This is not as time-consuming as it could be, but, of course, we are obliged to keep secrets we would rather didn’t keep. But the unbranded sites at least worked under Tempo.

Not so in flexMLS. FBS is attempting to “frame” offsite resources, which imposes FBS-server-based software limitations on the linked pages. In the case of our unbranded single-property web sites, the CSS of the pages is being clobbered. They end up looking like hell.

Framing any URL-referenced resource makes no sense to me, since the user is giving up screen real estate for content that could just as easily be opened into a new browser tab.

This would be my preference, to have all off-site “virtual resources” open into their own browser tab. Even where it is not failing, framing these web pages is needlessly constraining.

Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate marketing, technology

is the F.Q. Story Historic District in Downtown Phoenix as rendered by the flexMLS MLS system recently adopted by the Arizona Regional Multiple Listings Service. ARMLS is 30,000 Realtors working in the fifth largest city in the U.S. — and the 14th largest market area — so this is a big MLS system by any measure.

This particular map looks a whole lot better on the screen. I had to scale drastically to get it to fit here. Here’s the good news: You can see it for real, live, on a “portal” that I built for this post.

Do this:

Go here.

Your user name is: Jack Swilling

Your password is: demo

Please don’t reset the password, or no one else will be able to get in. For all of me, I would make passwords optional, but that’s only because I hate them with the passionate heat of a thousand suns — no big deal.

I built this search to show off just a little bit of what flexMLS can do. I’m not even a good tour guide on the subject. Cathy has a much richer base of experience than mine. For all the gee whiz technology we talk about around here, I am not an early adopter. The words you are most likely to hear from my mouth, when discussing new technology, are “mission critical,” and I won’t risk a mission critical function on something new until it is completely tested. I’ve been in love with the iPhone for 19 months — and I’m getting mine next week.

But, even so, this software is cool.

In the photo (or in the map view in the portal), you will see that I have defined F.Q. Story as three irregular polygons. Why? Because Realtors can’t spell. In principle, I should be able to use the “Subdivision” field in the MLS listing — but I don’t trust it. If the address is mapped correctly — and flexMLS makes it difficult to map a home improperly — it will show up in a polygon search.

And because I can use multiple non-contiguous irregular polygons to define a search, I can base my search of Story on market realities. How’s that? The priciest properties in Story are in the top-right polygon. People in that part of the Story call the homes in the top left polygon “West Side Story” — this because the homes west of 15th Avenue are smaller, newer, sit on smaller lots and have the I-10 Freeway looming over them. People living west of 15th Avenue don’t like to talk about it, but their homes sell for less money.

The same goes for the polygon south of the freeway. The historic preservation movement in Phoenix got its start when the I-10 plowed through two streets of unique historic homes in Story. The region south of the freeway hasn’t recovered as well as its counterpart due north.

These are economic facts based on a hard-headed knowledge of the inventory. By defining Story as three separate polygons, I can isolate my searches to just the areas I’m interested in. If I have a buyer who wants Story-without-footnotes-or-caveats, I can kill the two lower-priced polygons and isolate my search to only the toniest homes. If I’m listing west of 15th Avenue, I can isolate to that one polygon to compare apples-to-apples.

Just that little bit of flexMLS totally rocks, but you can’t let me play with software without getting a wish list. I wish the polygons went down in different — selectable — colors, to make visual distinction easier. I wish they were nameable. I wish they were editable — without having to delete and redraw and without being stoopid like the editable polygons in Google Maps. I wish they could be turned on and off, instead of just being there or not-there. All that notwithstanding, map-based polygon searching in flexMLS is pretty damn good.

But wait. There’s more. I am a geek by predisposition — a high-D INTJ, a very demanding, very exacting boss. But I am a salesman by profession. And as cool as that map is, it’s just a tree. The forest in flexMLS is that portal. If you didn’t check it out before, do now. What you’re seeing is an amazingly powerful sales tool. The Truzillios have it all over FBS Systems for graphic appeal, but that portal is just an incredible “touch” — in the language of selling.

Like this: I send you the search of your ideal homes. The when we talk on the phone, I encourage you to fire up the portal. I open up my identical version from within flexMLS. Now we can set up our results to display the same houses in the same order and go through them one-by-one. I can tell you about subdivisions, orientation, positive and negative aspects about the local government. I may even have been inside that home in the past. I may have pictures from previous visits. This is an incredibly powerful sales tool. Not only can I work with you to get us down to a really useful short list of homes to look at, just by talking about specific houses I can pull out those previously-unmentioned must-have features or deal-killer objections.

The way the portal is set up, with absolutely everything available on every house, continuously updated as facts change in the MLS system, makes it a hugely valuable tool for working with buyers.

Now stop and think. Let’s comp homes with sellers. Now I’m back to schlepping a laptop, because I will want to be able to set up a comps portal, then go through it house-by-house with sellers. No more stacks of papers and hand-waving speeches. “Please look at the photographs of these recently sold houses and tell my again why your home should sell for $25,000 more?” That’s a show-stopper.

There is CMA software in the flexMLS system that is as good as the stuff appraisers use — and I don’t care. I’m a high-D and I will never comp a house that rigorously. Cathy will, and when we add a high-C for the administrative tasks, I will benefit by those rigorous CMAs. But I am a salesman, and I am here to tell you — here in Phoenix and nationwide — that flexMLS is a killer sales tool.

I’m just growing into the software — mission critical first and always, so I don’t let new things come between me and the tasks that must be accomplished. There are things I haven’t figured out yet, and other things I’m kludging my way through. It’s possible I’ll write more about it in the future. But making this change was a big, gutsy move by ARMLS President Gary Cumiskey. The man is to be commended for his fortitude, but give him credit — he was right. flexMLS is a very useful tool for selling real estate.

 
PS: Colonel Jack Swilling was the founder of Phoenix. He’s been dead since 1880, so I didn’t think he’d mind my borrowing his name. Michael Wurzer of FBS Systems points out that, as a matter of policy, flexMLS portals should not be shared publicly. The F.Q. Story portal shown here is presented for demonstration purposes only.

Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate, real estate marketing, technology

 
New FlexMLS system is a bold stride into the twenty-first century for Phoenix-area Multiple Listings Service

Metropolitan Phoenix got a brand new MLS system this week. MLS is the Multiple Listings Service, the system by which Realtors share their listings with one another. Until this week, the Arizona Regional Multiple Listings Service had been using a computing system called Tempo to share listings. As of this Monday just past, we have switched to the FlexMLS system.

Had you guessed that something had changed? If your Realtor has been sending you listings from a saved search, or if you had been receiving updates to a Tempo Gateway, all that stopped on Monday morning. Chances are your agent has spent much of this week rewriting searches and reestablishing gateways. The FlexMLS system is more robust than anything we’ve had before, but it’s also quite a bit more complicated. It may take a while before things get back to normal.

So why make the switch? For one very good reason, to tap into that much more robust technology. Tempo permitted a crude kind of map-based search, but FlexMLS allows you to select houses from within multiple non-contiguous irregular polygons. So, as an example, I can search for homes that are either within walking distance of Apollo High School or within walking distance of Valley Metro bus lines servicing Apollo High School.

There’s more: The FlexMLS pricing software is comparable to the tools appraisers use. Realtors will have to stretch themselves to learn how to tap this power, but our Comparative Market Analyses are going to be painstakingly accurate.

But not without some growing pains. ARMLS is by far the largest MLS system FlexMLS has taken on so far. This first week has been a trial for the North Dakota company — a strain on their servers, and, no doubt, a strain on their tech support staff as well.

And workaday Realtors are sharing the pain. No doubt many are grumbling, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But FlexMLS is a bold stride into the twenty-first century for ARMLS. This transition may not be fun, but it will be a boon to everyone in the long run.

Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate, real estate marketing, technology

Here are three issues we’ve run into, so far. I encourage you to document anything you’ve found, as well. There are things I wish were different about FlexMLS, but it is what it is. From here, we need to help the developers in Fargo give us what we need to get our jobs done.

1. Right now: We need to be able to upload photos in bulk. If it’s going to take n minutes per photo, we need to be able to set up 10 or 20 photos in a batch and let it run for 20 x n minutes. I understand that FBS is adding servers, but the software seems to be inherently slower than Tempo. We cannot afford to waste time waiting for iterative photo uploads.

2. There needs to be a logical NOT operator in any free form text field. IOW, I need to be able to say

! short sale

or

NOT short sale

in the remarks or the Realtor’s remarks, since that’s the only place a short sale is likely to be indicated. Right now, I can type short sale in the remarks box, then negate that in the summary. The problem with that is that I can’t OR and NOT in that field that way.

3. As I mentioned in a comment on the FBS Blog, the logic behind naming and saving searches is faulty. Is there a reason why this wasn’t done using a pure document-based solution? As with Tempo, it is wretchedly easy to clobber a standing search when you think you’re cloning it. This should not be possible.

Pitch in. What else needs to be fixed?

Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate, technology

When AAR updates a form, as it does with wanton abandon, you are obliged to download that revised form into ZipForms.

Hurray! Everything is always up to date!

With one exception….

Any standing templates you have prepared in ZipForms are not updated with the new forms.

You read that right. If you made the effort to build templates in ZipForms, your templates are almost certainly obsolete — containing one or more older versions of forms that have since been supplanted by newer versions — one or more times.

What, you may find yourself asking, is the benefit of using templates, if you have to go through and manually update them every time the AAR (or ARMLS) revises a form?

Good question.

Here’s the real answer:

1. ZipForms sucks. It is so kludgey and buggy that it makes the ordinary run of kludgey, buggy Windows software look good.

2. AAR is not a software company, and shoving a monopoly vendor down our throats — leaving us no opportunity to deploy competitive pressure to get optimal results from our technology vendors — is a very poor idea.

3. If the AAR and other associations would get out of the software business, decent, responsible technology vendors would put ZipForms out of business in no time.

4. Ergo, AAR is not only not helping agents by anointing monopoly technology vendors, the inevitable ineptitude of decision-making by committees of non-end-users is actually hurting working Realtors.

And so the best question is this: Why are we paying good money to frustrate our own interests?

Good grief!

I used to write code for Bell Labs and others, but never made a living as a system tester, so it’s been fun to change seats and try to break the code.  It is a totally different mindset.

What I’m finding is that the more I play with Flex, the more ready I am for the system cut over to be here, and be here now.  Yes, there are a few bugs, but for the most part, the system is almost ready for prime time.  Completing my MLS work double over the past week, both in Marketlinx and in FlexMLS, I’m finding that I just want to stick with Flex.

As one of the agents who has (had) over 900 Gateway reports, I was focusing on all the problems that the transition was going to cause me.  With the early notice that we’ve had to prepare for the cut over, I’ve personally made provisions to move to an interim system, so that my prospects and clients do not experience an interruption in service.  I’ve had a few complaints about dead links, but for the most part, it just gives me another opportunity to have conversation with someone looking to purchase a home. 

….and, I’m focusing on the improvements that will be available to us after the system cuts in late July.

Time Saver #1 - Routing and driving directions

1.  Select houses to show.

2. Click on Directions button.

 3.  Wha-la! 

Almost immediately, ARMLS asked to be involved. This struck me as being uncharacteristically wise on its part, but it entailed compromises that are not completely satisfying for a weblog. There’s a bright line distinction between organizations that must speak with one voice and looser associations that welcome multiple points of view. ARMLS seemed to be so hamstrung by what it could not say, that, as is obvious in retrospect, what began as an egg in an apple blossom could not become anything other than a worm in the apple.

From my point of view, both ARMLS and FBS Systems have been amazingly niggardly with information. Possibly this is baked in the cake: The information is simply unavailable. But I had anticipated that we would have had quite a bit more to talk about around here — not just by now but months ago.

And turning the tables, it is plausible to me that the kind of wide-open discussion that is so avidly desired in the weblogging world is anathema to ARMLS, to FBS or to both. That much is alien to me. We stand to learn a lot more from people who oppose our positions than from those who echo them, but it’s hard to fault hierarchical organizations for being hierarchical.

In any case, ARMLS, at least, has pulled out. You will have had spam earlier this week announcing the creation of newarmls.com, a static web site with an integrated weblog devoted to the dissemination of information about the flexmls transition.

Okayfine. That’s their business, and they’re welcome to it. The topmost post in the weblog, as I write this, is a patented ARMLS scolding, and, speaking for myself, I like that sort of thing much better there than here.

And that’s as may be. The question before the house is a simple one: What now?

I have attempted with what one might describe as marginal success to pin this down de jure, but it becomes obvious that whatever alliance we had forged with ARMLS is now defunct de facto. In effect, ARMLS has taken its bat and ball and gone home. This is perfectly fine, and they wouldn’t have done it if it didn’t make sense to them strategically.

The question is: What makes sense for us as strategy?

We are back to square one in the sense that we are free to discuss whatever we choose about real estate technology, without any fear of stepping on ARMLS’ toes. Is this something that people here want to do?

Perhaps naively, I had expected us to attract more attention from the 30,000 members of ARMLS. And, while we do have quite a few subscribers, the blog itself has been all but moribund.

It’s plausible to me that this is the result of our having focused on ARMLS and flexmls, despite the dearth of information emerging from them. For example, no one has written anything about the new AAR transaction management system.

But it’s also plausible to me that The Phoenix Real Estate Technology Exchange is a solution in search of a problem — that, as much as Realtors’ lives might depend on technology, they would rather focus their attention on other issues.

For my own part, I already have a much bigger rostrum from which to express myself. My own involvement with this weblog was to promote a better understanding of real estate technology among agents who don’t live and breathe technology.

What about you? We’re free to do what we want, but do we actually want to do anything at all? It’s perfectly okay with me if we don’t — my own bread will be buttered even if no one else’s is. But we have managed to accumulate an interesting group of people, and there is that lingering problem of the tech revolution in real estate.

If you want to proceed with this project: Proceed. We’re divorced from what seemed to be a potentially-fruitful alliance but may have turned out to be a conspiracy of silence.

So: What next?

Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, blogging, disintermediation, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate, real estate marketing, technology

In addition to guest speaker Keith T. Garner,  Managing Director at the Center for REALTOR® Technology, the symposium will feature four breakout sessions, one of which is dedicated to a live demonstration of FlexMLS by Sheila Strunk.  Sheila was on the selection committee for the new MLS system and has a significant amount of hands-on experience with FlexMLS.  She’ll give you a very good sense of the system’s capabilities, and you will be able to ask questions. 

Mark your calendar and consider attending the symposium, so you can see a live preview of FlexMLS.  Getting a jump on the possibilities of FlexMLS will make the transition just that much easier.

So, I reread the rules when I input my listing for 1322 East Vermont Ave. this morning. I want to give my clients as broad an opportunity as possible to sell their home. It became clear to me that our MLS isn’t afraid of Realtors giving information to Realtors. This being the case, I told buyers’ agents about the single property website. I reason that if I were the buyer’s agent I would give this information to my client, so she would have as much information as she could stand to make a better informed decision.

We talk in web sites — Bloodhound Realty does, particularly. We live in webbed-wide world. This is news to no one. The appropriate way to talk about houses is in web sites. Hurray for ARMLS! It doesn’t really “get it,” but it gets at least some of it.

Not so.

Comes today this email:

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Gregory Swann ABR CRS GRI,

Our new iCheck program identified the following Error. The Error and any related verbiage was removed on Thursday, March 6, 2008.

MLS#: 0000000 TEMPORARILY OFF MARKET/RES
Error: MLS Rule Error (000)
Description: Prohibited URL

No further action is required by you at this time.

Thank you for complying with the ARMLS Rules and Regulations.

I know, I know, you don’t have to tell me. I understand, I just don’t approve.

First, this is an artifact of the co-broke, the archaic practice of buyer’s representatives being paid by the listing agent. If commissions were divorced, all of the Top Secrets of the MLS system — every one of which is a violation of the buyer’s agent’s fiduciary duty to put the buyer’s interests ahead of all others (which most certainly includes the seller and the listing agent) — would be swept away like the dusty relics of the anti-capitalist era that they are.

Second, the specific purpose of forbidding web site URLs in listings is to impose an artificial chokepoint on the free market. Buyer’s agent’s seek to hold their own clients hostage in the transaction. In order to secure their own compensation, they will withhold the fact of the buyer’s existence and identity from the seller or the listing agent, at the same time that they are withholding information about the existence and identity of the seller or listing agent from their own buyers — toward whom they owe an unlimited fiduciary duty. I think this is an agency violation in se — a complete betrayal of the buyer’s true interests — and ARMLS makes itself a party to it by deliberately withholding material facts from buyers.

I don’t like lawyers and lawsuits, but I cannot imagine how the MLS system, nationwide, could be any more exposed to a massive class-action lawsuit. Buyer’s agency is a farce as long as these rules are in place. It is simply sub-agency in camouflage. The first attorney to figure that out is going to retire rich.

Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, blogging, disintermediation, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate, real estate marketing, technology

This I knew: Custom reports will not be ported over,  and will need to be re-created.

This was the “oh-no”:  FlexMLS does not have a Gateway equivalent web portal.

The good news: ARMLS has opened the third party vendor door, and I’m expecting some exciting announcements as agreements are crafted. (Thank you!)

The Challenge:  A replacement product for those of us who are Gateway users.  Clients who use it love it.  I’ve found it to be an especially great tool for sharing housing info with buyers who are geographically separated while house shopping.

Michael and Bob,  I’d love to be wrong here.  Readers, any recommendations for third part solutions?

So being a good ARMLS committee member I started explaining the situation to them and the benefits of the new system and I even explained that the transition would be a bit challenging.  I referred them to this site for threads and discussion on the matter.

Later as I was reflecting on the discussion and realized that I really didn’t give them that much to work with.  I think that we missing a nice project page (blog) that gives updates as to how the transition is progressing and a FAQ, what to expect type page.  I for one would like to know how I can prepare my website to work with the new system (if there is anything that I will have to do).

What do you think, do you have enough information or are you looking for more?

Strategy sessions often start with a top-down approach… define the mission, a set of core values, and then create an action plan that aligns.  In this two-day exercise, we started with actions, created objectives, and the mission statement emerged as a result.

What was most striking to me throughout the time the 35-40 of us spent together was the quantity and quality of experience and dedication in the room, and how few younger members were involved. Participants were ARMLS board members, ARMLS staff, REALTOR Association Executives, and forward-looking members of the real estate community.    Over the course of our time together, assumptions were made, dissected, and resolved as we questioned how ARMLS is to serve its subscribers base, and the consumer.  

I’ll leave it to Bob and his team to present the results of our significant efforts, but I will share that from a 10,000 foot level, the group was cohesive in the need for ARMLS to enhance the professionalism of its subscriber base, to provide superior data integrity, and to protect the personal privacy of all parties.  From the subscriber perspective, it was very clear that ARMLS must be nimble to move quickly with market changes and be aggressively in-tune to the ever-expanding technologies that consumers use and expect their professionals to utilize proficiently.

As the conference room staffed reminded us that our time was up, the facilitator worked feverishly to get us wrapped up, to put all the myriad of thoughts, actions, and objectives into a single mission statement…. definitely the most challenging exercise of our time together.    

A couple days later, I spoke with Bob about the challenge of pulling all of our thoughts together into a single mission statement.  Basically, he said that the words we put together in those two days were not the most important part of the exercise, that it will be the actions that ARMLS takes (as a result of the directions set) that make the difference at the end of the day.   Wise words from someone who gets it. 

Thanks for invite, Bob!

But let’s think about that, that’s a lot of work for one company to figure out and keep track off. And if they did provide all those nice services how would agents stand apart? That’s where those that are technical will program their own system and others will hire third party companies to do the work. That’s what we want, agents that are different and provide different services to clients that need different services.

So that leaves the question, what does MLS do? Exactly what they should do, provide the infrastructure of data storage and policy enforcement. When it comes down to it, I expect the MLS to have the data that I need to do my business (listings, history of sales, statistics).  Having those services available in a method that allows us to do all the exciting things I mentioned above.  I want the MLS to allow me to do just about anything I want (within in policy limits) in a timely manner.

A couple of years ago I became involved with Phoenix Real Estate, and I was disappointed with the technology that we used here, even ZipForms seemed to limiting to me.  Last year I decided to get involved and that’s when I met Bob Bemis and started learning about FlexMLS.  I’m more encouraged about the future than at any other time since my Phoenix Real Estate career began.  Bob has a great vision of the future of MLS in Arizona and cares about what the users think and how to improve.  FlexMLS is a forward thinking MLS provider lead by a man that wants to innovate the industry.  I think we have some great things to look forward to, but of course, that will require that we get involved in developing our future.

Some of us have taken the additional step of using the services of an IDX repackaging company that adds a couple of what I consider crucial features:

• Agent branding. Every listing that comes up on my site has my name and contact information (phone number and e-mail address) prominently displayed. The actual listing brokerage also is displayed, but at the bottom of the listing under the photo.
• Filtered searches. I’m able to create a number of different filtered searches; rather than the client entering their own search, I can create standing searches - particular cities, subdivisions, property types, etc.

This afternoon I discovered there are two criteria glaringly absent from the filter menu - Lender Owned homes and homes where Lender Approval is Required (read: short sales.)

I want the latter filter to help eliminate properties from the search, saving both me and my buyers hours of agony pursuing homes that likely can’t be sold. But I want the former filter so I can produce lists of REO properties in whatever city or area I happen to choose.

Unfortunately, it’s not currently possible. According to the folks with IDX, ARMLS currently is looking at adding this field to the IDX data that flows forth from the main database but it’s still in the discussion phase.

Moving the addition of this from the discussion phase to reality is one of the items I have on my wish list. The only objection I can see is from those who still want to protect the data in hopes of receiving a call from someone confused by a list price.

But that’s so 1978.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Gregory Swann ABR CRS GRI,

This notice is being sent to you as a reminder that listing 2808380 located at [street address redacted] is going to close escrow in the MLS system and reflect Sold status in 2 days.

If there has been no change in the status of the listing and all of the sale data is still correct, no action is required by you and your listing will close on your indicated closing date.

If the listing’s closing date, status, or any of the sales information is incorrect, please correct the listing before it goes into Sold status. If the listing should no longer be in Pending or AWC status, please change the listing to reflect the correct status.

We hope this reminder will provide you the opportunity to review your upcoming closing and make any necessary adjustments to the listing.

If you believe you received this courtesy notice in error, please notify ARMLS immediately by replying to this e-mail or calling the Compliance Department at the number provided below.

The instant reaction to such an obvious idea might be, “Well, duh!” But consider that ARMLS has been around forever, while the mail just started coming now. Obvious is easy. It’s follow through that takes effort. Truly, it’s a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately kind of world, but what Bob Bemis did for me today buys him a lot of credit in my bank.

Craig Frooninckx
Realtor, Technologist
CraigsArizona.com

In his own words:

For the past 15 years I’ve been involved with the design and development of very large database systems.  I was struck with the Real Estate bug at an early age helping my father with his real estate investments.  After moving to Phoenix, I became a Realtor after moving to Phoenix.  Last year I decided to contribute some of my knowledge and experience in technology and joined the ARMLS committee.  Now I spend a bulk of my time with my 8 month old daughter and building my Real Estate business.  From time to time, I’ll offer an opinion that will challenge the norm as I find ways to stretch in new areas.  I look forward to contributing to the Phoenix Real Estate Technology Exchange.

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Greg Kilwein’s quote is important. I’m convinced that MLSs need to reexamine their purpose, their definition, and their mission in the face of growing competition from all sides. We MLS operators won’t continue to serve our realty constituents if we just keep doing the same old thing – facilitating cooperation, hosting data, and doing our best to make sure the data is factual. MLSs that will thrive will be those who recognize that the MLS IS a marketing medium and can serve two audiences (agents and consumers) equally well if they put their minds to it. That means not only allowing but also offering innovative tools and techniques that convey what is “uncommon” about each listing.

The YouTube approach will give many MLSs heartburn. There is no way to control the content, and what many MLSs fear most is loss of control. I heard of one system operator who banned a particular virtual tour provider because the VT-Op had the audacity to allow agents to change the captions of the photos/videos without oversight of the tour vendor. H-O-R-R-O-R-S. And since the MLS’s screening bots couldn’t read the captions, they just banned the tool. So rather than give agents a new tool, with which to be innovative and different, they took away the tool because in the hands of a very small minority it might be “dangerous.”

We as an industry need to do better than that.

As an aside, I watched the video and immediately went to Google to see if there was any application for Auz-Bloc in Phoenix. We don’t have a snow problem, quite the opposite. It’s 115+ here in the summer. I don’t know how long Jeremy’s video and blog have highlighted this listing, but he managed to capture the top four spots on the first page of the Google search for “Auz Bloc Arizona.” The top spot includes the address of the house – Jeremy, your seller has to love you. But it also shows what reach these new marketing tools, new media, and new thinking can have.

Bob Bemis

Arizona Regional MLS

* Overlay a map to select or reject houses in very precise locations, which are not necessarily adjacent. For example: Exclude any home on a super-fund site, in a flood zone, in the Luke AFB fly-over zone; Include residences along the light rail path, or facing golf courses (whether or not the listing agent completed the listing correctly, as long as the GPS is correct), within walking distance to a particular school, etc.

* Once we’ve defined an overlay, let us copy it to other searches. Once the territory has been defined for one search we need to be able to use that same definition for searches that we create for other clients.

On the subject of maps… Can we also draw the map we want to include/exclude on our search with an arial-hybrid map as the guide? For example, if a client says she wants to consider all houses within a certain area, but excluding those on a major thoroughfare and also excluding any that are adjacent to commercial or multi-family buildings, you might use the arial view to get a good idea of properties that your buyer would find objectionable.

Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate, real estate marketing

Some of the FlexMLS highlights are:

• It’s extremely customizable for each user.  Both in what the system looks like to you and the details you choose to share with your clients
• Creates presentations and flyers with just a couple clicks
• Creates “real” (robust) CMAs, where you can input adjustments of any kind
• “Unlimited” photos, tours, and documents can be uploaded
• Team capabilities
• The mapping capabilities are truly useful and way beyond what we have seen

Did I say flexible… to me, the options to customize the capabilities of FlexMLS are truly mind-expanding,  yet I think an agent has the option to make the system as simple, or complex as they need.

There are going to be some challenges.  While Gateway prospects will be exported from Tempo and imported in to FlexMLS, all your custom reports will need to be re-created, and my understanding is that there be a flash cut from one system to other.  Pre-planning is going to be a must.  The good news is that the report creation process will be much, much easier.

It’s really hard to convey in print, just how much this new system has to offer.  Michael has created a video that give an overview of FlexMLS so you can see what’s coming.   Take a look and stay tuned!

Related reading.

We’re going to do some focus groups in January as part of a long range strategic planning exercise. The groups are people with a specific focus (luxury housing, or technology oriented agents) or in a similar sales demographic (large broker, small broker, top producers). I’d like one group to be web-centric social networking agents. I could use some help picking people who fall into that category. We have the usual suspects, besides you, like Jay and Russell Shaw. But if you have 15 or 20 similarly focused agents you could recommend, I would greatly appreciate the guidance.

I’m at a loss to people such a list. I think everyone I know is already here. If you’re interested, say so in a comment. But, beyond that, mention this post to colleagues who fit the profile and send them here, as well. They belong here, anyway, and it’s a chance for us to make ourselves heard at ARMLS, which can’t be a bad thing.

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