Why Is CRMLS Maintaining DOM as it Exists Today During COVID-19?

We’ve seen the same question from many agents and brokers: Why isn’t CRMLS freezing DOM (or DIM/DOMLS depending on the MLS system)? This blog post can offer a bit of insight on why the CRMLS Board of Directors has decided to maintain the status quo for DOM.

Stopping or freezing DOM during a pandemic can create a variety of unintended consequences, some of which may lead to potential liabilities. On Wednesday, March 25th, Art Carter, CEO of CRMLS, responded to this question from Inman with the following information:

“Accurate information is a hallmark of a good MLS, and we trust that the brokerage community has the necessary skills and communication ability to use the DOM information to provide good counsel to their clients. Altering the DOM count would limit this opportunity for the brokers and appraisers to access this often-used piece of real estate information and would potentially limit the ability to track the effects of the pandemic on the real estate industry.”

On Thursday, March 26th, CoreLogic, the vendor for CRMLS’ Matrix platform, sent out a message to its MLS partners stating they’ve been studying the DOM situation and options available. Based on the information they provided below, CRMLS is maintaining a level playing field by not adjusting DOM. Here’s an excerpt from Chris Bennett, the lead Executive for CoreLogic’s Real Estate Solutions Division:

In this scenario, we would maintain the existing DOM/CDOM calculations as they exist today. This means that ALL listings in each market are impacted equally. There are no special circumstances dictating how one listing is perceived vs. another. While agents, in most markets, have the option to move their listings to a status that doesn’t accumulate DOM (“Withdrawn” or “Temp Off Market”), this scenario maintains a level playing field for all. Clearly, this is the simplest (and fastest) option on the table. Also, this is the course I strongly urge us to take. Why? It’s essential we maintain a global view of our markets and understand the true impact of this COVID pandemic. If we do not track this and understand its true effects on our local markets, we become blind to planning and remediation for other incidents in the future. Like all industries effected by this, our best course today is in an honest, consistent, and measurable appraisal of its effects.”

FBS, the makers of Flexmls, put out a blog post on March 24th to much the same effect. Here’s an excerpt:

“The problem, however, is that pausing DOM distorts the accuracy of the data in the system. Years from now when the pandemic is hopefully a distant memory, we should be able to look back at the data and see the effect the pandemic had on days on market. If we see some markets where there’s no effect (because DOM was paused) and other markets where it wasn’t, that’s going to create a misleading picture. Another reason not to pause DOM is that no competitive advantage or disadvantage is created for any agent, the pandemic is impacting everyone the same.”

The CRMLS executive team has also reached out to some of the leading MLSs around the country, all of whom were also not going to modify their DOM calculations for the same reasons articulated by CRMLS and the major vendors in the MLS community.

We hope this helps you understand why we’ve chosen not to freeze DOM. If you have any further specific questions, please visit our COVID-19 resource page and contact us through the feedback box. Thank you.