According to a tipster, another New Year policy change is in the works for the San Francisco MLS: “Effective January 1st, the waiting period to relist a property as “new” after withdrawal will be extended from the current 14 days to 30 days.” We have no doubt many will disagree, but we think it’s a positive change.
The Wrong Reasons (The Right Results?) [SocketSite]
Sorry NAR, But No [SocketSite]

10 thoughts on “A New New Policy Change For The MLS”
  1. Well that’s a start, but there are a lot of other marketing ploys that agents use…and MLS needs to think about implementing a lot more broader rules.

  2. For every two honest and ethical realtors there is an exact opposite. The exact opposite might not be completely evil, but nevertheless, they are truly not on ‘your side’.
    Why is it that most of the folks that are against allowing open access to information relating to comps, DOM, etc on properties for sale seem to be mostly real estate agents? Why wouldn’t these folks want buyers to be more informed?
    Before any of the realtors that frequent this board flames me, let me just say again… I am NOT saying all realtors feel this way.
    I’ve had an extremely BAD experience with my agent and the selling agent on our stil fairly recent purchase. Information was never easy to get from our agent. One example was that he refused to reply to the CleanOffer website so that I could be granted access to view active lisitngs that provided DOM and listing prices (which included any price changes). I ended up using a friends logon information to access this site for DOM type information, etc.
    Getting comp information from him was not that easy either. The limited amount of time he’d ever spend with me was on only moving us toward certain conversion developments or listings that were somehow connected to him or fellow brokerage agents.
    Why didn’t I fire him? Because the stupid part of me didn’t want to ruin a friendship. The agent was a relative of a good friend. I know now NEVER to do business with friends or family. It seriously felt like this guy treated us like second class citizens when compared to his ‘other’ clients. He never did the walk through on any of the different phase (along with the final one) and was no where to help us along the close process—he didn’t even tell us when our close of escrow date was. We ended up hiring a RE attorney to help us figure this stuff out.
    I am NOT making this stuff up. I have email trails and voicemails saved on some of the bs that we had to go through.
    —-Bottomline — NAR should take a stand and enforce it’s ethical rules. Relisting to ‘refresh’ is dispicable, NAR knows this and yet they are afraid to take a stand on it for fear of alienating its members….wait a minute…isn’t this what MLS is doing too? Bend to the hand that feeds it like removing public access and DOM? Gotta pretend that they are impartial, so lets throw a bone out to the buying public by adding a ‘whopping’ extra 16 days to the waiting period for agent to refres…I mean re-list a property as ‘new’.

  3. Hey BuyerBeware! Your agent should be sending you sfnewsletter.com. Mine does and I love it. Whoever writes it is frickin hilarious and really tells it how it is. They seem to be the “good guys” of the real estate community, and they give honest, sound advice. All the media seems to give is negative poor advice. Sites like this are good, but often seem so negative and so much of a b*tch session. If you have an interest in Real Estate in San Francisco, you should get it.

  4. Sounds like you had a bad agent (probably should have chosen an agent because he or she’s a professional person, not because he’s a friend of a friend, etc..)
    Re. CleanOffer, though — I wouldn’t ding him for that. Agents have to pay to use CleanOffer. I’ve tried the service myself, as an agent, and hated it. I found it cumbersome and didn’t like the fact that the clients had to register.
    CleanOffer wouldn’t be the answer to your problem — which is that your agent simply didn’t want to take the time out to keep you informed of the market. The real answer to your problem would be to find an agent who would do his job.

  5. SFNewsletter doesn’t have the kind of information that BuyerBeware was seeking. He wanted specific comps for the kind of property he was looking at, with DOM and all that.
    SFNewsletter is just another marketing e-tool that agents have to pay for, and does NOT take the place of reliable, detailed, on-call service from a professional. People need professionals — not friends, not websites, not newsletters — but true real estate professionals to help them through what can sometimes be a complicated process.

  6. Evil R.E. Agent. You’re right. You, like most agents, think you have all the answers. Best of luck to you. I like my agent, and the information he provides. Enough said. Happy Holidays to you.

  7. “People need professionals — not friends, not websites, not newsletters — but true real estate professionals to help them through what can sometimes be a complicated process.”
    Evil R.E. Agent: I’m with you. I’ll admit that I’ve encountered some bad-apple agents (fortunately, usually representing the other party in transactions I’ve gone through!), but I’ve nearly always valued the contribution and guidance of agents I’ve worked with. The web sites, etc. are all fun and can provide some good support for researching properties, but that’s only a small part of the process. My last agent made Cleanoffer available to me, and it was the first place I noticed the home I ended up with. But, in the mix were comps provided by my agent and sit-downs with the agent-only section of the MLS. Not to mention the valuable role my agent played in the offer/counter-offer process, reviewing and getting through all of the paperwork, setting up appraisals and inspections, making sure all of the “i”s were dotted and “t”s crossed at title company when I signed the closing documents. I think only the inexperienced don’t recognize what a good agent could and should be doing for them.

  8. I was a first-time home buyer and everything was quite overwhelming…couple that with all the empty promises that were made to us by our agent, it made for the worst experience of my life (ranks right up there with those highschool years).
    As a friend, he promised to walk us through all the paperwork, the hard hat tours, the final walk throughs, etc…telling us how he specialized with helping first time home buyers through this stressful process….LIES LIES LIES.
    This was all before stumbling onto this website and a few others where I started to learn more about how things worked.
    Evil R.E. was right about how our agent didn;t really liked to keep us up to speed with information. I’m sure it’ll come back to haunt him one day… He should really be more worried about whether or not I’ll file a complaint about him along with bringing suit against him for possible breach of fiduciary duty. (My imagination running wild again).
    Seriously though, we really thought he would take better care of us by ensuring all the things that Christopher listed above with crossing all the “t’s” and dotting all the “i’s” since we were friends…but was I ever wrong. We now know to look for a REPUTABLE & ETHICAL RE agent that really works for you when it comes time for us to move up to a larger place.
    Christopher, you are very fortunate to have a good agent to represent you. Our agent became a ghost right after the purchase agreement was signed. Perhaps it will be better the next time around (*with another agent).

  9. Buyer Beware: I’m really sorry to hear about your experience, and you’re right, I have been lucky. But, I, too, have dealt with a few less-than-stellar agents, and that’s what gives you the knowledge and experience to make a better choice the next time. At the very least, with your next purchase you’ll know to lay out your expectations up-front and be able to legitimately call to task (or fire) your agent if they’re not doing their job! (PS: My high school years were awful, too, but enduring them turned me into a hard-edged business person!)

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