U Valley MLS Listing Input Training
(Show Notes & Full Transcript)
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Episode Summary: MLS Listing Input Process
This session outlines the comprehensive steps for inputting a new residential listing into the U Valley MLS system. The training covers initial steps, such as navigating to 'Add a Residential Listing' and referencing the Residential Listing Input Form, noting that all fields marked 'R' are required.
- Data Sourcing: Instructions were provided for locating accurate tax data using CRS data tax autofill and referencing county-specific sites like Limestone County, AL, especially for model homes where builder data may be inconsistent. Using the county GIS (Geographical Information System) is recommended for verifying lot dimensions.
- Listing Status & Dates: The process defines statuses like Provisional (placeholder status when certain elements, like a front photo, are missing), Coming Soon (up to five days pre-market), and Active. Rules for advertising, sign placement, and contract expiration dates are essential.
- Compliance & Disclosures: Key compliance points include restricting Automated Valuation Models (AVM) and third-party comments, marking the brokerage as full-service, and limiting information in Agent Remarks (e.g., advising against access codes which belong in Showing Time).
- Square Footage Standards: Emphasis was placed on using professionally measured data (appraisal or professional measurer/Cubicassa), not relying on builder specifications. Guidance was given on calculating Gross Living Area (GLA) and properly classifying detached finished square footage (e.g., guest houses or spaces accessed through unfinished areas).
- Feature Details: Detailed input guidelines include defining architectural styles, distinguishing between one-and-a-half and two-story homes, and ensuring accuracy regarding utilities, parking (like side-entry attached garages), and heat sources (e.g., dual fuel systems). The use of the Madison City Schools redistricting tool for correct zoning was also highlighted.
- Post-Listing Management: Once active, the MLS provides various reports (activity, collaboration logs) and tools for editing listings, including making images private without deleting them, which is useful for updating photos after renovations or honoring client privacy requests.
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Yeah, I don't know. It's uh it always seems to be something. I don't know. Strange technology, right? All right. I got it recording, so I'm gonna jump in because we'll use this for kind of SOP stuff later, too. So, might as well um just dive in. So, I'm going to save the one I'm in now because I have one that I had to move up to an earlier uh launch date. So, okay. So, where where should I be on my computer? Okay. So, you're not going to have access to this yet. So, it's really just me showing you because the video training that the MLS has was it's not functional right now. It doesn't have access. So, I've put in the request for you to get access for the MLS. They're just not super fast at getting back on. So, you'll probably get an email with some requests for information. Um whether you get it today or Monday, I'm not sure. Okay. All right. So, I'm gonna share my screen so you can see it and then we'll just run through this. Okay. And I'm going to take notes. Yep. So, uh, Valley see this on my computer. I wish there was a way I could see this on my computer because it would be so much bigger. Yeah. And unfortunately, until you have access, I don't have an option for it. Okay, gotcha. All right. 104. Yep. Go ahead. So, we've got U Valley MLS here is our go-to for everything. home searches, listings, tax information, like so much is here and we'll go through more of that in the future, but for today we're today we're just going to focus on like listing input. So, there's kind of two main ways of doing listing input. They start at the same place and they can kind of diverge and it's really just a level of comfort as to which one you like to do. So, when we go in, we click on this listings button across this top and the first option is to add a residential listing. So we click on that. Here we are. So we can build this and this is the way I prefer to do it from scratch. So what we do is um this is a blank listing form and it's uh all these fields h we have a form in um our MLS documents that we can use. It's called the residential listing input form where we can collect all of these questions. So, it helps us to be able to go through and just put in everything we need to be able to put in for a listing. You know, size of the home, number of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, all that kind of stuff. So, in this case, I don't have everything back yet, but we will have enough to um to get it started, but it won't list until Sunday, and I'll have the photos back this afternoon. So, everything with an R is required. Wow. Okay. And then anything that's required, you'll have a box over on the right hand side, this little magnifying glass that if it's something that you that's just like a selectable option, then um you can just select it and it'll prefill. You don't have to memorize what all these little codes are. So in this case, we're listing a single family residence. Um our listing agreement is an exclusive right to sell. So we put that in. It's not exclusive agency, just exclusive right to sell. And it's going to want some information from that exclusive right to sell like the um coming soon date, the expiration date, all of that. So, it's good to have that pulled up when you're working on this. So, the address is 102. It's uh Parkland Bill trace. And it'll prefill a good bit. It's Madison And this one's 35756. This one is within the city limits. I do like to mark that uh particularly when it comes to Madison because that dictates the school district and that's really important for this. Oh, interesting. Okay. And you have people that want to be in unincorporated county because of the lower property taxes, right? So, what I clicked here was, and I'll go back to it, is this blue validate map. We want to make sure our pen is in the right place for the house. Um, and I do probably three or four times a week see a pen for the wrong location when I'm looking for homes. So, it is people still make mistakes on. Now, I happen to know where this house is because I sold it to them. So, I know this pen's in the right location. So, we just click apply so that it stays there. Now, Madison, the city of Madison straddles two counties. This home is in Limestone County. So, that's just something in mind. All right, for the lot, what I like to do is go to the tax function up here in that dark area again. Click on it and I go, sorry, go to CRS data tax autofill. CRS. Okay. And then in here, you have to put the county. And then if you just start um giving it the address, it'll generally figure out um which house you're looking for because it narrows it down to anything with that house number and you know start of that street number. So this is a specific house we're looking for now because this was a model home that they purchased. A lot of times the builders don't have right info in there for model homes and it gets kind of janky that way. So with Limestone, we have to go out to the county site and look up the actual house to make sure we get the actual info the way we need it. So where we would go to find that is we go back to tax. We're going to go back over here, but instead of going to one of those first two, we're going to go to this far right uh column, and we're going to pick limestone in this case. Okay. Tab. So, it brings this up. We're going to do a real property search. And it can get a little annoying with what they want. In this case, we're going to do the property address and see what we get. Should bring up what we want. So, here we are. This is the house. We're going to go to view details. And over here, we can scroll down and see what the county has for some of this information. Do you find that it's accurate? Typically is. This one in particular, I know, is a little tricky um because I was actually looking it up um yesterday. So, I'm really taking you through the process that I went through to to find this. So, we see here that um we're not seeing the the lot number. So, we actually have to go to like the deed and look at that. And that's like I haven't had to do this much research on a property in quite a while. So, oh, here we go. It's actually here we go. It's actually up towards the top. So, um the legal description isn't in here. I had to go to the deed to get the legal description. And that was just a Google search. How do I find Limestone County, Alabama deed? And then I used um the information from this to pull that up. What's the other county in lime in Madison? So Madison County Madison straddles both sides. Madison and Limestone are in Madison. Okay. Yes. Well, Madison City is in Limestone and Madison. Yep. Okay. Got it. We're going to go to put lot two. Now, when we go for the um lot size, what we can do is use the GIS. Um, and there is a uh website for that. I've got it saved and I'll share it for you. So, I have one for Limestone and I have one for Madison County. And so, again, it depends on which county it's in. Um, did you ever use the GIS when you were working in real estate before? Nope. Okay. So, forget it's an information system. It's like geographical information system is I believe what it stands for. So in this case, what I'm using it for is to see the lot. So over here on the left hand side, we have the property address. You can search by subdivision, parcel number, and sometimes you do need those, particularly if you're doing land. But um again, because it's county by county, it's probably just going to pull this up by giving it the first part of the address. Sure enough, there we are. Okay, cool. So what this is going to show us is what's the width of the lot and the length of the lot right now. Yep. This is based on the recorded data. It's pretty accurate. And for this I would use it. I would never use it in lie of a survey because I've seen where these property lines bisect a house in half. Then we get a survey and everything's fine with the lot. It was just a bad image from this. But as far as like the recorded length and width of the lot, I am absolutely fine using it. Okay. So, back over here with the lot size, we're going to do 90 by 140. And then I just do the math on what that comes out to as far as the acreage. So, um you know, the first thing you have to memorize when you get a license is how many square feet are in an acre because that helps you with everything. Yep. You got it. So, um, so that leaves us at like 0 29 if we round. So, I'll leave it there. Subdivision. This one's three-part preserve. And something you can do on this is you can actually have two instances of the MLS pulled up at the same time. So, like a split screen or you could print off a previous listing. So, in my case, I actually have two monitors. So, the monitor you're not seeing is um also has this listing up from when they bought it and so they can verify information against it. Now, a lot of these boxes change over time and a lot of times builders are held to different standards than us rank and file human beings. So, since they bought this from a builder, not all the information is there. So, like the lot number wasn't there, the acreage, the lot size, and that's why I've had to dig in more to find those things. So, I'm seeing here it shows lot, which is number two. I saw that. But where's block? So, the block isn't on there. That's one. I'll have to go and find the deed again from the county website and then pull that information. Okay, perfect. I might have already saved it. I know I was working on it the other day, but I've gotten so many client calls while I've been working on stuff that I may not have saved that one. Okay, which would be not a very smart move, but nonetheless, here we are. Yeah, I must have But there it is. Yep. So, that's all right. If I found it once, I can find it again. There you go. All right. We don't do anything with neighborhood or sub area. Uh entry date is going to be the date that it goes active or is coming soon. So, we can pre-market a house for five days before making it active, and that's called a coming soon status. Um, we can put a sign in the yard one day before and we can start advertising on social media up to one day before. Then, um, our expiration date, I need to look at my dot loop again. Look, they typically go out six months. Yeah. Uh, it just depends on the individual and everything else. I don't worry too much about it. Um, especially if I think I'm going to be able to sell it or if I think it's going to be tough and I don't want to deal with it forever, that too. So, I am a little mixed on how I handle those kind of case by case. So, this one's through August 31st. I'm skeptical of the asking price on this. Um, and I've told the the clients that they are in a situation where they want to sell, but they need to make a certain number for it to happen. I said, "Okay." I said, "This is my number. That's your number, you know, and um I'll list it where you want it, but I'm telling you upfront. I don't think that's what we're going to get." So, but they're past clients of mine. I want to help them out if I can. So, we're going to give it a go. They're not so far off as to be ridiculous. They're just pricing too closely to new construction in a neighborhood that has nice new builds and they are banking on the fact of it being a formal former model bringing more value than you think is there. Okay, so that first date I put in as the entry date is the date that it will be coming soon. I've marked it here that it'll be coming soon. I'm actually gonna have to change that to provisional and that's because I don't have a front image yet and it won't let me mark it as coming soon until I have a front image. Was that a picture? Okay. Yeah. So provisional is like a placeholder. You know, it's not ready yet, but we'll get All right. So, we're not selling it as is. We're going to price it at $72900. And then as far as our selling terms, we will accept conver conventional, FHA, VA or cash. I rarely use any of these other ones except for rural development because, you know, if it's um you can get an RD or USDA loan, we'll do that. Now, is is excuse me, under the FHA, isn't that over the loan limit for that for C that county? Not anymore. Like FHA and VA limits are sky high these days. Yeah. I I thought they were like it was like 650 or something. Okay. All right. Let's pull it up and see that four. Yeah. Limestone County is over a million now. Oh my goodness. That's crazy. Oh, actually that's for a forplex. Oh, that's a target. Oh my gosh. Now it's going to make me zoom through every single Why would you do that? Huh? What? Now, some people do use FHA with a larger down payment as well. So, but you're right, the loan limits are lower than I anticipated. So, okay, we'll leave it on there only because people can put a larger down payment. You're right. It's not going to be a 3.5. And they can also make a lower offer, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, you got it. So that's like a bad word. Okay, gotcha. Wait, here there's FHFA. I'm not even familiar. That's a farmer. Yeah, I was say that's got to be something else. Okay, got it. All right. All right. So then we would have our legal description here. I'm going to have to dig up that deed again. I'm not going to do that right this second, but I will get it. All right. Uh idx, that's what feeds out to all the broker websites. We want that. We do want it to syndicate. We do want it to appear on the internet, and we do want it on V uh display address. We do not want to allow an AVM, which is an automated valuation model, and we don't want third-party comments. Okay. All right. Service level. I put this even though it's not required. We're full service. We're not a transaction limited brokerage. I only do that because when somebody fills out the contract on the other side, they have to mark whether or not I'm full service or transaction limited. And if they get it wrong, then we have to redo the paperwork, which is kind of dumb. Takes out the work. I haven't seen another agent do this in ages. Like I'm like I'm constantly have to reach out and ask them which one they are. Seems lazy. Yep. So that's exactly what it is. So showing instructions, I always have it as um appointment only. Well, I say always. Um then I have showing time, which is the software we use to schedule the showings. And then I have a lockbox. So because in this case they'll have a key. So we'll save those. I'll draft the public remarks before this goes up on Sunday. But this is where those would go. Down here in agent remarks. So this is something you can only see on MLS. What I put in here are things like the listing brokerage doesn't hold earnest money. if there's anything specific that's conveying with the home or not conveying with the home that we want to make sure people are aware of. Any of those required disclosures like a health or safety issue or if an agent's, you know, part of the transaction or ownership of the home. Uh so just those things that wouldn't be publicly facing but do need to be known. I see like a dog on site or something along that line. Exactly. Um, one thing I never put in here, but I see it all the time are the access codes for houses or Yeah, those go in showing time and the showing instructions because anybody could print this off and hand it to their client. Sure. And I frequently do print them off and bring them with me on showings. And if there's not anything in there that shouldn't be shown to a client, I'll let them keep it. Obviously, I'm not gonna let them keep anything with a code on it, but that's just like sloppy to put a code in here. Yeah, I agree. That's that's Yeah, but that's like putting a That's like putting a for steel sign in the front yard, right? Exactly. Exactly. And so I put a um my friend's home who I'm listing um we are using a code for their house and I just put a note in here to check the showing instructions from showing time for the code. Okay, good idea. Yeah. So then of course we would put the owner's names in here. You can find that on that tax record we were looking at. Um down here and that's you know we want to put their legal names there. Um now won't won't all that God I can stuttering. Sorry. Won't all that information be on your listing agreement that you're going to forward to me 100%. Okay. Perfect. Gotcha. All right. So, ideally, what I would like is for us to find a way to have that prefill into like a format where literally you go down on one screen and on the form and they're line for line. Um, I think that's a, you know, that's a 2011 thing. Once we get through some other things we should do, that's kind of a little lower on the priority because you're right, every you will get a document that has all of this and I'll show you what that document looks like. Matter of fact, let me just go and pull it up. Um, Valley MLS forms the it's called the listing residential um listing input form and they always hide it somewhere weird and I can never remember right where to find it on my first shot. Um, so input forms and documents that would make sense. There we go. Um, so yes. So, um, so 2024 residential input. So, they just haven't changed the date on it. But this is what that form looks like. And um it's able, you know, you can click in it, type in it, all that. So, when you're doing this for me, you will have this form from me. And Okay, great. Yeah. So, all right. Back over where we were. Okay. Oh, did I I think I clicked off the You did for share. Yeah. There we go. All right. So, um, owner first name, last name. Same for any secondary owner, additional owners. I don't put their phone number in here. I don't even know why that's there. Um, this is owner occupied. Um, there are tenant answers and questions here. I do like uh to fill those out if we are going to have a tenant um in place because that lets any investors know that are searching for a property like hey there's you know tenant in place um also keeps people from asking quite as many questions um those that actually read the MLS not a foreclosure not a short sale they are considering concessions concessions would be buyer agent commission and or closing cost concessions We haven't predetermined them, but they would consider them with any offer. It's really kind of to me dumb to even have this question in there because we have to present every single offer legally. So, regardless of what you put in there, concession wise or not concession-wise, we still have to present the offer to the seller. And no matter what they told us previously, they get to make that decision when they get that offer. So, it's just kind of a weird situation for me. I do have a listing right now that's large acreage and it has two other tracks of land that can be purchased as well. So in that situation, I did click at yes and I do have those additional details here. All right, property. So we want to do the approximate age of the property. This is a range. So in this case, it's going to be 1 to five. And then I believe the tax year for that was 2023 when that home was built because I know that's when my clients close out. Uh yeah, we'd say 2023. Okay. So we're not doing So you've got that under tax year. Um yeah. Um yeah, tax year bill. You're right. Sorry. No worries. No, I'm glad you caught up. Um I'm here to watch you, man. Exactly right. So, um it was a test. No. Um we're not doing new construction, so we don't do construction status or any of that information. Uh we do want to make sure we have the school information right. This is one of the funny ones where when we put in the um information in the agent only notes, we're going to have to make a special note because this school is being redistricted for the um this neighborhood is being redistricted. So, I have a tool that you can use or Madison City Schools does, and I'll share this with you, too, that um you can type in any address and it'll tell you what uh school it's going to be zoned for next year. So, up until two weeks ago, it was showing you both school years. Now, it's only showing you next year, which is, you know, preferable at this part. Better. Yeah. That's a that's a handy tool right there. That's I like that a lot. It is. It is. Absolutely. I love it. Um, so it's going to be Russell Branch, which is the new elementary, Jouri Middle, and James Clemens High. And in Madison City, it's always important in Madison City. It's critically important. So, why am I doing that? There's a trillion schools on there. So, you just start typing and it'll prefill with the right one. Now, in some cases, like James Clemens is going to be a prime example. For some reason, I guess over the years, a bunch of agents were able to go in and type in James Clemens a bunch of times. So, when you're doing a search as a buyer's agent, you'll see there's like four or five James Clemens. Four of those five have an X next to them letting you know not to use that. Okay. So, there is an HOA for this. So, it's, you know, just I don't even know why they asked for the owner association name like it's they never asked for I'm still on the screen for the schools. Oh, okay. Cool. Thank you. I appreciate your Sorry. Um, so three-part preserve, they're going to want the website, the phone number, and the email address for the point of contact for that. So, you know, you just have to gather that information from the client. You remember you were asking, you had added that to things we wanted to collect. So, um, we definitely want to get that like you said, get the, uh, covenants and restrictions up front so that we're not chasing those later. So, um, gives you a good idea here of what we're, you know, looking for, transfer fees and all that, right? because remember like you your transfer fees were a lot higher 500 bucks than what we yeah we would have expected. So um so yeah so we'll get all that. Um, let's see. And on a side note with that, it's very interesting when you look at the um the closing docks. It didn't say that that $300 charge was coming from the HOA as an exit fee, but it did when I bought the house that the seller had to pay that. But when we sold it, it didn't show up on there. What they did was they added $300 um to the attorney's side for their fees. It did not show the HOA, which I thought was pretty interesting, actually. Gotcha. So, the next thing I do is I always look at Google Maps for the directions. I pick whatever just the closest major road is and then give directions from there. So in this case, County Line Road. So um and I just, you know, walk it back from Okay. County Line Road here. You're going to go from County Line Road. I'm not I don't care if you're going north or south. You're going to turn on to Hardman Road. go through the roundabout taking the uh second exit in the roundabout and then turning on to uh Parkland Hill Trace and then second house on the right. Okay. So, yeah. So, I just mapped that out, explained that out here in the directions. You don't get a ton of characters. So sometimes if it's out in the boonies, you've really got to get creative with how your short hand is, you know, R 72, you know, R Baker Street or whatever, right? Turn up the dead tree. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. So square footage, um, we measure the house, right? In this case, I have the, um, photographer measuring the house. I don't have the 100% accurate. That's okay. So long as I'm saving it as a partial. If I were saving it as coming soon, then I would have to have an address or a number. Now, let's say he didn't get me everything back till Monday and I'm doing coming soon this Sunday. I'd put in the previous uh square footage and then just adjust it before we go active. Right. Yeah, I'm willing to get my hand slapped on that one, but we always have to have proof of what our square where we got our square footage from. It can be Let me ask you this. In this case, this was a previous builder's um uh model home or spec. So, would you feel more comfortable going with a photographers's measurement or the builder's? So, we can't use the builder. Only the builder is allowed to use plan in specs. Oh, okay. So, even, you know, doesn't matter when you bought it, afterwards, you can't use it. Our options are professionally measured, either a certified measurer or an appraiser. So, if a client has a previous appraisal, great. We'll go off of that. Um, our next option is um, you know, a professional measurer, which is, you know, when we use like a photographer or somebody like that. And our third is Cubicassa. So QBOSA is just an app and it basically opens the camera on your phone. You walk around the edges of the rooms uh all throughout the house. It sends that video off to a third party service that somehow or another measures from that. They claim to be 95% accurate. If that comes in lower than what my clients purchase the home at, I usually get a second measurement. I will use whatever is highest because the MLS will only ever get that document. They don't get anything else from me that has a measurement on it. So, okay. Interesting. Okay. I'll go. And we have This is all a result of 2020 2021. I mean, these jerks were making houses a thousand square feet higher than they were 500 feet. It was ridiculous. And so you would have these buyers go in and you know they think they're getting a certain price per square foot and they're not and it really became a massive issue. So then that that would be a massive issue especially being charged by the square foot. Oh and so many people were waving their appraisal you know and all that and it was just it was absolute nightmare. So that is is basically generated on your phone. Yeah. Um, who, excuse me, is that an actual company that we participate with? The MLS does. So, Okay. You can um and then and I'll show you actually what that looks like. Here we go. Um, so this is one for the listing I was putting in just a few minutes ago. Oh, very interesting. Yeah. So, I can't zoom in on this screen. Um, and I don't know if I can actually show you the I'm zooming in and I can see this the footed dimensions. And that's very nice. Yep. So, you can get this with um the full dimensions. You can get it with just room dimensions. You can um because let's say you do have a survey and it or not a survey, excuse me, um an appraisal appraisal and it's 100 square foot higher. Well, you don't want conflicting numbers, especially one showing lower. So, in that case, you would not have them give you the GLA, the gross living area. You would just want the dimensions on the rooms. And then the form you upload for the MLS for where your square footage came from would be that first page of that appraisal. Okay? So, and you don't you can upload forms to the MLS and you can make them public or private. So, a floor plan like this I'm sending you I sent you I sent you uh a request for to be invited into your forms because I don't it doesn't it didn't come for free on mine so I sent you a request for forms and so I was waiting for you to request I think that came from your personal account really yeah I think that's probably why okay So, um, in any event, this, you know, we would just request from QBasa just the, um, the floor plan without the gross living area. Um, and they have some other products too that you can get through them, but this is kind of the base level. So, if we click on like GLA, right, this is going to show us like the room dimensions and everything else. Um, excuse me. It's going to show us the layouts. I apologize. So, and then you can see up here if I wanted to spend $11.25, I could get additional information. So, but you know, I already have the 2D product, which is all I need. Okay. Um, you know, so you can get 3D products like all kinds of stuff. You can get kind of the more Matapport like floor plan. You can get 3D video. So, these are all things you can upgrade to um and and order at the time and and typically you would do that on a more um expensive home. Is that correct? Yeah. Right. Exactly. So, what I tell everybody is is what do we need to tell the story of that home? You know, if there's acorage and stuff, then we need or you know, big lot or really cool outdoor features, then I think drone video is the way to go. In addition to drone shots, um we may want interior video particularly of a drop dead gorgeous house or a large house or something like that, right? So we have these, you know, various things that we can do and nowadays you can animate still images. So there there's so much you can do and it really comes down to like kind of market demand. What do people want to see? And then what's going to help sell that house the most? And like in a situation like this where I think the seller is probably a bit overpriced and they're in a pitch where they can't do too much, I'm not going to go and spend a ton of money when I've already given them that information. And just like with you, these are past clients of mine. I'm only charging them 1%. So again, like I can't go spend a ton of money on marketing. Like I'm going to pay for professional photos, the drones that we need, and that's it. And you know, if they want additional marketing, well, we're going to have to price the home appropriately. And um I don't know if they're really willing to do that. So we'll find out. Okay. So, all right. So, we've got our square footage that we would put in and then our source. The last source that we can use is realtor measured. I do not like using realtor measured. I wouldn't either because it puts you at risk. And I know we're a buyer beware state. We can say, you know, measurements, but I just think that's too much risk. I agree. What's the square footage for each level of the home, finished and unfinished? And then you can do garages, third spaces, um detached workshops. Something they recently added is detached finished square footage. And this is um this is probably one of my biggest bones of contention when I get there. like a casita. I'm sorry. Like a casita. Well, yeah. So, there's a lot of different ways it could be done, but like um I'll give you a prime example. If you have to pass through any unfinished space or outdoor space to get to another finished space. Yes. Then that is detached finished square footage. Yeah. Yeah. Like a guest house. Yeah. Or even like I showed a house the other day said it had 4200 square feet of finish space and it was like 21 over 21. Well, part of that 21 on the first floor, you had to cross um the stairs to the basement to get to it and it was a finished bonus room above the basement. Great. It was just like everything else, a normal height ceiling, regular floors, floors, walls, HVAC, all that. But when you crossed over, you literally just walked over wooden stairs and an unfinished staircase going down to the basement. And interesting. So technically that would not count as finished square footage. It would be detached finished square footage. Now I'm not going to raise a stink about it because quite frankly I think in that case they're probably doing the right thing by their client and I don't think anybody would be upset by the three feet between two doors. But, you know, technically they're wrong. And that's an area like when I list, I would rather not get the listing than to do something technically inaccurate. Absolutely. So, but but I'm not going to go raise a stink in this case. I warned my clients about it and said, "Hey, just so you know, technically if you if I if you own this home and you called me two years now and said, Cameron, come list it. I'm going to tell you to finish off this three-foot space and put a door going down to the garage so that we can call this finished. Oh, that's really interesting. Go ahead. Good information. Yeah, you're talking maybe three, four, $500 to, you know, make it actual finished and that house has been on the market for over six months. And I'm not saying that's the reason why, but it may be one of H. So then room total, there is nothing in the documentation in our market that says what is a room. And so it's like it's doesn't it have to have a door to be considered a room? Yeah. You Yeah. But there's literally nothing in the documentation. So I see like people will say, "Well, a bathroom's not a room." You're talking about rooms that people spend time in, right? Like that that have a useful thing other than a bathroom or a laundry. But then if it's a larger utility room instead of just a laundry room, well that may be considered a room. So what I typically consider are things like dining room, living room, office, kitchen. Um but I don't I wouldn't count like a separate breakfast nook. Um right. Right. I agree. Yeah. Then all the bedrooms, bonus rooms, media rooms, things like that. But I don't typically put in an office. I don't typically put in bathrooms. And then the only time I put in like a breakfast nook or something like that is if in my measurements like it's completely separate from the kitchen because then I do need it to even just put in those measurements within the the MLS. Justify that. Okay. Gotcha. Because when I put a room in, it's going to require the dimensions of the room, the level the room is on, and uh and at least one descriptor of the room like the type of flooring or something like that. So, it wants to know how many total rooms, how many total bedrooms, how many bedrooms are on level one, how many bedrooms are on level two, and then if any other levels, how many baths, how many of those are full, then, you know, 3/4 and a half. Um, I think it's a good idea to mark if you have a warp pool or separate shower or garden tub because people do search by those terms sometimes. Um, and then down here it prefills with three of the most common rooms that almost every house has, but you can change those. And, um, of course it wants the dimensions like I mentioned earlier. And you don't get to do like 12 by 11.2. It's 12 by 11. Um, if um, and I just kind of use typical math, you know, if it's 12 and a half, I round up. If it's less than I round down. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. And then room level. Again, it's it'll require that once you start putting in dimensions and then again a description. So over here on this click um this search bar again. This is where you can find carpet, chair rail, ceiling fans, recess, all of that. So pretty much anything you'd ever want to put in a room is on there. Nice. Um, so as you go down, once you get past those first three, you just start entering your own, you know, whichever the secondary bedrooms, the secondary bathrooms, all of that kind of stuff. Um, because while I don't put the um, the secondary bathrooms and all that, the glamour bath or whatever in the room count, I can put them in these subsequent rooms. And so I want to put on so people What does the AQ room stay stand for? What's the AQ? Go back down. Go back. Go back down. Right there. AQ room. No, right above it. See it says AQ-room. Um, yeah. There we go. Interesting. I don't know. Huh. What? Now, I wonder what that is. Huh. All of these have some kind of a. So I'm guessing that's just a code that goes with the number. Oh, okay. Yeah, because if I go all the way up, right? So the first one's a a ab a c. So that's just some kind of code to let them know that it's what that second letter corresponds to what number in the alphabet it is. Oh, okay. Gotcha. So nothing fancy there. Yeah, nothing fancy. But I never paid attention. like I didn't even know what you were asking me about. So that was a good catch. All right. So here, as you add features, they will fill in in this all features box. I don't sweat that too much. You know, when I go back and I proofread through it, as long as everything's right in those other boxes, it'll be right here. Architectural style. This is your ranch. Man, time me out. Which is weird. Okay. Let's go back. That was gonna be a lot of work to do over again because I had not saved. Oh. Oh, that's okay. Most of it was already I still needed to go back and do a ton of it. So, um, that's all right. Well, I would love to be able to say, well, I'll take care of it for you. I appreciate that. So, and honestly, like we were almost done with everything anyway, so we were getting down to the very bottom. See, maybe it saved something. Oh, okay. Ah, it did. Oh, it did not. Nice. Well, that's all right. Well, we will survive. So, let's go back to sharing. Okay. All right. So, Okay. Okay. So, while you scroll down that you so you want me to add to our task list, uh, HOA contact information, get the co, you know, for and covenants check, transfer fee check, and that kind of thing, right? Absolutely. I want to say it's Hughes Properties now has all of their neighborhoods listed on one page and you can just download the CCRs from there. Oh, that'll be nice. So, that makes life easy. not, you know, they're not the only ones that manage, unfortunately, but they are, you know, it is extremely helpful they have that. Um, all right. So, all right. So, again, our uh architectural styles are, you know, ranch, one and a half story, two story, basement ranch, all that kind of stuff. One and a half story is let's say there's a um four story master and then there's something upstairs one bedroom one bathroom. It for me like it comes down to how much of the house is upstairs and how much is downstairs. So um if there's four bedrooms upstairs that's a two-story home. But if there's one bedroom and one bonus room but there's three bedrooms downstairs that's one and a half story. Yeah, I agree. So, yeah. Um, as well as a loft. If you can look, if you can see down from a catwalk or an open railing, that's a one and a half. Agreed. Agreed. Especially if it's like a big area. Yeah. Yeah. Um, next one is the construction features. Full brick, half brick, all that. One thing I'm really a stickler for because it drives me insane is like Masonite versus vinyl sighting, right? Like if it's Masonite, mark it as such. Um substructure is just going to be your basement crawl space slab. And then as you well know like appliances, city water, you know, and then the service like public versus private sewer, you know, public water versus well, um, septic, things like that. Um, I'm going to add that to our task list, too. I agree. Um, and I think we should get utility bills just like you shared with me. If there's something worth bragging about, then we have them and we can make a package that we can leave in the listing so that people can see those. Okay. Um, so parking is carport, driveway, street parking, garage. With garage, I like to be as detailed as possible. Um, if it's like a side entry, attached three car garage, I'm going to mark all of those. Um, because you never know what somebody might search for. The only thing I don't enter is front entry because I don't know of anybody that searches by that. And um and I think that can be a turn off for an otherwise home somebody would have bought. So I just leave that out. If they're scrolling through pictures, they see my listing, they see it's a front entry, they don't like it, they can keep scrolling. So, but that's the only one I don't mark specifically. Um exterior is, you know, all those outuildings, fences, things like that. Actually, I don't have fences in here, but all the out building, storm shelter, outdoor kitchen, fire pit, things like that. Um, so what would you consider? Where would a um like a tornado shelter? Are you going to consider that an outdoor finished if it's above ground? No. So, it would be just in that box right there. And then I would put it either in the listing description or the agent notes. There are, you know, there are people that have them buried out in their backyard. Yeah. People that have the standup box or round ones in their, you know, say their um garage or safe room and then they're the ones that are underneath the um garage slab. So you kind of have three or four options there. So just depending on what it is, but I wouldn't include it in finish space. Okay. So, all right. Um, you know, porch and patio. This is another one I see a lot of people mix up. So, um, you know, front porches are nice. Uh, covered porches on the back, covered patio on the back, screened in porches, decks, you know, we want to put whatever we have, we want to brag about it. Yep. Sure. Um, heat, value. Heat's a funny one. A lot of people have no idea if they have natural gas heat or not because a lot of times there's dual fuel where you have electric heat until a certain temperature and then natural gas will kick in. So if they don't know, I don't want to misrepresent it. So I just put central one and then I don't mark the gas, but most people know, but every now and then they don't. And I'm like, okay, if I'm I'm not going in your attic. So, so like here, like I'm always going to put central, right? Because we hardly ever have baseboard or wall mounted or anything like that. If we did, that's what I would put. But if it's a ga if I know it's a gas heat, I'm going to put gas here, like natural gas or propane, whatever it is. If I know if I don't know, then I'm just doing or it's, you know, electric, I would mark it. But if I don't know, I just do central one or central two based on how many units they have. Okay? And then, of course, air conditioning is always going to be electric. So, it's just a matter of how many units do they have. I'm with you, man. Our neighbor's dog barked for four and a half hours straight. Oh gosh. Starting at midnight, I have yesterday. I did uh video tours for two sets of clients and then went out and showed houses for five or six hours with another set. Wow. The day before I spent four hours with one set in the morning and then five hours with another guy in the afternoon. I've probably looked at 30 plus houses in two days. See, this is why you know listings will be so much better. Yeah. Down the road. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I It's um I really don't really enjoy listing. So really, um, but what I need is a showing agent. And so like I have Elena out showing houses today. Um, very nice. Buyers and that's actually how she and I came together at first. She's a phenomenal showing agent. She gives you email a mile long with every thought they had. And she has been 100% right in predicting which house people buy. Oh, nice. including one where the builder took it back from us because it was a model home and the the owner of the construction company decided he wanted to buy it. And then when I reached out of town, I came back and I knew the listing agent pretty well. I said, "Jeremy, are you really not going to sell my client set?" He goes, "Let me call Charlie." So he called the owner and the owner said, "Yeah, I mean, if they really want it, we'll sell it to them." But I mean, like it was the first time in my life I've ever had to buy a new construction home. Yeah. Yeah. That is interesting. Yeah. But again, fireplace here, I do like to put if it's wood burning or gas, right? Um because as you well know, um it makes a difference. That does make a difference. And there are people that search by wood burning or gas fireplace. Uh fence option, it is important to be accurate on that. you know what type of fits we have and then the rest of this like you know I you can figure out like clicking on all these right yeah what we have the last one I'm going to kind of point out here is the documents we want to mark like what documents that we're putting in the documents folder on the side of the listing so like if we have like you know a site plan a survey whatever right we want to put that over there. Okay. Um, and then I don't do virtual media links. I'm not saying I never would. So, what you can't do is a branded tour. I can't be in the tour. I can't be talking over it. Can't have my logo on it. Like, it's just got to be like a very sterile video tour of the house. Now, these um photographers will do that and they will create like a standalone website and that's what you would link to for that. Oh, okay. So, I think that's kind of a jerk move, but nobody asked my opinion on it. And of course, we don't do auctions, so you know. And then a big deal out here actually. Yeah, it is. Um, and then once you sell it, you go in and put the buyer agent info and all that. So that may be actually further up here, but um, so yeah, that's what we what we've got. Well, cool. I mean, there's so many um there's so many benefits to how I'm tell, you know, well, you know, 40 years ago, obviously bread was like 30 cents. Um there's so many more options that you can just click on and add things to it like the fence instead of just being fenced is what is it? Is it a private fence? Is it you know pick it whatever it is you know so I think this is all and check you know clicking onto the schools that's that's phenomenally helpful. I I just I think all this stuff is great. I really do. I like it's it is it's super useful. It's really easy to do. Um, and it's so self-explanatory. Like they're like, "Oh, you have to train people to do this." But I mean, honestly, like if I if you had a login and you clicked on listing, you would have figured 99% of that out, right? Follow the yellow brick road. Exactly. Do anything with an R on it. Click the other ones to see if it's relevant. And over on the lefth hand side, one thing I didn't mention, this is where you would add pictures. Um, this is where you would add those other documents, floor plans, and if you were going to have an open house, this is where you would update that if you have an active listing. So, let's go over. So, we've kind of done that. So, let's go over to like an active listing and um, no reason to save it now since it didn't save earlier. So, over here's our active listing. So, like this Sunday I have an open house on 146 Manor House Drive. So, when I go in and update this, I'm going to do over on the side because it's an active listing now, I have a lot more options over here. So, I can view activity reports, access logs, um who's been sharing it as a collaboration, you know, um list track reports, those can all be viewed from here. So, it gives me an idea of how the marketing is going for it, but also I'm not seeing that actually. Oh, sorry. Um, okay. Well, it says I'm sharing. So, oh, it's over on the left hand side of the screen. All I'm seeing is on the left is associate contact and then to the right. So, I don't know if maybe the camera just not moved over enough to the left. So, we'll try it again and see if it Okay. Oh, there we go. Okay. Yeah, I guess it just had some kind of weird um hang up. But yeah, over here. So, when we were looking at it at the listing stage, we only had those first five or six minus the maintain listing. Um now, we have all these reports that we can see. Nice. There are other ways to access these reports, but they're for all of our listings. So, this is specific to that one, right? So, it makes it easier. Um, so pretty nice be able to do all that over here on the lefth hand side. And this is where like if I went coming soon and found out that the square footage was different, I could come in here and edit it, right? If I wanted to put a new description or um when we do coming soon, the MLS automatically adds coming soon to the property description, the public one. So when you flip to active that morning, you've got to remember to log in and take out that coming soon. Oh yeah. And I see you can add pictures or edit pictures and just a whole bunch of information. That's awesome. I like it. So when you do ed edit pictures, this is something I should point out. You can change which one's your primary image, which I do frequently write if a house has been on the market for a little bit because scrolling through zero to see Zillow to see it from a different angle. um you're the MLS does not allow us to delete images although it is physically possible. So you know so you have to be careful with that. The rule is that we can't delete them but what you can do is block them from the public view. So like up here like if I wanted to get rid of this garage image I would just check it and I would click this mark private. And this is helpful for if somebody moves into a house and they call you a year later, a week later, like, "Hey, take down my photos." They're always super aggressive about it, like like you wouldn't do it. And um so then you you can go back in, mark them as private, and that's all you got to do. So let's just say that the kitchen looked like crap before and they came in and the picture is what it is, but they came in and added new countertops and new cabinets. You could move, you could change that to edit and then private and add a new picture. Absolutely. You can always add pictures. Like it. Y I like it. And I think part of the reason the MLS does this is just like to hold people's feet to the fire that they didn't show like, you know, a million-dollar kitchen on a double wide, you know, and then change it afterwards. I like it. Yeah. So, you know how people I I do, unfortunately. I do. So, um but that's really it. That's uh that's in a nutshell. That's how to do it. And then when you go to save um a a listing, if you've done anything wrong, you will get a litany of error reports when you go to save it and there'll be a little check box and you have to go in and fix whatever it is and then check mark it. The thing is it is re it's really smart. I've yet to have it do it where I'm like, "Oh, that's not right." I've been It is caught me in a mistake every single time. Okay. That's good though. Really good job. It does a very I like it. And sometimes it gives you like kind of like a yellow warning. Like if you list a house over a million dollars, it reminds you that it's over a million. And the reason is down here where we put the price, it would be too many zeros. have missed that right side and put it all in over on the left and think that's like your sense, right? So, there's some little yellow areas like that that it'll mark to and be like, "Ah, I'll let you do this, but make sure you got it right." And that's good. A caution thing is just, you know, yield if you go. I just absolutely absolutely perfect way to describe it. So, yeah. Okay. So, when we're done with this, if you want to stop the video and then I just I wanted to tell you a couple things but offscreen. For sure. Let me figure out how to stop this recording. Um, okay. Stop recording.