My clients found Realtor.com, but not their house

By David Foster

As more and more home sellers and buyers get savvy to all the Internet avenues available to them in their real estate endeavors, it becomes imperative that we understand how our connection to one avenue, Realtor.com, works and what to expect from it.

Realtor.com is owned by the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) so it is not some third party company out there with your information. They have a relationship with the Columbus Board of REALTORS® (CBR) which provides them all Residential, Land/Farm, and Multi-Family listings that are Active, Contingent Finance or Inspection, Auction, and/or Contingent Escape. Your NAR dues and CBR embership guarantees you a basic listing on Realtor.com.

The MLS makes available to Realtor.com and IDX compliant participants only your Exclusive Right to Sell Residential, Land, and Multi- amily listings. Early next year there will be an ability, while adding/editing your listing, to opt not to send your listing to Realtor.com and/or IDX participants. Marketlinx is in the process of updating Tempo to handle this request.

Everyday the MLS sends the listing database to Realtor.com to be uploaded to their web site. They usually take 3 to 5 days to get the data ublished, though normally the listing will be out on the site within a day while the photo takes longer. Realtor.com has informed us that they are working on updating this process to speed it up. This means that any changes a REALTOR® makes to a listing today should be seen on Realtor.com the next day, as long as it is a field that Realtor.com provides for our listings. Photos are a different process unattached to the listing process.

One myth that has been circulating is that if a photo is not provided to Realtor.com within 3 days of the listing being added to Tempo, the isting will never get a photo. This is not correct, according to Realtor.com. They have told us that many listings are posted while waiting for the REALTOR® to provide a photo, which could take weeks.

Realtor.com has provided an email address that REALTORS® can use to submit a photo for a listing or replace an existing photo. The address is images@realtor.com. When submitting a photo to them, it is very important to provide your name, agent license number, that you are a member of the Columbus Board of REALTORS®, the MLS number of the listing and that the listing belongs to CBR's MLS. This makes things quicker as Realtor.com's staff will not have to figure out who and what photo was just emailed to them.

Another observation is that the Remarks on your Realtor.com listing are not the same as the ones on Tempo. This is correct. Realtor.com makes a remark based on the criteria you provide about your listing. So if you enter that the house has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a basement, instead of just putting this information out there, Realtor.com will make a remark from this information.

A final common observation is that some listings have only one photo and a basic description, while others have multiple photos and more colorful information. This has nothing to do with the MLS, or how the data is sent to Realtor.com. Realtor.com has paid accounts as well as the basic account you get with your membership. You will need to call 1-800-878-4166 to contact a sales representative to sign up for a paid account. Http://resource.realtor.com will provide information on the types of accounts and benefits available as well. Realtor.com will get the listing information and photos from the MLS, however the agent will be able to do photo uploading and data entering to better tweak their Realtor.com listing.

To recap, you do not have to get a photo to the MLS within 3 days of adding a listing to the MLS. You can email photos to images@realtor.com to replace existing photos or to provide an initial photo after a listing has been added. Finally, it is possible to sign up for an advanced package with Realtor.com for a fee.