In my previous post, I mentioned the City of Austin’s proposed ordinance that would require sellers to obtain a certificate of compliance before selling their home.  Well, a lot of people have questions about this issue, so The Austin Board of Realtors has launched a new site at www.keepaustinaffordable.com that will hopefully answer these questions and also allow you to inform your friends and neighbors.  So go take a look at the site and please share the information.
Tag: ABOR
Rant on SafeMLS
Recently the Austin Board of Realtors required all Realtors to carry a new device called SafeMLS key. This ‘key’ produces a unique password every time you press its button. You are required to use it every time you login to the MLS system. This is supposed to make the MLS safer by keeping others who may have obatained your password from being able to login as you since they will not have this key. However, it seems to be more of a nuisance than a benefit. I, for one, don’t have a problem with people logging in as me since I don’t give my password out to other people. But now, if I forget my ‘key’ at home than I am screwed. I cannot log in to the system and help clients unless I drive all the way home first. This is ridiculous.
Realtors also use an eKey which is the device we use to unlock lockboxes when showing a property. It is about the size of a pager. This was a hassle but at least it provided a useful tool. I got tired of carrying this around so I recently upgraded so that I may now use my Treo as my eKey which means one less device I have to carry around. As soon as I did that, ABOR announced this new SafeMLS initiative, so back to more devices to carry. What a hassle.