Look at trends over time to best gauge recovery   Navigating through a complex and fast-moving marketplace is tough work. Our association of Realtors® is being called upon to provide fact-based guidance in a timely fashion — and rightly so. Consumers should be aware that multiple listing (MLS) data is...

Distressed homes play out many ways By: Susan Shackelford Perhaps you’ve heard the term “shadow inventory.” It represents the foreclosed or otherwise distressed homes not listed in the MLS. They exist in the “shadows,” so to speak. The Charlotte region, hit by the housing downturn like virtually every market in...

By: Susan Shackleford On Jan. 1, Jennifer Frontera will take over as president of the association and CMLS. While many members may not envy her position at this time, Frontera relishes it. She thrives on change, which is what she believes Realtors® must embrace to adapt and re-invent themselves to...

‘Cool’ to chilly CMLS ponders how to clean up syndicated listings By Anne Marie Howard About two years ago, our MLS began facilitating the spread of your property listings on the Internet. That was cool. But what’s been happening lately is not so cool. In fact, there’s a downright chill in the air. To understand, check out this quick overview of how we set up syndication: We partnered with ListHub, an online service now owned by Realtor.com, and began sending ListHub a custom data feed that is a modification of our MLS listings for the Internet. Each MLS Member Participant (MP) who chose to participate logged into ListHub, created an account and selected which Internet portals, or syndicators, they wanted to receive their firm’s listings (entities such as Yahoo, Trulia, Zillow, etc.). MPs could hit “Select All” for the approximately 100 syndicators available or pick individually. They also could link their...