Cumulative Days on Market to Arrive

The latest Northern Nevada Regional MLS newsletter [yes, I read it] contained a couple announcements that I was pleased to see.  Firstly, the user interface of Paragon (our MLS online application) has been redesigned to provide a consistent look and feel across all functions.   Named “Paragon 4”, this new interface will provide easier feature searches and improved functionality.   Paragon 4 is tentatively scheduled to be rolled out in September 2007.  [Geek Alert] And I am very eager to see it arrive.   The current interface is very non-intuitive and seems to be a hodgepodge of add-ons and fixes accumulated over the years.  When navigating the current Paragon system one never knows when a new window will open, or not…or why.  Admittedly, only other REALTORS® in the audience may find this announcement of interest.  And of them, only a portion will care.  However, at the risk of sounding cliché, an easier to use and more efficient tool will enable me to provide more and better data to you the reader.

As an example, the second announcement that caught my eye was the addition of a Cumulative Days on Market (CDMO) field to the listing form.  This new field will contain the total time (days) a particular property has been on market. Regardless of how many times the property has been re-listed.   As many of you are aware, the Days on Market (DOM) field currently in use resets to zero every time an agent re-lists the same property.  Most often, re-listing occurs after the most recent listing has expired.  But sometimes an agent may simply decide that her listing is “getting stale” and will re-list the property in order to get a fresh MLS number, a listing status of “New”, and a DOM of “1”.  Whatever the reason a property is re-listed, the DOM metric currently in use becomes meaningless as a standalone number.  In order to determine the correct DOM I need to perform a historical search by specific address, and then sum the relevant DOMs I discover.  And though this task may sound like a simple operation, it becomes very time consuming. Especially when dealing with a large number of properties that fit my clients’ search criteria.   The task becomes more involved when agents re-list the same property using a variation of the address used on the previous listing.  For example,   “1234 Castlehawk Court” becomes “1234 Castlehawk” for the re-listing.  The third time around the agent lists the property as “1234 Castlehawk Ct.”.  The fourth time the agent may creatively use all caps, as in “1234 CASTLEHAWK COURT”.  I have even seen agents split a street name, for example, for example “1234 Castle Hawk”.  The point is, with the current Paragon interface, performing a historical address search is not a one-step operation.  After retrieving all prior listings for the property I am investigating I then examine the dates and outcome of each listing.  Obviously, every time a property is actually sold, then a subsequent listing of that same property should, in fact, have the DOM reset to zero.

[Another Geek Alert]You can understand why I am practically giddy upon hearing of the addition of the CDOM field.   And you guys will like it too.  As soon as the feature is rolled out (September 2007), Diane and I will begin using the CDOM value rather than the DOM value (which, interestingly, will remain) in our reporting.   So, in the future, the days on market data we provide to you will actually be usable.

Now if only they made Paragon Mac-compatible.