On June 15, the ValleyMLS.com Board of Directors met to discuss several policy, compliance and tech motions. HAAR ratified those decisions on June 23, which are listed below. Please email MLSsupport@valleymls.com with questions.
The following motions from the Policy Committee were all approved by the ValleyMLS Board of Directors.
MOTION PASSED: To remove the field “Advertising Remarks” from listing input.
RATIONALE: This field has become an unnecessary source of confusion as all our vendors choose to display Public Remarks and ignore this field.
MOTION PASSED: To prohibit people from appearing in listing photos/media.
RATIONALE: This will help us maintain Fair Housing standards by eliminating the question of whether any protected class is being underrepresented in listing images.
MOTION PASSED: To remove “Jr. High” from listing input.
RATIONALE: Middle School is a required field, and any Jr. High School would need to be entered there.
MOTION PASSED: To require the listing agent’s cell phone number to appear on the listing (Agent Full Report).
RATIONALE: To more easily reach the person who knows the most about the property. (Note: Paragon can be configured to default to displaying the primary contact number for the listing agent on the report)
MOTION PASSED: To remove “TO” (Trade Only) from the options for the field labeled “Code” (meant to describe the type of listing agreement) in listing input.
RATIONALE: Trade Only listings would not meet other requirements for inclusion in ValleyMLS and should therefore not be an option.
MOTION PASSED: To change the definition on the “Exclusive Agency” agreement as follows, (from an NAR publication dated Jan 2021):
A contractual agreement under which the listing broker acts as the agent or as the legally recognized non-agency representative of the seller(s), and the seller(s) agrees to pay a commission to the listing broker if the property is sold through the efforts of any real estate broker. If the property is sold solely through the efforts of the seller(s), the seller(s) is not obligated to pay a commission to the listing broker.
RATIONALE: To make it easier to understand what distinguishes this type listing agreement from an Exclusive Right to Sell (with no restrictions on commission) or Variable Rate agreement, which are also defined within the rules.
MOTION PASSED: To make no changes and keep only one syndication feed at the current pricing structure.
RATIONALE: The vendor in question currently receives an IDX and could pull rentals via the IDX feed, but because of their own internal business decisions, would like to receive the data via a different feed type (so the listings can be co-mingled). This committee does not wish to see ValleyMLS provide data at a reduced rate to any vendor because our data has value and should be treated as such. If any vendor wishes to display only rentals, they can simply pay for the entire feed and use what they wish from it (as apartments.com does currently).
The following motions from the Compliance Committee were approved by the ValleyMLS Board of Directors.
MOTION PASSED: Any member with 5 (or more) similar violations that occur within the previous 12-month period will remain at the 3rd level offense status.
RATIONALE: To make it clear in the policy that once a member reaches the “third-level offense” penalty of $500, any violation of a similar type that occurs within the next 12 months would also incur the third level offense penalty. The member will not reset to the first level penalty until 12 months past their last third level offense of any similar violation.
MOTION PASSED: To reset the courtesy “Fine Waiver” every 5 years.
RATIONALE: All agents are offered a one-time waiver of a fine. Lately, some agents who have had a fine written off over 8 years ago have been fined again and voiced their opinion that they would like to see the one-time waiver possibly reset every few years instead of only being able to use it once. The committee discussed and all agreed that 5 years was a fair amount of time before a waiver could be used again.
MOTION PASSED: To require that the agent’s broker appear at the compliance meetings before the agent, and then to remain in the hearing until it’s complete.
RATIONALE: Agents need to be represented at the hearings with their broker. Many of the fines that the agents are receiving would not be happening if they had better training by their brokers. Holding both the agent and the broker accountable will expectantly reduce the number of hearings that are being held.
The following motions from the Technology Committee were approved by the ValleyMLS Board of Directors.
MOTION PASSED: To sunset ValleyMLS IT Services to members and external businesses.
RATIONALE:
Only 87 members/external partners have utilized the service since January 2020 – May 2022.
There are 15 pending internal IT projects that need to be prioritized to serve all 4,300+ ValleyMLS subscribers.
MOTION PASSED: To move forward with making the Collabra Marketing Packaging product available to our members on the MLS Dashboard.
RATIONALE: The technology committee reviewed a demo of this marketing package and feels that this is a great tool for ValleyMLS members. The pricing structure is a, pay-as-you-go, OR a monthly fee for unlimited branded marketing materials. The technology committee feels that this product is in line with the current MLS strategic plan to bring products and tools to the members to help with their business.
MOTION PASSED: To go with Option A (see below): No lead form goes out to an agent when a consumer saves a property until the consumer makes a specific inquiry and that inquiry will go to the listing agent until the consumer registers to work with an agent. As soon as a consumer registers to work with an agent, all subsequent inquiries will then go to the agent with whom the consumer is connected.
RATIONALE: The committee reviewed 3 options and selects option A:
A. Don’t “connect” them with any member (no member would receive an email lead)
B. ‘Connect’ them with the member who is the list agent of the first property they save (which is how it’s setup now)
C. Connect’ them with each listing agent of each property they save (so if there are 10 saved properties all with different list agents – each agent would get an email lead
The following motions from the Forms Committee were approved by the ValleyMLS Board of Directors.
MOTION PASSED: To modify Paragraph 4C in the Cash Sales Contract from “will” to “may”, as shown in the example below.
RATIONALE: This change has already been made in the other sales contract (Land and Financed Sales Contract) and falls in line with the current practices occurring in today’s market.
MOTION PASSED: To approve the grammatical changes made in Paragraph 5 of the Land Sales contract, as shown in the example below.
Note: The change is that instead of “the listing company” being mentioned before option(s) A & B, “the listing company” is the first word of each of these sentences.
RATIONALE: This is a grammatical change was requested to make the paragraph read clearly regarding the Listing Company’s representations or warranties.
MOTION PASSED: To rename the “List/Market” date field to “Entry Date” and add the text in RED in the “coming soon” marketing paragraph.
Note: The additional text in RED was added to further offer clarity on when a coming soon property can be marketed.
RATIONALE: The List/Market Date field will only accept the current date that the listing is entered into Paragon, so it is already working as an entry date. Also, the List/Market date was confusing to agents who did not fully understand which date, from the agreement, needed to be entered in this field.
MOTION PASSED: To approve the revisions in the Coming Soon Addendum, renaming the “Expected on Market Date” to “Convert to Active” date throughout the coming soon addendum, which will then align with the changes made on the Exclusive Right to Sell Agreement
RATIONALE: This change was made to clearly indicate when the property will be made active in the MLS. This date applies to listings that are Coming Soon are in Temporary Off Market Status.
MOTION PASSED: To approve a Governance change (Changing from 2-year term to a 3-year term).
RATIONALE: To improve stability on the ValleyMLS.com Board of Directors.
MOTION PASSED: To move forward with the Rapattoni dashboard, which will replace the Clareity dashboard
RATIONALE:
The contract with Clareity (for the current dashboard) will expire December 31, 2022.
The new dashboard offered by Rapattoni is the same vendor that is used by the Staff to maintain all membership records, and therefore, the data that transmits from the membership software to the dashboard will be much quicker.
Rapattoni offers unlimited SSO links (our current vendor offers 10 SSO links)
Each Association will have their own branded dashboard
We can have custom banners displayed to announce upcoming events, classes, or other important information.
Report from the New Construction PAG
DISCUSSION: To accept the report as presented by the New Construction PAG (See report HERE), and to have the ValleyMLS Policy Committee further review how Model Homes should be displayed and advertised in ValleyMLS.
Report from the Property Management/Rental PAG
In order for ValleyMLS to be a viable resource for Property Managers and Rental Agents we recommend the following:
Revising the Rental MLS Input form and Review and Revise the Rental Listing Rules as needed
Before a rental listing can be added in ValleyMLS, the agent entering the listing must have attend a Property Management Training (this could be in person or online)
Add a focused session During Orientation for Property Management
Work with the Orientation Chair and/or Education Department as to the content and discussion points
Create an Education Class for Property Managers
Work with the Education Department on an outline and class content
Recruit Teachers for the Class
Create guidelines for approval of Teachers (knowledgeable in Property Management)
Work with to build a Forms Library specific for Property Management
Work with a local attorney that is knowledgeable in Property Management