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REALTORS Property Resource Update |
Editor’s Note: The Realtors Property Resource (RPR) has provided a series of updates to Realtors and participating MLSs over the past few months, including new features visible to brokers, planned changes to its training offerings, and more. These reports are summarized below, and additional detail is available on the RPR blog.
The REALTORS® Property Resource™ is a national database of assessor, recorder, and mortgage data, foreclosure information, demographics, neighborhood data, and more, integrated with participating MLSs to arm REALTORS with the best data available in one central location Since the first product offering launch in September, REALTORS have been discovering the many ways they can use RPR to access real estate data, as well as collect and disseminate information to their clients and customers. RPR’s process of gathering real estate information and data, coupled with a property valuation model, has changed the way data presentations are made. Currently, RPR has contracted over 225 markets (more pending), and has enrolled more than 372,000 REALTOR members.
RVM Progress
The Realtors Valuation Model (RVM) was initially launched in October, 2010. Since that time, it has undergone continued refinement and development. With it, RPR seeks to develop a set of analytics which deliver the highest accuracy of any product available in the existing AVM markets, one that is owned and operated by the members of the National Association of REALTORS®, and one that incorporates their skills through their listing content, reflecting the expertise of their work with clients and customers, on a fully-authorized basis.
RPR reports that the RVM is being well received by the financial institutions, and are extremely optimistic about the role it will play in RPR’s future, as well as the future of the real estate industry. For more information visit the RPR blog post.
RECENT ENHANCEMENTS
New landing page for users RPR recently unveiled a new RPR Landing Page at blog.narrpr.com/info, which puts the information REALTORS need about RPR at their fingertips, as well as provide a way to learn about new features, training opportunities, and marketing materials. Users can also watch demonstrations of the different features, including tips and tricks available within the RPR application.
New Training Features Beginning April 1, RPR began using GoToTraining for its training seminars, to make the learning experience for RPR users more interactive and useful for real-world applications. In addition, we’re overhauling our training schedule, which will make it easier for our members to find and register for the classes they want and need.
New Comps and Refined Value Functionality Users now find it easier to work with and customize a property’s comparables and estimated value. The functionality of the “Comps and Estimated Value” tab on the Property Details pages has been separated into two tabs, one dealing exclusively with comps (“Comps”) and the other to refine a property’s AVM or RVM (“Refined Value”). Users can now better control the comps they want to use for a property, and the comps flow through to the Seller’s Report.
Enhanced Site-Wide Search Bar RPR Users can now organize their Saved Searches, Custom Search Areas and Home Areas directly from the search bar found at the top of every page. Searches can be added, deleted, renamed, and even modified from a new “My Searches” dropdown on the search bar.
ON THE HORIZON
RPR is testing its next development build, encompassing work on the RPR Web site, back office systems and a new Broker Tool Set being developed. The next build also includes some 80 enhancements based on user tickets reported to RPR’s customer support team. Once implemented, the RPR website will have an updated look and feel, with simpler and more prominent navigation, and specialized navigation for authorized broker administrators.
Broker Tools
Extensive new back office infrastructure has also been added to the upcoming development to support the Broker Tool Sets. Building on the data management framework developed in the fourth quarter of 2010, these tools provide for the administration of new functions including:
- New, Broker and branch office profile pages and administration, to facilitate management of Broker organizational membership, Broker Tools feature setup, customization, and management, and Broker account and contact management
- Branch office and agent opt-out management from Broker tools
- Broker and MLS user report exporting, to facilitate communications with Broker staff about the status of their users
- Administration of Broker service modules, including mortgage rates and rate administration, title, insurance, home warranty, concierge, and other modules
- A new "customer portal" – which allows broker mortgage companies to administer their own rate information, and provides a framework for Broker self-service of all broker tools after the beta testing period for the Broker tool sets has been completed
Chart enhancements and new chart delivery service
RPR has also made extensive modifications to the existing charts throughout RPR, that also display in the RPR PDF reports, in order to fine-tune them, make them more readable and visually appealing, and better present them in the context of the report features of the RPR Web site. Nearly every chart on the site was touched, and these will continue to be refined in tandem with the creation of additional PDF reports for users.
RPR has also developed a chart delivery service that allows the Broker to specify any geography of interest, and obtain any one of more than 16 available graphics on trends in that area. These charts are produced from the rolled-up summaries in RPR, updated weekly. In concept, they are very similar to some of the trend analysis and graphs that display on the RPR Web site, but they differ insofar as they are designed especially to be easily inserted in a Broker or MLS Web site, CMA, or other print product.
PDF report updates
"Housekeeping" changes were also made throughout all of the existing RPR reports, unifying the framework that underlies them, refactoring the design and presentation elements, and fine-tuning pagination and the order in which the modules display.
The report generation page of the Web site was also modified to make it clearer to the user how to manage the inclusion or exclusion of different modules in the reports as they are customized, administer the retention or resending of the reports, and the generation of more than one report at a time directly from the reports management page.
Changes to search and maps
Additional enhancements include the ability to search places – generally smaller towns – that are not available in the geographic boundary data sets RPR licenses from various parties, as well as searching on ZIP codes associated with Post Office boxes – a highly-requested feature from users who wanted to search in proximity to Post Offices.
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