To move forward with improving the data, technical and functional aspects of the Bright MLS system, DAAR, PWAR and NVAR are working jointly in a work group to help advocate for improvements to the system.
As part of that effort, PWAR REALTOR members are encouraged to provide feedback on data, technical, functional, structural and performance aspects of the system to PWAR via this form https://pwar.wufoo.com/forms/bright-mls-challenges/ . The information gathered will be used to advocate for changes with Bright MLS leadership moving forward.
Here are some of the changes recently made or in progress with Bright MLS (Thank you NVAR for writing up most of this itemized update):
- Days on Market (DOM) methodology. IN PROGRESS. Bright is making an important change to the days on market computation for historic listings. All of the old MRIS listings will soon have the Contract/No Kick Out status mapped to the Pending status in the new system, so those days won’t count in the Days on Market calculation.
- Subdivision searching. RESOLVED. The ability to search by ‘legal subdivision’ has been restored. And the “wildcard”, or asterisk, search is still available.
- Required Fields. RESOLVED. The mandatory flood zone field is now optional.
- Transaction Brokerage/Sub Agency. RESOLVED. These fields, which caused great confusion in our market, have been removed in Virginia.
- Rentals. IN PROGRESS. Bright is aware that rental listing options do not track with rental listing agreements. They are working towards Q2 improvements for rental listing options.
- Improved Reports. PARTIALLY RESOLVED. Bright is bringing back the gallery report as well as the Appraiser Parcel One Page Report and the Price Analysis Report
- Public Records sources. IN PROGRESS. Bright is working to investigate and correct missing or inaccurate information in Bright Public Records. Recently their team updated current owner addresses for 18,922 records in Loudoun County. The team is continuing to research other counties to determine if owner addresses are missing and will update those accordingly as well. The problem appears to have stemmed from a faulty file format from Bright’s vendor.
- Customer Service. IN PROGRESS. Bright has increased its customer service staff by 25%. Those new hires are undergoing training now and will be available to assist members as soon as that training is complete. This will bring the customer service staff total to 50. An additional round of hiring is also in the works.
- System Performance. ONGOING. The system performance issues experienced the first week of January have been resolved. The cause was a Matrix system server that was not configured to support the level of search demand during peak times.
- Improving Listing Numbers Identification. RESOLVED. Retained the geographic county identifier on listing numbers so you could easily identify which state and county a listing was located in by the listing number.