Friday, August 19, 2022

The MLS® is a REALTOR®’s most powerful marketing tool. But with thousands of homes added each month, making your listing stand out can be a challenge.

That’s why uploading accurate, comprehensive, and complete listing information using the Data Input Form (DIF) is so important. It’s how buyers and their Realtors find your listing through any MLS® access point, whether its Paragon, Realtylink, or REALTOR.ca.

To help your listing stand out, here’s five of our top tips to help you complete the DIF:

Select the correct property type for your listings

Misrepresenting what kind of home you’re listing can hide it from potential buyers and will likely expose it to uninterested home hunters. As well, the only way to change the property type of a listing is to delete the listing and start again, wasting time. 

Complete all the fields that you have information for

Why wouldn’t you want to give as much information as possible to your potential buyers?  Some common pieces of missing information buyers ask for include:

  • The restrictions in a strata if you’ve marked “Pets Allowed with Restrictions”;
  • What amenities are included in their strata payments; and
  • Zoning information  – it’s the most commonly missed field.

No bathroom measurements under the Rooms section of the form

We don’t include bathrooms when totaling the floor space of a property. There’s a section beneath “Rooms” where you can enter the number of bathrooms and what they include. If you have a particularly large bathroom you feel is worth mentioning, using the Realtor or Public remarks is a great way to market this!

Type as much information as possible, don’t handwrite it

Handwritten fields mean our MLS® department, or your unlicensed assistant, has to decipher your handwriting and manually type all the information in, increasing the chance of mistakes and typos that make your listing look unprofessional. 

Submit your listing to be entered within three days of the effective date

The MLS® is all about sharing. Waiting to submit your listing keeps it from being seen by potential buyers and their Realtors. As well, listings submitted to the MLS® department after three days from the effective date will be returned and you’ll need to change the contract and get a fresh set of signatures.

Learn more at our Data Input Form course

Get more tips on completing the Data Input Form at our PDP-accredited course, Leveraging the Data Input Form: Maximize Exposure and Minimize Risk.

Find the next available course date and register now (log in required)