s technical lead reach out to us for CRMLS-exclusive tech updates. Email us at brokers@crmls.org to learn more.
Compliance Corner
- Trending Topics for Compliance: March 2021
- Schedule Compliance Training for your office
- Calculating CDOM
- What Happens to MLS Photos After Your Listing Closes?
- Review our step-by-step guide to learn more.
Education Corner
- View our quick tips on how to use the syndication remarks field in your system to increase exposure on public internet portals.
Enhancements & Product Corner
- Realist Product Enhancement | April 14, 2021
- ShowingTime: Disable ShowingTime on a listing
- MLS Touch updates are now live! Review the updates on our guide.
Flex
- Major Flex data improvements arrived on 4/13
- As of today (4/30), you may include two unbranded virtual tours on your listings!
Matrix
- Major Matrix data improvements arrived on 4/13
- CRMLS Matrix Brokers can set a default email address for their offices to receive CRMLS Compliance related fields. We encourage all brokers and managers to review the Office Compliance Email field by following our how-to guide.
Paragon
New Paragon feature will help you stay compliant with fair housing
Some of the most common Compliance violations are in property descriptions – words you might not even realize violate fair housing guidelines. To help you stay in compliance, CRMLS and Paragon are introducing new pop-up warnings, starting on Tuesday, 4/27.
If Paragon notices language in your listing that may constitute a violation, a warning message will pop up to point out both the wording concern and the reason it may not adhere to fair housing guidelines.
Catching possible violations before your listing is published will reduce the possibility of citations and fees. It will also keep you informed about fair housing guidelines.
For an example list of words and phrases to avoid (and acceptable alternatives), click here.
(CRMLS makes no representation about whether the information complies with state or federal laws or regulations. Consult Legal Counsel for any questions regarding the Fair Housing Laws.)
- Major Paragon data improvements arrived on 4/13
- How to Advertise Listings in Printed Neighborhood Market Report
- Learn how to choose to include your listing in the Paragon Neighborhood Market Report
- Here is a guide to issues that have been recently resolved and are currently in progress:
- CLOSED – Limiting Public Remarks, Private Remarks, and Syndication Remarks to 1,500 characters UPDATE: due to a limitation within Paragon, limiting character count to 2,500 will cause truncation and new issues. Due to this limitation, character count will remain at 4,000 to mitigate further user impact.
- IN PROGRESS – For comps with pictures, some pictures are not appearing clearly. Distortion has been reported. As a temporary workaround, we recommend you print to HTML format as a workaround.
- IN PROGRESS – We’re working to ensure Coming Soon to Active shows as New (with vendor)
- IN PROGRESS – We’re adding a Change Type for Coming Soon so that it can have its own category on Hotsheets and MarketWatch (with vendor)
- IN PROGRESS – Cleanup of City List (being finalized)
- IN PROGRESS – We’re correcting “CRMLS Fill Agent” appearing on the List Agent ID or Buyer Agent ID on listings reports/displays. UPDATE: Incoming listings were resolved in December 2020; older historical listings in SD County were resolved in early March. While we anticipate no further impact from this issue, the final cleanup of older and invalid listings is in progress.
Visit your dedicated Paragon Upgrade Resources Center for information.
