We sometimes get questions on how decisions get made at RMLS™ and how to get involved. If you are interested in knowing more about RMLS™ and how it operates, our new monthly column MLS Insight is for you. To get everyone on the same page, my first posts will explore the basics of RMLS™ ownership, governance, and history. Later we will also explore new ideas surfacing at the MLS industry level and let you know what the RMLS™ Board of Directors is talking about.
Who Owns RMLS™?
RMLS™ is incorporated in Oregon and is wholly owned by three REALTOR® associations: Portland Metro (PMAR), East Metro (EMAR), and Clark County (CCAR). The role of our shareholders is to appoint directors to serve on the RMLS™ Board of Directors and to approve any changes to the RMLS™ Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws.
Who Makes the Decisions?
The RMLS™ Board of Directors sets the high-level direction for RMLS™. For example, this includes approval of any new major vendors (like SentriLock), setting priorities for the development work on RMLSweb (which we do in house), approving any major policy changes and approving all changes to the RMLS™ Rules and Regulations. The RMLS™ Board of Directors also hire the President and CEO of the corporation, who has the responsibility for making the many day-to-day decisions that keep the company on course.
Who are the RMLS™ Board of Directors?
RMLS™ Directors are appointed for three-year terms. Nine come from PMAR, three from EMAR, and three from CCAR. In addition, two directors sit on the board representing the Service Advisory Committee (SAC), which provides a voice for all the REALTOR® associations that RMLS™ serves, but which are not shareholders in RMLS™.
Next month we will cover the RMLS™ standing committees that ensure that we have practitioner input into decisions, planning, and regulation. If you have questions you would like to have answered about RMLS™ governance or operation, I encourage you to post a comment to this blog.
Good morning,
It’s just that sometimes we feel that the brokers in the
trenches don’t get a vote. The sentrilock thing seems to
be ok at this juncture however when you look at the
venue of the RMLS move to east county that really seems that the Washington county people were not
considered. We need at least an office or place we can
go make quick visits to RMLS for the emergency things
that arise. I think as a sixteen year broker we need to
vote on those kind of issues.
Thank you for the opportunity to post my concerns.
Don
Thank you very much for your comment. I do understand the feeling that it would be really nice to have a vote on all the things that affect us in this rapidly changing world. Our move to our current location near the airport was the result of a analysis by our Board of Directors about ways to address financial considerations, where many factors were weighed. We did not want to raise fees and our foot traffic had declined to the point, even with the Supra system, where it seemed feasible to make central location a somewhat less weighty consideration. It was discussed at length. With the new Sentrilock system we should have fewer emergencies, because there are so many more ways to open the new lockboxes. Please don’t hesitate to call us if coming to our office is an issue, and we will work with you on alternatives. USPS and UPS are next day deliveries in the Metro area, and we can also finds ways for RMLS™ staff to drop off things in an emergency. Our training staff is always willing to come out to offices to put on classes and presentations about what is new at RMLS™, and we have electronic options for signing up and making changes to your account.
I’d like to know the resolution of any proposals I make through the system’s suggestion box process. As it is all I get is the auto-responder email that it’s been received and will be considered. What I’d like at some point is a few words about what happened AFTER it was considered. Was it approved and now on the (interminable) IT list of improvements? Was it rejected? Because not practical? Too expensive? Someone else had an even better solution? I can’t imagine that the list of suggestions is so long that it would take a lot of time to track and report, something like the standard “trouble ticket”?
Thanks for your comment. In the past, we have attempted something along the lines of a “trouble ticket”, and tried to follow up on each individual suggestion. It is the ideal way that we would like to communicate with our subscribers who make suggestions. However, we have not found a really practical way to do it that is meaningful and that does not take up too much staff time. As I will go over in more detail in a future post, we get our direction regarding development efforts from a yearly prioritization by the Board of Directors. If a suggestion pertains to a portion of the software that is not being touched that year, it might be a very long time between the suggestion and the resolution, and we may not know whether or not that particular suggestion will be practicable in the end. We do receive an average of more than twenty enhancement requests each month via RMLSweb and many more through our annual survey. All suggestions are considered individually in a monthly meeting. They are categorized, retained and guide development projects in a general way, and we do truly appreciate them. I am researching suggestions you have made through questions and comments and will email you directly to let you know their status.