Recognizing that its member agents and brokers are not only selling to international buyers but representing listings in other countries, one of the nation’s biggest multiple listing services has streamlined the process for its members to enter, search for and market international properties.
Midwest Real Estate Data LLC, which serves nearly 40,000 members in the Greater Chicago area, worked with its MLS platform provider, dynaConnections Corp., to create custom international listing functions that are now live after being approved by MRED’s board of directors.
“Real estate has gone global, and there is no better way for us to support our real estate professionals than to give them the best functionality for international listings in our connectMLS system,” MRED Chairman Jeff Gregory said in a statement.
MRED, which provides services to a region encompassing northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin and northwest Indiana, says it expects Central American countries like Costa Rica, Belize and Mexico to be particularly well-represented in international listings.
Before the update, MRED members could list international properties under an area that covered “outside of the U.S.” that was not recognized by mapping, and they had to choose property types that included required fields that were often irrelevant for international properties.
The new property type specifically designed for international listings addressed these issues and presents a streamlined, relevant set of data, an MRED spokesman said.
After selecting “international” as the property type, connectMLS users gain access to the same set of features available for other listing types, including the ability to collaborate with the seller and buyer through secure portals, and share documents, access forms and track milestones related to the home, dynaConnections said.
The international property type and data fields are available through the Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS), and international listings will show up when agents and brokers publicize each other’s listings through Internet data exchange (IDX) websites.
