Ask Technical Terry is a series RMLS™ aims to offer once a month. RMLS™ subscribers will drive the content—submit any question about RMLS™ to Technical Terry in the comments or by emailing communications@rmls.com. Don’t be shy—we won’t identify you by name.

Dear Technical Terry,

My clients just asked me for some market statistics. The statistics module on RMLSweb and Market Action are crazy good, but I just need some simple, easy to understand stats. Any ideas?

Simple Statistics in Stayton

Dear SS,

Of course I have some ideas! There are two really easy places to see and/or print some stats that your clients may find compelling.

One: when you run a search and scroll down to the “Detail View” tab in your search results. At the bottom of each section is a nice synopsis of the properties contained within the section, with the sections separated by listing status. Here’s what that section looks like:

Quick and easy—but not easy to print.

If you want to print a simple, yet statistically effective report for your clients choose the “Summary Only” report from your list of report options. Here’s what that simple yet effective report looks like:

The report gives you and your clients great info on some of the basic stats we talk about all the time. Solds, if they are part of your search, even have sale price to list price ratio.

If neither of these options are good for your needs, have a look at the Statistics menu on the main navigation bar. It gives you many options to compile statistics you and your client may find useful, including the statistical summaries documents which compile years worth of Market Action data for each published area within the RMLS™ region.

Technical Terry

Technical Terry!

Do you keep up on the news? It seems REALTORS® are being accosted when performing showings! There seems to be more and more of it happening. I heard that SentriSmart™, the SentriLock app, has a feature for agent safety. What the heck is that, and how does it work?

Terrified in Troutdale

TT!

In fact I do keep up on the news stories about REALTOR® safety issues around the country. While there are many best practices to use to help your safety as a REALTOR®, SentriSmart™ does provide a resource that may provide you confidence in showing vacant homes or homes to new clients.

To access and set up the agent safety feature in SentriSmart™, follow these steps:

• Log in to SentriSmart™ on either your iPhone or Android.
• Go to the Settings option in the app.
• Tap on Agent Safety and enter your PIN.
• From the Agent Safety page, add your emergency contacts by clicking on the blue + sign. The app will access the contacts stored on your phone and allow you to pick one or more contacts to be included in the list of people the app will contact.
• Enable “Automated Safety Check.” Once enabled, SentriSmart™ will send you an alert approximately 90 seconds after you have opened the lockbox key container. If you do not acknowledge the first alert, a second alert will be sent after approximately 60 seconds. If you do not acknowledge the second alert, an email and text message will be sent to the contact(s) you’ve added to your contacts list in the app. If you have several contacts in that list, the app will alert all of them simultaneously about the potential safety concern.
• Tap on Accept to agree to the Release Agreement, then enter your PIN for verification.

Here are samples of the texts you and your list of contacts will receive if you don’t respond to the two notifications.

Hope that this SentriSmart™ feature can help you feel less terrified, Terrified in Troutdale! It’s great that you’re thinking ahead to prepare for safety issues before they occur.

Technical Terry