The Super-Regional SFARMLS Launches Tomorrow! Here are reminders on how to prepare.
January 19, 2021
Dear Members,
REMINDER: Today at 6:00 p.m. the SFARMLS will go offline.
To be safe, please finish all of your work on the MLS, including inputing new listings, well in advance of the 6:00 p.m. deadline.
Overnight we will be upgrading to a Super-Regional version of the SFARMLS. By 10:00 a.m. tomorrow (Wednesday, January 20), you will use your same MLS login to access thousands of listings throughout 22 counties spanning from the Greater Bay Area and Silicon Valley, to Monterey County, and up through the Central Valley to the Sacramento and Nevada Counties. Learn more about our collaboration with six other leading MLSs on this unprecedented project here.
OTHER IMPORTANT NOTES:
1. In order to prevent the loss of any business information, please make backups of critical contact and prospect information, including any important and specific searches. You can find instructions on how to complete various data backup tasks on our agent information website here: www.resfar.info/agents
2. The SFARMLS will go offline at 6:00 p.m. today and will be back online by 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, January 20. During this time you will have no access to the SFARMLS. Thank you for your patience. This is unavoidable due to the technical requirements of the upgrade.
3. The SFARMLS will be live and fully functional on January 20. Some third-party applications you use which access SFARMLS data, like CloudCMA, Zillow, and Theo, may not be. These will come online as soon as their data synchronizes.
WHAT TO EXPECT WITH THE SUPER-REGIONAL SFARMLS:
The best part of this major release is that it is mostly about data and improved and expanded layouts in listing input and reporting features. You do not have to relearn an entirely new system – but there are some key differences you should be aware of:
SEARCHING
The controls for Area/Region now have values from our partner MLS systems incorporated. So, you may need to reacquaint yourself with new area values for parts of the East Bay, South Bay or North Bay. But the area selector allows you to select many areas and the values are easily readable.
We have also corrected our top-level listing organization types. Read the articles on Property Type, Subtypeand also Subtype Description to make sure you know how listings are organized by property type going forward.
EXPANDED LISTING INPUT
The number of possible values is now vastly expanded now to allow for all of the various types of important information when listing anywhere in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. This means a little more scrolling, but it also means A LOT more detail. For example, we have "Marble" and "Quartz" countertops as options.
You may be asked to complete a handful of newly REQUIRED fields, so be prepared to add this information when making edits.
24-HOUR MARKET WATCH
The default 24-Hour Market Watch on your home screen inside the MLS will have all of the data for the entire Bay Area now. You can pare that down to a group of up to 5 San Francisco district area values if you want to focus on specific parts of the city.
If you want ALL of the City, we don’t have an 'out of the box' solution for that currently, but we recommend that you create a Hotsheet Search where the City = San Francisco and the Days Back value = 1 (or 2). Running that Saved Hotsheet Search when you start your day is like having a more powerful 24-Hour Market Watch for just the City.
That said, we are going to work on a new 24-Hour Market Watch feature for just San Francisco in an update release soon after launch.
QUESTIONS?
Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We are ready to help!
WATCH THIS WEBINAR
Our MLS and Tech Committee Chair Jodi Halldorson and Vice Chair Vanessa Gamp, along with SFAR's MLS and IT Director Jay Pepper-Martens, hosted a webinar on January 14 about what you can expect with the new MLS and how to prepare. Click through the graphic below to take a look:
