Tip of the Week – Business Only plus More

I realized after I committed to this Tip that I had already covered it not too long ago. But since we’re still seeing this commercial listing type being used incorrectly, I think it’s safe to cover it again. I’ll throw in a few other fields, commercial, residential, and rental, that often get misused.

Listing Type – Business Only
Once you select Commercial Sale or Commercial Lease, one of the first fields you’ll come to is Listing Class. From this field, you can choose things like Hotel/Motel, Industrial, Office, and Business. Most of the options are fairly obvious, except when it comes to Business. In the future, this option will be renamed to Business Only” to be a bit more obvious.

This option is for the times when all you’re listing is the business itself. Maybe the property or building is being leased or another situation exists. But all that’s for sale is the business. No property. This is kind of the opposite of what most real estate agents are expecting, which probably leads to the option being use wrong.

Schools
Some of you are already asking how the Schools field can possibly be used wrong. The answer is painfully clear once you hear it. The wrong way to use this field is to choose (or leave in place) a closed school.

What?? How in the world can someone do that? It’s amazingly easy. Clone a listing that’s more than a couple of years old, and don’t check or change the schools. Ta da!! You may have a closed school on your new listing. Over time, there have been schools that got closed. Unless every agent went back through every single one of their listings (sold, expired, and all) and changed that school to whatever is now correct, that listing stays in the system with that school displayed. We can’t delete that school from the list because it’s still on those older listings. All we can do is clearly mark them as closed, for example, (*closed*) Valparaiso. Still at least once a week, we’ll see a new listing activated with one of these closed schools included. If you clone an older listing, be sure to check all of the details!

Rent Per
The misunderstanding with this field is whether it applies to the rental amount or lease period. In the ECAR Rental category, this field goes along with the rental amount and indicates how often the rent is paid. There is another field, Lease Terms, that indicates the length or term of the lease.

In almost all cases when these fields are used incorrectly, it’s a matter of someone who specializes in one type of real estate venturing out into unknown territory. Normally you handle residential rentals, but someone has asked you to list a commercial property for sale. Or generally you list commercial property, and someone has asked you to list a property for rent.

If you’re not sure about how to use a field, what the field is for, or what a term means, please call us. You can also check Appendix A – Definitions in the ECAR MLS rules. You might find your answer right there.

Questions? Call us at 850-244-2411, or email susan@ecaor.com.

Susan K Beck, I.S. Director
Emerald Coast Association of Realtors®
Fort Walton Beach, FL

GCCMLS – Have you tried it yet?

If you sell or list any commercial real estate, you owe it to yourself to try the Gulf Coast Commercial MLS. It’s an agent only, real estate database created and designed specifically for commercial property. And there’s two service levels, basic and full. The basic service is Free!

Why would you want to do this? The biggest advantage is that the GCCMLS is a shared database between ECAR and the Pensacola MLS. So you get commercial listings from both associations at one time. Is it every commercial listing? Not yet. But as more and more full or part time commercial agents participate, the more complete the database will be.

Another big advantage is the reports that are available. The database is powered by Catylist, which is a well known commercial system that specializes in commercial real estate. So the listing reports, CMA’s, and statistical reports are all designed to display what commercial real estate needs. It’s not residential reports altered to fit commercial listings.

The different service levels are another advantage. You can start out in the GCCMLS with the basic level at no cost, for you or your broker. Then as you use the system and start recognizing the benefits, you can choose to advance to the full service level. Yes, there is an additional MLS fee per month for you and your broker, but is that cost of doing business worth it? It would probably prove to be after the first closing.

Since it doesn’t cost anything to try it, what are you waiting for? We already have several ECAR brokers and agents using the basic service and some on the full service level.

How do you start? Go to www.ECARCommercial.com, and click the GCCMLS application link. Print the form, complete the sales associate for yourself, and put the designated broker form in front of your broker. Send the completed forms to ECAR, 850-275-1075 or susan@ecaor.com. We’ll finalize the form and send it on to PAR.

Questions? Call us at 850-244-2411 or email susan@ecaor.com.

Susan Beck, I.S. Director
Emerald Coast Association of Realtors®
Fort Walton Beach, FL

The Menagerie

The name of this blog came to mind because I’m reading a book with that name. It’s a sci-fi/archeology/mystery kind of read, with the name deriving from a huge display of creatures collected from different galaxies. I’ve just started the book so I don’t know yet where it’s going, but I suspect at some point, something is going to jump out at me.

For this blog, the menagerie is going to mean a collection of different points. I get blog ideas from things that happen, questions we get, or suggestions from members who run into situations. Sometimes those ideas can form into a full blog on their own, but sometimes they’re just little things that are important enough to mention, but not enough to stand alone. So here are a few of them.

Snake!
Imagine walking up to show a property and you find the lockbox attached to the water faucet on the side of the house. The grass has grown up a bit or there’s a lot of bushes nearby (some with sharp pointy bits). And you get to reach through all of that to get to the house key! With the recent rains, snakes, bugs, and spiders are everywhere! So, to all you list agents or whoever places the lockbox on the property: please think of your fellow Realtor’s safety when you decide where to put the lockbox! Plus, placing an electronic device on a water faucet or where a sprinkler can easily hit it is counter-productive. Sure fired way to make the lockbox malfunction!

Auth Token
Have you seen this message pop up on the EKey program on your phone? This means that, for whatever reason, your key software needs to be verified and it can’t be done through the normal update process. The message usually appears when you open the program for the first time that day when the key software tries to update. To fix this, you can call ECAR support, 850-244-2411 (leave a message if it’s after-hours and we’ll call you back). You can also go to SupraWeb, sign in (NOT with your MLS username) and get it online any time.

RPR Commercial
Realtor Property Resource is NAR’s free agent only tax system extraordinaire. The commercial side is now up and free from the beta testing designation. If you’ve successfully used it with a commercial real estate deal and would like to give a testimonial about your transaction, please let us know. Training webinars are available just about any day, and ECAR will be hosting live training on the system on September

Admin Assistants
We got a call the other day from an assistant asking for help on something. When we looked up her record, we found that she was registered as an assistant for two companies. Turns out, she stopped working for one office a month ago, and that office never reported it to ECAR. So her access, unused, has been out there, active and available to use, for that time. Good thing she was an honest person! When an admin assistant leaves your employment, be sure to notify us so we can inactivate that access. And NO, you cannot just give it to the next admin. That’s a no-no.

Questions on any of these? Comment on this post, call us at 850-244-2411, or email susan@ecaor.com.

Susan Beck,  IS Director
Emerald Coast Association of REALTORS®
Fort Walton Beach, FL

Commercial Listing? – Look for something new!

If you list or sell commercial property, you’ll see something new starting today.

In the Commercial categories there are several ways to indicate square feet, all depending on what type of property is being listed. Retail will have a Building SqFt, and Unit SqFt while Offices will have Office SqFt and Unit SqFt. Industrial has all three.

The Commercial MLS committee decided earlier this year that the Unit SqFt field did not adequately describe what was being offered, in the Commercial Sale or Commercial Lease category.

So their decision, with the approval of the Board of Directors, was to change the field name from Unit SqFt to Available SqFt, and to make it a required entry for all commercial listing classes that included that field.

This is going to mean at least three things to watch for.

The search functions and reports are still set to the Unit SqFt field. Our MLS vendor is working on updating these to the new name.

If you have an existing active listing in one of the commercial classes that use this field, and you need to edit the listing using Change Listing Info, you may be required to complete the Available SqFt if you didn’t already have it filled in.

If you have a new commercial listing to enter, you’ll now be required to enter that field.

Questions? Call us at 850-244-2411, or email susan@ecaor.com.

Susan Beck, MLS Director
Emerald Coast Association of REALTORS
Fort Walton Beach, FL

Tip of the Week – Loopnet & GCCMLS (?)

If you’ve only done a few Commercial listings, you might not be familiar with Loopnet. So what do you do with this field on the MLS listing? Read to the bottom of this Tip for an important message for anyone who lists commercial real estate in the ECAR MLS.

Let’s start with just what Loopnet is. Basically, it’s a website, loopnet.com, that specializes in commercial property. Anyone, even owners and sellers, can go to this site to add properties for sale or lease, or do research on commercial real estate.

Several years ago, this was one of only a few sites that focused on Commercial real estate. Now there are a lot more. But when the ECAR Commercial MLS committee revamped the listing entry process for commercial listings, it was decided to include a field for Loopnet.

When a property is listed on Loopnet, there are several main categories and subcategories that will help pinpoint what type of commercial property it is. The Loopnet field in the MLS will allow you to indicate which subcategories the property is listed under on loopnet.com.

That’s it. That’s the whole purpose of this field. Some agents have through that this field would automatically list the property on Loopnet, but that is NOT the case. The ECAR MLS cannot import listings into that site. Each user must be registered on the site in order to add a property.

Now for the important message. Late last year, ECAR signed an agreement with the Pensacola Association of REALTORS (PAR) to join in the Gulf Coast Commercial MLS (GCCMLS), powered by Catylist.  Catylist specialized in commercial real estate.

Anyone can go to http://www.gulfcoastcmls.com and set up a free account. Or you can sign up for an enhanced account at a monthly fee. But with this agreement, ECAR commercial historical listings (sold, leased, expired, etc.) will be added to the system. Because we share this system with PAR, we’ll be able to do commercial real estate research across the Panhandle.

But existing active listings are not being imported. There’s too many difference between that site and the ECAR MLS to accurately do that. So all ECAR commercial agents should go on this site and add their active listings. You can do this for free by setting up a basic account.

The basic account doesn’t give full access to the system. There are a lot of reports and functions that you can only access if you become a subscriber to this separate MLS system.  The current launch date for ECAR agents to have full subscriber access, if you choose to, will be April 15, 2013, with training classes scheduled shortly after that date. Watch the ECAR Education calendar for the details.

For those of you who focus on commercial real estate, or want to get more into it, this is a monumental step. More info will be sent out as it’s available regarding subscribing to this system. Stay tuned for more news on this great new member service.

Questions? Comment on this post (especially if you’ve used the Catylist system before), or email susan@ecaor.com.

Susan Beck, MLS Director
Emerald Coast Association of REALTORS
Fort Walton Beach, FL

A Good Reason For Commercial Agents to go to GARD

Are you working in Commercial real estate? Have you lost or had problems with a transaction because of the Florida tax on commercial leases? If so, good news! Check out this email from John Sebree, Senior Vice President of Public Policy, Florida Realtors. Now is the time to turn out in Tallahassee!!

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Dear Florida Realtors Commercial Alliance Committee:

It was so good to see you all in Orlando for the Midwinter meetings two weeks ago.  What a thrill to have the Governor join us for our Committee meeting!

I have good news on our legislation to phase out the sales tax on commercial leases.  As of today we have both a House bill and a Senate bill!  The legislation has been filed in the Florida Senate by Senator Dorothy Hukill and the Florida House by Representative Marlene O’Toole.

You can read the bill, SB 656/HB 629, on the Florida Realtors Legislative Tracker (at that page scroll down to either bill number):  http://www.floridarealtors.org/LegislativeCenter/LegislativeTracker/index.cfm.

The sections pertaining to the phase out of the sales tax on commercial leases can be found underlined on pages 7 & 8 of the 18 page PDF (once you click on the bill # at the link you will see the option to view a PDF of the bill).

The 2013 Legislative Session begins on March 5 and we hope you will plan to join us in Tallahassee on Tuesday & Wednesday, April 9 & 10, for Great American Realtors Days as we work to get this legislation passed.  More details are available at http://floridarealtors.org/rally.

Stay tuned!

John S
______________________________
John M. Sebree
Senior Vice President of Public Policy
Florida Realtors
P.O. Box 1853
Tallahassee, FL 32302

Commercial Alliance

The last thing I would have expected attending the Commercial Alliance meeting at Florida Realtors was that I would get to meet and shake the hand of the Honorable Rick Scott, Governor of Florida. But that’s what happened!

Okay, that wasn’t the only thing that went on during the meeting. But it did cause a nice little buzz. There was also actual commercial business as well. And the Governor did talk about commercial real estate.

He talked about the sales tax on commercial leases, recruiting businesses to come to Florida, and international sales. He quoted a stat from one of the major airlines that said every international real estate land sale meant up to 25 international flights. Then there’s hotel rooms, restaurants, etc. Do the math! International sales bring big bucks to the state in more ways that just the purchase of the land.

Since the sales tax on commercial leases was one of the big topics for the overall meeting, hearing the Governor say that he is aware of the problems this tax causes, and that it’s a priority, is good news. If you have any examples of a real situation where you’ve lost a lease or had a lease cut back due to the sales tax on commercial lease, please send the information to John Sebree, Florida Realtors VP of Public Policy at johns@far.org.

Another interesting thing from the meeting was the phone conference with an attorney in California talking about a case that’s still currently being looked at by the Supreme Court.

To really paraphrase the case, an owner wanted to make some improvements to his property that had been deemed wetlands. The property itself wasn’t wet, but because it was within a certain range of wetlands, it was also deemed wetlands by the county. So special permits were needed. A couple of days before the permits were to be approved, the county sent a notice to the owner that he would also be required to make improvements to county land that was 3 to 4 miles away. The owner refused, the permits were denied. The owner sued and lost.

The case was lost because the demand from the county was for money, in the way of services, rather than for the land itself. Apparently the county can’t take your property away, but they can demand a service in exchange for a permit. ??

And we’re not talking about the normal cost of getting a permit. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court. Go to the Supreme Court website or google St Johns Rover Water District vs Koontz to get the correct and whole story.

The great thing is that the state government and Florida Realtors are well aware of how important the commercial real estate business is and they’re working on your behalf.

Please comment on this blog or email me at susan@ecaor.com.

Susan Beck, MLS Director
Emerald Coast Association of REALTORS
Fort Walton Beach, FL

Commercial, Property Management Groups Meet with Rep. Gaetz

The ECAR Residential Property Management (RPM) group met yesterday with Rep. Matt Gaetz to discuss a growing concern across the state about hotel/rental units being used for short term or long term meth labs.

The Destin Commercial Forum will be meeting with him at their next meeting, November 1, to talk about the amendments in the upcoming election.

Even in our idyllic paradise, we’re seeing meth labs being created in homes, hotels, condo units, and long term rental units. With the high level of toxic chemicals that are used and created in this process, the concern is detection and clean up.

There’s currently no legistlation that regulates the fallout of this criminal activity. Some of the many concerns our local property managers are facing is how clean up is done, when is the unit clean, what are the immediate and long term effects of the chemicals. Big questions with no answers at this point.

This is where the communication between our local rental experts and Rep Gaetz came in. He left ECAR with a checklist of issues that our area is facing and what they need help with. Our members left the meeting knowing that help is on the way.

Rep. Gaetz will also be speaking with the Destin Commercial forum on Thursday, November 1,2012, about the amendments in the upcoming election. Especially Amendment 4 (vote YES). The meeting starts at 8am, at the TGI Friday in Destin. Breakfast is $10 per person. Please plan to attend, bring your commercial listings, and hear for the state capital about these important amendments.

If you have any questions, please let us know, 850-244-2411, or email susan@ecaor.com.

Susan Beck, MLS Director
Emerald Coast Association of REALTORS
Fort Walton Beach, FL

Tip of the Week – Abbreviations: Phase 2

Last week, we started talking about the abbreviations that are commonly used in the MLS. Let’s keep it going with some more.

The History search results have different abbreviations for the status column. In this case, the status column tells you about the type of change that was made to the listing. So again, if you keep that in mind as you look at the abbreviations, it starts making sense.

ACT – Active
BOM – Back On Market
CNT – Contingent
EXP – Expired
EXT – Extended (expiration date)
LSE – Leased
PCH – Price Change
PHT – Photo added
PND – Pending
PVL – Provisional
RNT – Rented
SLD – Sold
UPD – Updated (miscellaneous change)
WTH – Withdrawn
XF – Transfer (from one agent or office to another)

While we’re on the History search results page, let’s look at one more small thing. In a few places, you’ll see two abbreviations in the category column that look a little different.

CL_NEW – Commercial Lease_New
CS_NEW – Commercial Sale_New

The commercial lease and commercial sale categories aren’t new any more, but a few years ago they were. The commercial categories were completely revamped. The changes were so extensive that listings in the old categories could not be merged into the new categories. So listings had to be completely re-entered. After several months, when it appeared that the majority of the listings had been done, the old categories were removed. But in the meantime, there were four commercial categories, old and new.

More abbreviations to come.

If you have any questions, please call us at 850-244-2411, or email susan@ecaor.com.

Susan Beck, MLS Director
Emerald Coast Association of REALTORS
Fort Walton Beach, FL

Commercial Forums – Come and Learn!

The Crestview Commercial Forum met last week and had a great meeting. McNeese Title, ECAR affiliate member, was the featured speaker and sponsor.

Kathy Paul gave some information about a new app that McNeese Title has available for getting title quotes. Just search for McNeese on your iPhone or Android, then download it for free. Contact any of their offices if you have questions about the new app.

We got some great information about short sale closings from Julie Patton, McNeese short sale specialist. Digital signatures can be an issue for some banks, so check with the individual institutions before having your seller or buyer sign documents digitally.

Also, make sure the names and addresses on your documents exactly match the existing mortgage information. This can cause a delay because sometimes it isn’t seen until well into the process.

There’s a lot that can be learned at these meetings. They’re open to anyone interested in Commercial real estate, whether you primarily handle commercial listings or only occasionally.

The Destin Commercial Forum is coming up soon, October 3, 2012, at the TGI Friday in Destin. We’ll send out an update in a few days with information on the speaker for that meeting.

And if you haven’t seen it yet, check out ECARCommercial.com, the ECAR webpage just for commercial real estate.

See you there.

If you have any questions, please call us at 850-244-2411, or email susan@ecaor.com.

Susan Beck, MLS Director
Emerald Coast Association of REALTORS
Fort Walton Beach, FL