Ah the wonderful and controversial world of "relisting." In a BusinessWeek article by Peter Coy last January, he described how Everything Old is New Again:
"Everything Old Is New Again" isn’t just a song; it’s a real-estate sales strategy. When properties sit on the market too long and get stale, some agents yank them briefly, then put them back on the market. [Relisting] Depending on the jurisdiction, this gets them to pop up on the "hot sheets" of new listings that are seen by agents and, in some cases, by the buying public.
Relisting isn’t the only way to achieve a less-than-accurate days-on-market. [DOM] At least in the Phoenix area, with a little "creative" data entry, realtors have been able to fool the MLS- not any more. In an announcement this week from the Arizona Multiple Listing Service (ARMLS) it stated: [Hat tip M]
Days on market (CDOM and ADOM) continues to be the number one listing violation. Many Agents intentionally enter incorrect data to fool the days on market calculations so their listing will zero out the cumulative days on market. Some of these errors are unintentional, due to a typo; however, whether intentional or unintentional, a days on market violation can cost you a $200 fine per listing.
To help reduce the violations due to intentionally entering false data, the ARMLS Board of Directors has voted to introduce a days on market lockdown. This will occur on May 8, 2007. This means that all the fields used to calculate days on market will no longer be editable. What you enter when you add a new listing must be accurate as you cannot revise the address fields, lot number, map/grid codes or assessor’s number after you save the listing as active.
Kudos to ARMLS for working to keep the system honest.
Come on a 200.00 fine?? This is a commission with at least 7,000.00. We need to put the mls system in the hands of an un-biased 3rd party.
44password44-
As L always points out to me, the agents pretty much know which properties have been around awhile by seeing what is out there every day. [I certainly know what's been around in my area by virtue of watching.] The really active agents ignore DOM- they know how long properties have been around.
While it’s nice to have it appear that a listing is new, I don’t think most agents will figure it’s worth more than a $200 fine. The real deterrent here is the lockdown though, ARMLS is making it a lot tougher to cheat.
It’s not an answer to all the problems, but at least it’s a move in the right direction.
I have seen this happen in my neighborhood in Tucson. A house was on the market for over 7 months, then was de-listed and re-listed under a new Realtor in less than a week. The new Realtor even had the nerve to proudly hang a “New Listing!” sign below her for sale sign. Those of us who have seen this house sit empty for so long know better, but as for others I guess they have no way of knowing….
I’ve noticed “relisting” happening for quite a while up in Canada. I can only hope that the ARMLS tighetening of rules will get noticed up in Canada as well.
At first I was like, “That’s funny, this is a property that just went off market! I wonder why it’s being shown as ‘new’ now.” But it didn’t take long to figure out what was going on.
When you see that many realtors in your area are purposely trying to deceive you about a crucial detail about a property, how can you go on blindly trusting *anything* that comes out of their mouths anymore???
I guess that they tired of my complaints. And those of others.
Although, I would prefer the word “will,” rather than “can.”
“…a days on market violation can cost you a $200 fine per listing.”
Really, if someone gets caught doing this 3 or 4 times, their account should be terminated, or at least suspended for a year. The DOM re-sets are obviously not “due to a typo” if the same person pulls the same trick repeatedly.
Just found one:
2084 E Winged Foot DRIVE — Chandler
Notice the dashes added by the agent in the address field to reset DOM. Usually listings expire towards the end of a month and get relisted the following month possibly by new agent. So this is the time to look out for such violations. A slight dip in the inventory this week is due to a lot of expired listings.
Phxagent-
What’s the MLS# on that one? I only have “pseudo-MLS” access [usually Zip] and I can’t find it.
New MLS – 2757653
Old MLS – 2725888
2084 E Winged Foot DRIVE —- Chandler
The dashes represent “DR” that has been omitted. The addition of “DRIVE” to the street name is the one that has managed to confuse the system.
I found 2 more while I was grabbing the info for twist. Looks like listing agents are trying to beat the May 8th deadline.