8-Hour Continuing Education… Be the Second Opinion and Gain a Second Revenue Stream.

BPOs: The Agent’s Role in the Valuation Process, you will gain the knowledge and skills to evaluate a property and learn to efficiently generate accurate and professional reports.

Paragon Enhancements:

Upgraded Bing Mapping Controls:

• Road, Aerial and Bird’s Eye (360 degree view) with Automatic controls.
• New Directional and Zoom controls easier for Tablets and mobile devices.
• Count on the Fly with Full Detail Reports.
• New Dock Menu Toolbar with Parcel Layers and Points of Interest.

Buyer Tour and CMA

Property Report and Flyer

Cloud CMA can provide great-looking reports in a matter of a few minutes just by sending an email, even from your smartphone!

Options are available to display the graphs in Color or Black and White, in 2D or 3D style. They can also be exported out of Paragon as one of the following file formats: BMP, GIF, JPEG, PDF, PNG

To access the Statistical Reports in Paragon, click on RESOURCES, then click Statistical Reporting.

“Many of the Nation’s MLSs have the need to provide localized services on top of a larger data set. The days of having a different MLS every 15 miles are over. The costs of operating small MLSs are too much of a financial burden to local agents and brokers. The largest and most successful regional data sharing initiative is CARETS in the Los Angles area. All of the regions’ MLSs put listings into a central data repository that is then synchronized into the various regional MLS systems of Los Angles. This allows participant (brokers) and subscribers (agents) to avoid joining multiple MLSs, and avoid duplicate listing entry, management, and reporting. It cures a problem called overlapping market disorder. This is accomplished while preserving the local MLS and local service off…

Click Here to Keep Reading

By INMAN NEWS

Two multiple listing services in Michigan and Pennsylvania that federal regulators had accused of anti-competitive practices have also become entangled in civil lawsuits seeking millions of dollars in damages on behalf of consumers.

Pittsburgh-based West Penn Multi-List Inc. has agreed to pay $2.38 million to settle allegations that its member brokers conspired to pass rules aimed at restricting competition from nontraditional and discount brokerages.

The MLS’s actions allegedly resulted in consumers paying inflated commissions in its 15-county service area.

West Penn denied the allegations, made in a lawsuit filed last year — not long after the MLS had settled a similar complaint by the Federal Trade Commission.

In both instances, attorneys for West Penn and its member brokers denied discriminating against discount brokerages, but said settling the cases was preferable to the uncertainty, costs and delay of further litigation

Click Here to Continue Reading….

The economic philosophy of the United States of America is based squarely on its faith in free competition. Our legal system not only recognizes that an open and competitive marketplace is in the best interests of the American consumer, but takes great care to foster full, free, and robust competition.

In a healthy marketplace… Multiple businesses actively compete against one another as they sell their particular brand of product or service to consumers. If only one business services a marketplace, it can easily take advantage of consumers by dictating lower quality services, at less favorable terms. Unfortunately under these circumstances, there are no competing businesses to which the unhappy consumer can take his or her business. Competition keeps businesses consumer-focused on offering the best services possible.

In a healthy marketplace… Multiple businesses eagerly endeavor to prove to their consumers how responsive and efficient they can be in delivering cost-conscious products and services. If they fail to do so, the consumer can immediately turn to a competing business that offers to sell the same product or service at a better price. Competition keeps businesses consumer-focused on offering the best prices possible.

For years, active real estate professionals in the Metropolitan Detroit area have vigorously debated whether or not to establish a single, regionalized Multiple Listing Service in lieu of multiple competing Multiple Listing Services. The need for lower costs and increased efficiencies have certainly influenced the discussion. Economic challenges fostered, in part, by the subprime mortgage problem and resulting foreclosures have sharpened the debate.

Historically, it was thought that the larger the business, the more resources it had to provide better products and services, and to do so at lower prices. Unfortunately, history is also filled with numerous examples of some businesses becoming so large that their initial philosophy of doing what is in the “best interests of the consumer” morphed into an ongoing philosophy of doing what is in the “best interests of the corporation.” When this occurs, it tends to be less an indictment of business in general, and more a problem with flawed human decision-making.

We Realtors® understand the value of healthy competition as well as any respected industry or profession. During the 1990s, the National Association of Realtors® adopted its policy establishing “Board of Choice.” The concept currently allows Realtors® to choose the board or association to which they want to belong on the basis of the factors they decide are most important rather than being limited by office location or jurisdictional boundaries. The resulting friendly competition between independently-operated local boards and associations has been beneficial for its consumers–the real estate brokers and their affiliated salespersons.

The acceptance and success of this policy begs the question: If “Board of Choice” can work so well for the consumer of real estate association services, then should not a philosophy of “MLS of Choice” work equally well for the consumer of MLS services? MiRealSource says, Categorically, Yes! If the compression of market power into a single business entity is an outdated and outmoded business model, then what should replace it?

The Internet and other technological advances have ushered in new, and more flexible business opportunities that foster competition while preserving economies of scale. According to MiRealSource CEO Dave DeRees, A visionary group of Multiple Listing Services have launched a central database or repository into which a potentially unlimited number of Multiple Listing Services can contribute their valuable data while maintaining independence and local viability. This ‘single point of sale’ concept protects competition in the marketplace, provides a common database, and–most importantly–eliminates the need for brokers to pay multiple fees to simultaneously participate in more than one Multiple Listing Service. This progressive resource is known as the Great Lakes Repository.

As consumers of real estate services, buyers and sellers have long benefitted from healthy competition between local real estate brokers. As consumers of MLS-based services, these same brokers have benefitted by obtaining these services from the local MLS of their choice. The Great Lakes Repository preserves this opportunity while providing an even larger economy of scale. Simply stated, if one MLS provides better services at a better price, a broker has the ability to exercise his or her choice as a consumer without having to sacrifice availability to data.

The Multiple Listing Services that participate in the Great Lakes Repository have created the perfect solution for today’s cost-conscious broker who desires global access to information at a single point of sale and price. Most brokers prefer having their key services provided by local enterprises that understand the marketplace best and delivered by talented staff members who they personally know. That friendly smile of someone you know and trust can often accomplish twice what a faceless voice or email can from across the state or country. The Great Lakes Repository is the critical resource that preserves the broker’s ability to obtain high-touch, local services in a high-tech, global world.

This concept was beautifully forecast in the landmark book, Global Paradox by John Naisbitt. He accurately predicted in 1994 that the bigger the world economy would grow, the more powerful its smallest players would become. Exponential developments in telecommunications simultaneously create a huge global communication interface while multiplying and empowering its individual parts. In similar fashion, the Great Lakes Repository empowers its individual participating Multiple Listing Services by leveraging cutting-edge technologies.

The best news is that the Great Lakes Repository is not the fanciful imagination of a visionary, but rather, a reality currently available to any and all MLS-based services in Michigan. The repository protects each individual MLS by empowering them to operate as separate, independent, and economically viable entities. No one is asked to surrender local power, control, influence, or services. Each participating broker continues his or her valued relationship with the local MLS of choice with one major added benefit: Global access to data without having to pay multiple fees.

What a perfect solution to meet the needs of today’s professional Realtor®. What a perfect answer to an age-old question: One MLS or One Database?

The debate is over and the choice is clear. Every broker wins when every Multiple Listing Service participates in the Great Lakes Repository.

 Administrative Assistants and Secretaries must have their own account, as well as the agent. Brokers will have an additional function in their Preferences for assigning Assumed Identity for themselves.  Assumed Users are logged as the “original user” in the system audit.  This means that user is tracked as the “user they log into” and not the “Allowed Identity”.

Click Here to Fill Out the Team Requst Form!

]]> http://www.mirealsource.com/799/feed/ 0 http://www.mirealsource.com/photo-labels-and-description-now-available/ http://www.mirealsource.com/photo-labels-and-description-now-available/#comments Thu, 18 Aug 2011 02:15:05 +0000 MiRealSource http://www.mirealsource.com/?p=756 Read More]]> You can add Labels and Descriptions to photos from Picture Administration in Paragon 5 only.

1. Click on Listing Maintenance
2. Click the Number of Photos
3. Click the Photo Label option, and type your caption and your description below.

 ***You are prohibited from entering any personal or contact information
in both the Photo Label and Photo Description fields.***

Photo Gallery View

Labels are will be available on all photo enabled reports and the Photo Gallery view.  Descriptions will only be seen on Gallery view.   Labels have a maximum of 25 characters and Descriptions have a maximum of 255 characters.

***You are prohibited from entering any personal or contact information
in both the Photo label or Photo Description fields.***