For those of you who use our MLS service offered on this site, you need to read the following as status information is going to be changed.

Effective January 4, 2012, the San Francisco Association of REALTORS® MLS is revising the listing status options in the MLS. The revised statuses are designed to help practitioners better serve their clients and are reflective of both current market conditions and practices in the field. 

The new status definitions were developed after an evaluation of what surrounding MLSs in Northern California are doing, as well as an exploration of the needs in our local market(s). Recommended by the MLS committee and authorized by the SFAR Board of Directors, the new MLS statuses appear in the status list below, indicated by an asterisk.

MLS Statuses as of January 4, 2012

  *New MLS status as of January 4, 2012

Automatic MLS Status Conversions

Upon implementation of the new statuses, listings under two current MLS statuses will be converted to one of the new statuses. Below is a guide indicating which statuses will be converted to a new status.

If your listing has been converted from Active Contingent to Active Contingent – Show, and you need to change the status to one of the other active contingent statuses, you can do so by clicking on Status Information in the Revise Listing menu for your listing. Please be aware that per SFAR MLS Rules, MLS listings must be updated to reflect the correct status within 72 hours of the change.

If your listing has been converted from Withdrawn to Withdrawn – Cancel, but your listing is only temporarily off the market, you will need to contact MLS staff to change the listing to the new Temp. Off  Market status. Please send a request in writing by email to mls@sfrealtors.com or by fax to 415-553-3968 to have this change made.

Additional Information

Within 3 days of accepting any offer on a listing in the MLS, the listing agent must report the sale, by marking the listing as Pending or choosing one of the four Active-Contingent statuses. Adding the new Active-Contingent statuses allows listing agents to comply with MLS rules requiring them to change the status from Active while still clearly indicating that the property is available for backup offers or overbid at a court confirmation hearing. The Active Contingent – Show status remains to allow listing agents to solicit backup offers while Buyer contingencies are still in effect. In addition to Active listings, all Active Contingent statuses are available in all IDX/VOW feeds and on Realtor.com – provided the listing agent indicates that the Seller wishes the listing to be included in the IDX and VOW program(s).

The addition of Temporarily Off Market will allow listings agents to accurately communicate to cooperating brokers and agents that the listing agreement is still in effect, but the property is not being shown or marketed for a period of time. Further, the new Withdrawn-Duplicate status should be used if the listing has been entered into more than one property type, such as a 3-unit building listed as both a TIC and a multi-unit building. At the time a pending sale is reported for one of the listings, the additional listings should be reported as a Withdrawn-Duplicate listing.

SFAR hopes you find the changes useful in your business.

A reader asks:

I heard from a friend of mine that the San Francisco Board of Realtors has decided to discontinue the public side of their website for those of us who are not licensed agents. Is this true?

Our reply:

To some degree, you are correct. Several weeks ago that announcement was made by an agent in our office who is a member of the board. Though some Realtors objected, the board voted to take down the public side of the MLS. No date was given as to when the change was taking place.

You will, however, still be able to access the site through links from individual Realtors’ websites. For example, you may access the MLS through SFResidence by going to this link to do your own property search.

- Mick Orton