Tales from the Techside

This is one of those times I get to use this as a platform to appeal for insight. Rather than me providing information I would like to recieve perspectives on how your association, mls, company etc. is handing auction properties. If you don’t feel comfortable leaving a public comment then leave your comment and just put private up at the top and I won’t post it to the site else please send me an email.

Some Background:

I was trolling through industry related press releases when I saw that the National Auctioneers Association released their own MLS aimed at keeping consumers informed about auctions in their area. At the recent NAR conference I had several discussions with members from my own association and other associations regarding auctions and MLS policy and in the MLS breakout sessions much of the topics of discussion were centered around auction properties.

As an aside I have noticed an increase in the number of auction properties on our own MLS and would like to be proactive in gathering information when I am asked to advise on policy decisions that will define how we handle/treat auctions within the MLS so that I am well prepared to offer a solution that best serves our members.

From my perspective the issue comes down to the following points

1. Pricing - the null price of an auction can cause issues with comps
2. Category - as a solution to the pricing issue it has been suggested to create a separate category to contain auctions but the concern is then the auctions won’t get equal exposure
3. Commission - how do you handle the commission in auction property
4. Common Fields - auction properties share much overlap with the non auction properties they represent but there are some unique differences.

On the NAA MLS they seem to focus on the basic facts about the property and some information as to the opening bid and terms. Within that perspective it seems like members would be best served if we simply separated auctions into their own category much like residential income and lease rental. My concern is that we would have to create an auction property category for each property type residential, commercial, lots and lands etc.. Obviously this would increase administrative and training overhead and additionally make the information more difficult to gather unless the agents used a multi-class search functions.

I also understand the concern that if we separated auctions into categories then clients may not be exposed to these properties when doing their search and as IDX goes it would require re-engineering of applications that use IDX data. On the other hand if we leave the information co-mingled then are creating issues for agents when searching for comps. A solution to both concerns is to create a separate feature category so that agents can include or exclude auction properties when searching for comps in the area. The biggest issue to this solution is that we will need to train agents how to list, search, and exclude auction listings depending on their need also it does not address the issue of commission and common fields in listing input.

So that is where I am at; I am leaning towards recommending the the feature code solution and working out a conditional logic solution to the common field question. If you have implemented a similar or different solution in your company, mls, or association I would love to hear the pro cons of each solution and would welcome any solutions I have not considered.

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