I am pleased to announce a firm date for the final cutover to RAHB’s Matrix MLS® System – Tuesday, October 17, 2017!
This means that at noon on October 17, 2017, you will have access to all RAHB and regional MLS® listings (both actives and solds) in one system – RAHB’s Matrix system. Since you will no longer need to login to the regional system after that date, regional accounts will then be disabled and Fusion will be retired.
Here are a few things you need to know leading up to the cutover:
In order to facilitate data sharing between RAHB and ORTIS, there will be a brief period where no data will flow from the RAHB Matrix System to the regional Matrix system. Any new listings (or changes to existing listings) entered after 6:00 p.m. on October 1, 2017 will not be reflected in the regional Matrix system until 12:00 p.m. on October 3, 2017. During this time, it is recommended that you use both the RAHB Matrix system and Regional Matrix system for all of your searches. This will ensure that you are seeing the most up-to-date RAHB listings, while continuing to see listings from the regional boards/associations.
As of Tuesday, October 3, 2017 you will see regional data in the RAHB Matrix MLS® System. The data will be live and updated every 15 minutes. Make sure your auto emails are up-to-date and turned on in the RAHB Matrix system and turned off in Fusion and the regional Matrix system after October 3, 2017. You can access the RAHB Matrix system on your single sign-on dashboard at my.rahb.ca.
There will be one final pull of saved searches and auto-emails from both Fusion and the regional Matrix system into the RAHB Matrix system the week before the October 17 cutover. After the final pull, you must maintain your searches in the RAHB Matrix system. If you modify your searches in Fusion or the regional Matrix system after the final pull, those modifications will not carry over to the RAHB Matrix system. We will announce that specific pull date as we get closer to cutover.
There will be a period from 4 p.m.on Monday, October 16to Tuesday, October 17, 2017 at noon when you will not be able to enter or modify listings in either Fusion or the RAHB Matrix system. Both systems will be available in read-only mode, which means you will only be able to conduct searches. Any listings that are not broker loaded prior to 4 p.m.on Monday October 16 must be completed using the new RAHB listing forms(click for tutorial) which will be available in an online PDF and at the Realty Shoppe on September 27, 2017.
Once we have officially cutover on Tuesday October 17, 2017 you will load and edit your listings and perform new searches within the RAHB Matrix system.
What can you do now to prepare?
• Update your custom marketing materials (saved views, shortcuts, headers, footers, personal logos, etc.) in the RAHB Matrix system. You can learn how to do this on our Basic Matrix video tutorials posted on rahb.ca/matrix.
• Practice broker loading on the RAHB Matrix Broker Load test site. This will allow you to become acquainted with the Matrix Input function in a practice environment before you have to use it to enter live data this fall. Learn how.
• Start creating stats chart in RAHB Matrix. Once we cutover, RAHB’s Statistical Information Management (SIM) program will be retired. As such, you will need to generate all of your real estate stats within the RAHB Matrix system. Follow this tutorial for all of the details.
• Free Matrix training courses are available at the RAHB office. Check out dates and times on our events calendar, and register soon – courses fill up quickly!
• Watch your inbox for our weekly newsletter, NewsReal, for the latest Matrix updates.
If you have any questions about the RAHB Matrix system or the final cutover, please visit rahb.ca/matrix or call the MLS® department at 905.667.4650 – our staff are ready to help you Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Thank you for your patience, and thank you for being a RAHB member.
The REALTORS® Association of Hamilton-Burlington (RAHB)reported 1,748 new listings were processed through the RAHB Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) System in August, which is 5.4 per cent higher than the same month last year and 4.2 per cent higher than the 10-year average. Click here to read the full stats report.
Have you had buyers who, when sitting in front of a listed property, decided they no longer wished to see the home? Or have you been running late with your buyers, so you need to cancel a showing? When that happens, do you contact the listing brokerage to cancel?
Your answer to that should be an emphatic “Yes!”. If your answer was “No”, or you aren’t sure, take a look at what happened in a Professional Standards complaint heard at RAHB. This is an actual case.
A salesperson, “Bob” (not the actual salesperson’s real name), contacted a Listing Brokerage to make an appointment to view their listed property. When Bob and his buyers arrived at the property, the buyers decided they didn’t like the location and didn’t want to even look inside the house, so they moved on to the next house. Bob did not contact the Listing Brokerage or the seller to say they wouldn’t be keeping the appointment.
The sellers were extremely upset, as they had tidied up and taken three young children and two dogs out of the house for the appointed time, and then Bob and his buyers didn’t view the house and didn’t have the courtesy to cancel the appointment. The Sellers told their Listing Salesperson they were disappointed and frustrated, and they thought Bob lacked professionalism because he failed to cancel the appointment.
The Listing Salesperson filed a complaint about Bob with RAHB’s Professional Standards Committee. The complaint was based on RAHB’s MLS® Rules and Regulations, Section 8 – Selling Procedures, Sub-section 8.04 that says:
If a Member is unable to keep an appointment, the Member shall: i. Where the appointment was made directly with the Listing Brokerage, advise the Listing Brokerage, or if direct contact with the Listing Brokerage is not possible, advise the Seller directly, or ii. Where the appointment was made directly with the Seller as permitted under these Rules, advise the Seller directly.
After going through the Professional Standards/Discipline process, Bob was ultimately required to pay a fine of $500 and hearing fee costs of $250.
SUMMING UP: you are responsible for notifying the Listing Brokerage or seller if you aren’t keeping an appointment. Not cancelling an appointment is considered unprofessional by consumers and other members alike, it shows a lack of respect of the seller’s time and efforts, and it is a breach of RAHB’s MLS® Rules and Regulations.
In Fusion, you have been used to looking at listing details on “Reports”. In Matrix, they are referred to as “Displays”. There are nine displays available to you in Matrix – here’s what each one provides.
1. REALTOR® Single Line – print MLS® number, status, property type, address, municipality, neighbourhood, city, sq.ft., beds, baths, DOM and list date
3. REALTOR® Full – print with or without header and footer, as well as listing information, rooms, open house dates, listing history and photos
4. REALTOR® Full with Signature – enter a listing directly into Matrix and print off report to have the Sellers sign. Using this option means you can avoid double entry of manually filling in the listing form AND inputting the listing into Matrix (This feature is available only after we cut over to Matrix)
5. REALTOR® Single Line Sold – displays sale information such as sale price, SP/LP ratio, selling date, and DOM, along with property information such as MLS® number, address, municipality, type/sub-type, style, beds, baths, square footage, and price
6. Client Single Line – display and print client-friendly information such as last change type, MLS® number, status, address, property type and subtype, price, municipality, beds, baths, square footage.
7. Client Thumbnail – print address, city, MLS® number, property style/type, heat, water, beds, baths, garage, sq.ft., age, pool, neighbourhood, listing brokerage, status
8. Client Full – print listing details not in conflict with privacy laws
Once we make the final cutover from Fusion to RAHB Matrix in the fall, the Fusion MLS® system will be permanently retired. At that point, you will be doing everything, including listing input, in Matrix. But this doesn’t mean that you need to wait until cutover to learn how to enter listings in Matrix! You can practice broker loading or just preview the listings input module in Matrix.
To access the test site:
1. Sign in to RAHB Matrix via the my.rahb.ca single sign-on dashboard.
2. Click on the Input(Test) tab located at the top of your screen in Matrix.
3. This will take you to the RAHB Matrix test environment. Click on the Input tab to to use the listings input function.
4. Once you are in the input area, you will have a choice: Add new or Edit existing Listings. Click on Add new.
Once you’ve chosen Add new, you will see:
5. Click on the type of listing you will entering. For this sample, we are choosing Residential Edit, so click on it.
6. From the next screen, click on Start with a blank listing:
Even though this seems to refer to a cross property listing, when you click on Start with a blank Listing, you will still be seeing the input screen for residential listings.
7. From that point on, you will see the input screen that will work with the new Residential Data Input form.
Please note that any data that you enter in staging will be test only. Working in the test environment will not produce an active listing!
8. Once you are finished in staging, click on Back to Production to go back to the live RAHB Matrix site.
Want more help?
You will find a RAHB tutorial on broker loading in Matrix in our video library at http://rahb.ca/matrix – just scroll down to How to Broker Load in Matrix. The video is a little over 40 minutes and has great information and tips for using all the features in Matrix broker load.
We hope that you will use this opportunity to learn and understand RAHB Matrix listing input so you can be ready to broker load your listings in Matrix as soon as we cut over in the fall.
As always, please feel free to contact our MLS® Department with any questions. We are available Monday to Friday between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
The REALTORS® Association of Hamilton-Burlington (RAHB)reported 2,013 new listings were processed through the RAHB Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) System in July, which is 17.8 per cent higher than the same month last year, 9.2 per cent higher than the 10-year average and the most new listings in the month of July. All property sales were 20.4 per cent lower than the same month last year, and 12.9 per cent lower than the 10-year average. To read the full stats release, visit our market stats page.
Have you been keeping up on the Matrix updates sent to you? Would you like to see some tutorials about RAHB’s new Matrix MLS® System, and some how-to videos?
It’s easy to keep up on how to prepare for and use RAHB’s new Matrix 7.0 MLS® System! Just go to rahb.ca/matrix– you will go to our page where you will find the information you need.
Be sure to watch your email inbox for weekly updates and information about using Matrix. If you have any questions, please contact our MLS® Help Desk at 905.667.4650 or mls@rahb.ca – our staff are available Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
How’s your shorthand? Here are some shorthand symbols to use in Matrix:
The plus symbol + or minus – symbol will indicate “greater than” or “less than” values.
Example:10+ for more than 10 and 10- for less than 10. (Enter 10 for exactly 10.)
If you are looking for a range, enter it as 10-50 (as an example)
The asterisk * is a wildcard.
Example: enter p* in the Street Name search field to get all the streets beginning with the letter P that meet all the criteria you have entered (region, city, etc)
The question mark ? can be used with a letter or number as a length delimiter.
Exampe: p?? will return pow, pwr, pan, pic, pro, pub.
The exclamation mark ! means “not”. Example: !3 in a field will give you all responses except those that equal 3.
To select more than one item, hold down the CTRL key on the keyboard while clicking on the desired items with your mouse.
To remove a selected item, hold down the CTRL key on the keyboard while clicking with your mouse and the item will deselect.
What’s the Speed Bar for?
The Speed Bar is a multi-purpose searching tool will allow you to run a search from any screen. To learn more about this very handy function, go to Help in RAHB Matrix, and click on Speed Bar.
Fill Your Cart!
Matrix allows you to put aside listings for review at a later time. When you see a listing you would like to review later for a client, or put aside for use as a comparable, click on Carts from the Actions menu located at the bottom of your screen. You will then be given a list of carts you can add the listing to. You have one cart for each property type, and one for each client.
For the client carts, you can put aside listings that you feel your client may be interested in, but may fall outside of their search criteria. At any time, you can open the client’s cart from your home page (or from the contacts list), and email some (or all) of the listings in the cart. The system will automatically keep track of when you emailed the listing to your client, and will display the date the listing was emailed beside the listing, or it will read Never if the listing has never been emailed.
For more information about using your Cart, go to Help in RAHB Matrix, click on Matrix Video Tutorials and choose Carts Video Tutorials.
With a change to a new MLS® System comes new Data Input forms for your listings. What’s new about the forms? Plenty! Check out the information below, and then follow the links to the new forms and their explanatory notes.
What you need to know about the new forms
There will be just two Data Input forms instead of five:
RESIDENTIAL – to be used for residential (freehold/condominium), multi-residential, farm and vacant land (lots)
COMMERCIAL – to be used for commercial retail property, industrial, investment, office, sale of business, store with apartment/office and vacant land (commercial)
You will be required to use these forms for listings you will be entering into RAHB’s Matrix MLS® System starting on the cutover date. Because many fields will have changed from the old forms, you would be unable to properly complete the new fields in Broker Load in Matrix if you use the old forms. For the same reason, you can’t use the new forms for listings you are entering into Fusion before the cutover to Matrix.
The new forms will soon be available for sale in the Realty Shoppe – watch for a notice with the date. They will also be available in WEBForms® on cutover day.
What’s most notable about the new Data Input forms?
Something you will notice immediately is that the fields are organized under common areas:
Residential Form
Data Common to All Property Types
LOCATION
AMOUNT/ DATES
LEASE/ RENTAL information (if applicable)
EXTERIOR
INTERIOR
ROOMS/ (and their) DETAILS
COMMENTS
OTHER – Listing Brokerage information, etc.
Data Relevant to Specific Property Types
CONDOMINIUM
FARM
MULTI-RESIDENTIAL
VACANT LAND (LOTS)
Reference Sheet
Features and codes; reference table, multi-story illustrations; definitions
Commercial Form
Data Common to All Property Types
PROPERTY INFORMATION
AMOUNT/ DATES (including LEASE/ RENTAL information if applicable)
When we cut over to the RAHB Matrix system on October 17, 2017, RAHB’s Statistical Information Management (SIM) program will be retired. As such, you will need to generate all of your real estate stats within the RAHB Matrix system.
Getting Started with RAHB Matrix Stats
Do you want to be able to show your clients and customers how the market has looked over the last year? What about the last five years? Or even ten years? RAHB Matrix 7.0 lets you create statistics charts that can be customized according to your client’s individual needs.
Below is an example of a customized chart created in RAHB Matrix 7.0 showing the number of residential sales over the last 10 years, overlaid by the median days on market:
The criteria for this chart are shown in the bottom left-hand corner.
How this chart was created
When you click on the Stats tab on the Matrix 7.0 homepage, you’ll arrive on a search screen containing a Presets and Customize menu on the left hand side. Use the search screen to input in your basic criteria – the municipality or neighbourhood you want to focus on, the type of listing, etc. Then go to the menu on the left to choose the information you want chart for listings that match your criteria.
You can choose the information and type of chart you want from one of the system presets under the Presets tab or choose from a wider range of options under the Customize tab. Click on Advanced Options to have even more choice. For this particular chart, the customized criteria (using advanced options) looked like this:
Once you have put in the type of statistic you want and how you want it to appear, click on Generate to create your stats chart.
The chart shows, graphically, the ups and downs in the sales and median days on market. However, if you are interested in the actual numbers that went into the graph, click on the Data tab for the actual numbers.
This is only one of many combinations of information and stats graphs you can create using RAHB Matrix 7.0. Be sure to explore all the options!
Want to Know More? Watch the Video Tutorial Below!
RAHB Matrix has been launched with the most current product version – Matrix 7.0! CoreLogic has added several new and exciting features to this MLS® system such as…
Updated Client Portal
Your clients will find the new Matrix 7.0 portal to be easier to navigate with an improved look and feel. The redesigned portal displays well on various mobile devices, giving your clients the freedom to access the site on a computer, tablet or smart phone.
The Client Portal provides you with private websites that let you personally brand the information delivered to each individual client. The portal serves as a powerful communication tool by allowing clients to categorize listings according to their level of interest, as well as logging conversation notes between you and your clients. Your clients can further customize their portal experience by creating and saving searches of their own.
New REALTOR® Headers and Footers
A new library of professionally designed header graphics is now available in RAHB Matrix 7.0! Go to the My Matrix tab then select the Settings drop-down option. Under My Information, select Header & Footer. Here you can view the new headers and footers and choose the one that best suits your brand and personality. You can also upload your own.
Notifications of Portal Activity
You can now be notified via email when a contact is active on their portal! Whether it be adding listing notes, or saving favourites, you can stay up-to-date on your client activity.
Updated REALTOR® Web Pages
The RAHB Matrix 7.0 REALTOR® Web Pages also have been updated to match the new client portal design.
Google Maps
The RAHB Matrix 7.0 now has up-to-date street maps and aerial views with the Google Maps mapping service.
Watch your inbox for more updates as we countdown to the RAHB Matrix 7.0 cutover! For an archive of past resources, visit rahb.ca/matrix.
Have you checked out RAHB’s new Matrix 7.0 MLS® System yet?
Logging in to Matrix
Login to RAHB’s Matrix system through http://my.rahb.ca – your new single sign on (SSO) dashboard with links to RAHB’s Matrix, the regional Matrix system, Fusion (for now), RAHB’s membership resources and REALTOR® tools. Login as you normally would for your current SSO or Fusion, then use the RAHB Matrix button to go to Matrix – no further login is required.
First things first
The first thing to notice about the new RAHB Matrix 7.0 is that the home page is quite different from the home page in Fusion, and even a little different from your home page in the regional Matrix system. RAHB beta testers gave us valuable input about how best to organize the home page for RAHB users.
The best way to become familiar with your RAHB Matrix home page is to thoroughly explore all of the main menu tabs and widgets.
Here’s a short list of where to find the things you might use most:
Links to RAHB Education/Account Services, GeoWarehouse, WEBForms®, CONNECT, REALTOR Link® and the CREA DDF dashboard are found under the drop-down menu in the Tools tab.
Links to OREA Standard Forms and Clauses and Education, ca, OREA, REALTOR.ca, and RECO are found under the Linkstab as well as the External Linkshomepagewidget.
Also in the Links tab/External Linkswidget are links to Tax and Zoning Information, CREA sites, OREA sites, RAHB’s public website, blog and MLS® Rules and Regulations and more – be sure to check them out.
Enjoy your journey through your new Matrix home page!
Contacts and saved searches
One of the first things you will want to do after you’ve become at least a little familiar with your Matrix 7.0 homepage, is check your contacts and saved searches. These have been moved from Fusion and the regional Matrix system to the RAHB Matrix system.
If you have been using only Fusion for your searches and maintaining your contact list, it is especially important that you make sure all the information in your saved searches and contacts is correct because some of the fields in Fusion do not line up with fields in Matrix. If information is missing or incorrect, you will want to edit the information and save it. It is important that you turn ON your saved searches in Matrix and turn OFF your saved searches in Fusion. (When RAHB members first accessed the regional system, all saved searches were moved over to the regional system. If you haven’t turned on those searches and have continued to use your Fusion saved searches, then those searches in the regional system will still be there, and will be moved over.)
Find out more about how to find and update your contacts and saved searches in this How-To Guide.
Want to know more about Matrix?
When you are in Matrix, click on the Help tab near the top right-hand corner, then click on Matrix Training Guides, and Matrix 7.0 Quick Start Guide.
We will continue to add to and update the content available to you on the Helptab.
For a complete playlist of RAHB recorded webinars and tutorials on different aspects of working in Matrix, go to http://bit.ly/RAHBtutorials . (Some of the videos are shown as Matrix 6.5, but will still be helpful.)
Need more help?
As always, our MLS® staff are here to help you navigate your way through RAHB’s MLS® system – just call 905.667.4650 or email mls@rahb.ca.
