Dear MLS Update:

At the May membership meeting, it was announced that we can now email our photos to the photographer. Can you explain the requirements please?

Photographing in Elkhart

Dear Photographing:

Currently, the MLS Photographer takes the photos for all property types inside Elkhart County except vacant land. In an effort to improve the photo turn around time, a new option has been added. The Listing Office can now email the photo to the photographer at tom@2cphoto.com.

To use the new option the following requirements must be followed. In addition, the Listing Office will be responsible for verifying the photo is displaying in the MLS to avoid a no photo fine.

• The photo must be in the form of an attachment using the MLS number as the file name, sized at 640 X 480 pixels, and saved in jpeg format. If the photo comes in a different format, the photo will be returned to the Listing Office to convert. The subject line from the email must also disclose the MLS number. When the listing is input into the computer, the photographer instruction line must state "emailing photo."
• The current MLS photo policy that requires the Listing Office to submit the photo within 72 hours of the date of the listing contract will still apply. In addition, the photographer will have a maximum time of 48 hours to upload the photo excluding weekends and holidays. It will be the responsibility of the Listing Office to verify the photo is displaying in the MLS to avoid a no photo fine.

  For example: The Listing Office emails the photo to the photographer within the 72 hour time frame. However, the photo is not properly formatted and is returned. If, for whatever reason, the photo is not returned to the photographer, the Listing Office will incur a $25 no photo fine.

Bottom line, it is the responsibility of the Listing Office to make sure the photo is displaying in the MLS. We recommend that you take the necessary steps to verify your email transactions. If you have a problem, please call the MLS with the verification information to track the photo.

As this is a new option, the MLS will make any necessary adjustments needed to make this work efficiently for everyone.

Dear MLS Update:

Can you tell me how I would "publish" a listing? I heard it was better than emailing a listing to a client.

Publishing in Goshen

Dear Publishing:

This is a good question. We have been getting a lot of calls at the board office on this very subject. It is better to "publish" than "email" from the MLS. When you email, you are sending an attachment that sometimes takes the receiver a long time to load. When you publish, you are sending a link. It's a lot faster for the receiver to pull up. The following steps for publishing came from HELP in the MLS.

Perform a search for the listings you want to publish.
Create a standard report (such as the One Line report).
Choose up to twelve listings from the standard report that you want to publish (click the checkbox next to the listing number to select it). You can only publish twelve listings at a time.
Create an expanded report (click a blue, underlined listing number for one of the listings you selected and then choose an expanded report type from the list of formats available).
To add directions to the report, click Routing.
While viewing the expanded report, click Publish listing.

An e-mail form appears.

In the Send To box, enter the e-mail addresses of the recipients (for example, client@hometown.com).
Enter your message for the recipients in the Email Comments box.
Important! Be sure to include an e-mail address where the receiver should e-mail you. On most sites, receivers are not able to reply to notification e-mails.
In the Web Page Title box, enter the title for the Web page where the published report is viewed.

For example, "A Great Home for You".

10. In the Web Page Comments box, enter the text you want to appear at the bottom of the Web page.

For example "This is a great house! Call me at 555-1212 to set up a viewing. - Jane Agent"

If you would like to include a link to a map for the listings, select the Show Map Link option.
If you would like to include a link for directions to the listings, select the Show Routing Link option.
If you would like to include the address on the page with the directions, select the Show Address option.
If a virtual tour has been created for a listing, select the Show Virtual Tour option to include a link to the Web based tour.
Click OK.

After a few moments you'll see a confirmation message that the mail has been sent. Click OK to close the confirmation box.
To return to the original standard report, click Back.

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