ENTRY ONLY NEW ENGLAND

Massachusetts Flat Fee MLS Entry Only Listings

Trulia Ensures Accuracy of Massachusetts MLS Listing Data

Since 2011, Trulia has made strides to increase the accuracy of MLS listing data on the web. It was at that time that Trulia launched Trulia Direct Reference, a system that allows MLSs, brokers and agents to identify discrepancies between real estate listings from MLSs and listings on third-party syndication sites.

Stuart St James and Entry Only New England have opted-in for Trulia Direct Reference in conjunction with the official MLS system of Massachusetts called MLS Property Information Network (NLS PIN). MLS PIN provides Trulia with a reference file of opted-in listings that shows the status, price and other details. Upon receiving such information from MLS PIN, Trulia will then try to match this data against the listings data syndicated from various sources, including real estate agents, brokers, franchisors and other third party syndicators. They will also compare elements, such as price, agent, brokerage and current status. If there are discrepancies as compared to the MLS PIN data, they will notify the agent and/or MLS PIN directly of the incorrect data sources to help clean up the information that is out there. They will also present the correct data from MLS PIN on Trulia.com.

Entry Only New England is highly supportive of both transparent and accurate MLS listing data for Boston and all of Massachusetts, and we include all our listings in the data provided to Trulia Direct Reference. For the month of January 2014, Trulia matched 31,403 listings, representing 13,233 properties (they often receive multiple versions of a single property through different sources). Of the listings matched, 997 (3%) contained status errors, and 506 (2%) had price errors. Trulia Direct Reference will go a long way in ensuring the accuracy of MLS listings, be those flat fee MLS entry only listings or otherwise.

New Massachusetts MLS Features Help FSBOs

The state of Massachusetts is served by a Multiple Listing Service (MLS) called MLS Property Information Network, or MLS PIN. MLS PIN is the largest Multiple Listing Service in New England and one of the largest in the nation, offering a database of more than 38,000 properties for sale and rent and more than one million off-market listings, as well as full public records for all of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and other areas of New England. MLS PIN has recently announced three (3) system updates that help for sale by owners (FSBO) or those selling their home without a Realtor.

New Contingent (CTG) Status Available

The new CTG status has officially been released. It is the hope of MLS PIN that with the launch of this new status type, it meets the needs of those listings that have accepted offers but are continuing to show for additional offers, while eliminating some of the issues associated with the abuse of a deprecated status type called Active with a Flag that was banned from use earlier this year.

Contingent (CTG) Status: A property for which an offer has been accepted, but which the Owner has requested it still be listed in the Pinergy system for backup offers, has a status of “CTG.” A Contingent property must meet one of the following conditions: Inspection, Attorney Review, Appraisal, Financing, Third-Party Approval, Pending P&S.

There are currently seven (7) different on-market status types for properties in the MLS PIN system.

Longer MLS Property Descriptions

MLS PIN customers will now have twice the space to market their properties with the doubling in size of the “Public Remarks” allotment to 1,000 characters. This change will allow FSBOs in Massachusetts to provide long, feature rich descriptions that buyers love to read. That’s more space to describe the waterfront amenities, or the butcher block counters, or simply to spell out those tricky abbreviations.

New “Date Available” for Rental Searches

Finding the right rental property is about to get easier–at the Cape, downtown Boston and elsewhere! The Date Available field is currently available for all Rental listings, but soon it will be required to select that the rental is available now, or a date of availability. Starting in mid-July Massachusetts real estate brokers and agents will also be able to search MLS PIN by Date Available to hone in on pertinent properties.