This is so awesome!

Are you allowed to post a link to this in the MLS description so people find it?

Jakob – Sadly, no, unless I can confirm that a true, unbranded version is available. The MLS won’t allow anything that can link the agent with the home. Crazy, I know. All external tours have to be “unbranded.” I do have it on our web site, however, and I can link it in all of the third party sites we subscribe to which allow enhancement (Realtor.com, Zillow, Craigslist, etc.).

I don’t get that. Why don’t they want a link between an agent and a home?

Something that a 10 second google search can tell you anyway…

Nice job on the floor plan. You might like to embed a mortgage calculator widget in your site too. My new site at http://www.MortgageWidgets.org offers these at no charge.

Jakob – It does seem kind of goofy. The rule was born out of an old way of thinking; agents hand out or email MLS flyers to their clients, and this was a way to protect agents from their clients and themselves, presumably. “If they know who the listing agent is, they might end-run their buyers agent and go directly to the source.” Only now, as you point out, they can do that in a nanosecond on one of a dozen or more third-party sites (and, yes, even Realtor.com, the “Official Site of the National Association of Realtors). So, even though this policy is antiquated, it stands. That is why when we have a visual tour produced, we still have to have both an unbranded and a branded version: One for the MLS and one for everyone else. It is our Board’s way of keeping the data private. The problem is that it has been public for a long time now.

Kris ~
Very kewl!
How do you get/create a floor plan if you don’t already have one (as you do in Scripps Ranch)?

Thx for that explanation. I can see the reasoning now. I don’t like it but I can understand it.

Quite honestly I think the profession would be better served by being more open with individual buyers. We can get the information ourselves anyway. Why make it harder for us? We can drive by the house and look at the for sale sign. These attempts of keeping buyers in the dark will only turn us off from traditional agents even more.

J – You will get no argument from me.
Phil – There are many services and software programs which will allow you to draw or create your own, and companies like plan-o-matic will do it for you as a part of their photography services, but I have found all of these to be either too money or time intensive or both. It really helps to have the plans on the shelf. If the seller has a past appraiser’s sketch, that might be an option.

Hi Kris

As you know I am an agent who specialises in representing buyers.
There are usually two sides to a transaction – the sellers agent representing the owner and a buyers agent representing the potential new home owner.

In my opinion it’s simply not a question of keeping the information quiet from the public and yes the info is out there – we are living in an increasingly transparent world. That said the MLS was founded and still functions as a medium for offering cooperation between real estate agents, this is what makes the whole system work in an classic market efficient way.

The MLS is not there to promote the listing agent (or a buyers agent for that matter) – it’s simply not approriate or medium for advertising when there are so many other avenues to accomplish this including our own blog(s).

Peter Toner

Hey, Peter. Thanks for stopping by.

I couldn\’t agree me more that even if it weren\’t an MLS violation, it would just be \”poor form\” to have a world of listings out there reading. \”Contact me, your #1 agent at 1-800-GreatTimeToBuy!\” in the MLS write-up. But the idea that I can\’t link to a web site with additional photos and information or to a floor plan that might carry my branding on it is a bit yesterday. Having said that, I can also see your argument (you haven\’t made it yet, but consider this my preemptive strike) that allowing my \”additional information\” would open the door to abuses more resembling my poor form example.

Kris, in reality it’s impossible to cover all the bases or possibilities of abuse and I’m not just talking here about real estate (look at the sub-prime mess). Human nature being what is is there is always a percentage of any group that will push the envelope no matter what the rules are. In any commercial environment, society and those who try to do whats right usually end up over legislating …

Just one example: I have witnessed listing agents anouncing their open house on late on Friday afternoon in the MLS (which then feeds all the agents website email alerts) and then removing the reference late Sunday hoping the MLS police will not notice. There is only one reason to do this and it’s to try and talk buyers at the open house into writing offers with them (the listing agent) as the have the so called “inside track” with the seller. Not cool at all …

Peter

The actual MLS is a closed system, available only to agents. Peter’s argument about promoting the listing agent is weak, if not completely disingenuous, because of the advent of IDX, the policy that allows agents other than the listing agent to advertise listings on their websites. IDX has allowed agents like Peter to target buyers using someone else’s listings (like the Berg’s) as bait.

To say that Kris can only post unbranded pics and floorplans on the MLS is a rule that exists solely to benefit the agents that use IDX to attract buyers.

Why shouldn’t there be open house information on a listing? This kind of stuff is amazing to me. The MLS needs to change in this day and age where individual buyers are perusing listings on a daily basis.

The seller doesn’t care about protecting the fading power of agents. She wants her house advertised as well as it can be and sold to the best buyer for the best price.

Kris,

I noticed your comment on PlanOmatic. As the VP of Sales at PlanOmatic I wanted to note that we are extremely cost and time efficient for our clients. We are a full service floor plan and photography which makes us unique. Phil as you can see in the example below all the work we provide our clients is done at 1 appointment. We will create the floor plans, professionally photograph and create an interactive presentation for the consumer online.
Please see an examples of our work:

http://photoplan.planomatic.com/3301

We have perfected the vision of an interactive floor plan, the best part about PlanOmatic is that we are very competitive in our pricing. For our full service tours we are competitive with professional photographers in SD County but are so much more then photos alone.

Both the buyer and seller benefit tremendously from our services. We provide both a branded and non-branded version of our presentation as well.