LISTING ENTRY CHANGE

Effective Monday, May 9, 2011 there will be a change in Listing Load.

In our Listing Load the Post Office field is a text field where you type in the Post Office for your listing. While not a problem in the past, lately, this has become an issue with the post office names being entered incorrect or misspelled. When our/your listings are sent to the internet this error is sent along and the listing post office is displayed incorrectly as the property address. It does not portray the listing agent, listing broker or MHMLS in the best light. As an example, the post office Poughkeepsie is spelled in 35 variations; Hopewell Junction is spelled in 24 variations.

The Post Office field in Listing Load will be converted to a drop down for you to choose the appropriate value. The available Post Offices will be generated by the County selected. We will maintain Post Office drop down boxes for our primary areas (counties) being Dutchess, Westchester, Putnam, Ulster, Orange and Columbia. Listings that are entered in the area (county) Other the Post Office field will operate as it does now, a text field.

While we make the transition, you will find some of the Post Offices may not appear in the drop down. In this case contact me at MHMLS. I will verify the missing post office and program it into the database to make it available in the drop down box.

Getting the Correct Tax ID on you Listings

You may verify the proper property id number from the tax records in the MHMLS system through the Tax Search section of the Search Module. You may also auto-populate tax info to your listing automatically by using the tax look-up while in Listing Load. The system uses the full official New York State SWIS 26 digit property id number.

If you use the property id number from a current tax bill you will notice that it is only 22 digits. Some towns truncate the property id number making it confusing. If you encounter this below is the translation to add the missing values to convert the 22 digits to the proper 26 digits.

If the Parcel Id on the tax bill is 132800-9898-01-379911-0000 which is 22 digits, to make it 26 digits add two zeros before the 9898 and two zeros after the 9898 (FYI – in this example 9898 is the map designation) and remove the dashes. The Parcel Id now becomes 13280000989800013799110000.

Vacant House Reminder

Please take special attention to secure the homes you have listed that are vacant. Break-ins of vacant homes continue with the stripping of copper. Asking an adjacent property owner to be mindful of activity around the vacant property and report suspicious activity to the authorities is one step. Another is, if electricity is available is to install a timers on a few lights to give the appearance of occupancy. In a recent case thieves removing copper pipe cut municipal water feed line and it resulted in significant water damage to the lower level of the property.

Lock Box Key Return is Underway

The key return program will be between April 1, 2011 and May 31, 2011. You may return your key in person to MHMLS Monday – Friday (except holidays) between 9am – 12pm and 2pm – 4pm.

Returning the key in person is the preferred method. In the event you must return the key by shipment it must be traceable by the shipper. MHMLS does not accept any responsibility for a shipped key that is lost in transit. When returning a key by shippers include your name, agent id and a self-addressed envelope for the return of your key deposit.

No keys will be accepted or deposits returned after May 31, 2011. Your key must be returned and in our possession by May 31. Only active keys will be accepted. Keys that have previously been forfeited are not eligible for return.