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Carver Communications - Index

Carver Communications - 7.1.08 - Index

Second quarter Town Hall meetings
were held June 9th through June 17th at six
different locations throughout San Antonio.
Topics discussed included the upcoming
TAR Convention in September, the SABOR
Housing Forecast on January 6th, 2009, and
a presentation from dynaConections, the
new MLS provider for SABOR beginning
October 1st, 2008. In addition to these topics,
attendees listened to a presentation
called eTHICS of eCommerce. Three different
speakers over the course of the six
meetings presented key ways to make sure
your property listing information and company
Web site is in compliance with the
NAR Code of Ethics.
eThics of eCommerce addressed
Internet issues every REALTOR® needs to
know when creating a Web site or placing
listings online. When the Internet was first
created, there were no ethics guidelines to
follow when it came to creating a Web site
for the public. The National Association of
REALTORS® Professional Standards
Committee decided to implement rules and
regulations for its REALTOR® members to
maintain the credibility and professional
By Bob Leonard
Chairman, San Antonio Board of REALTORS®
2nd Quarter Town Hall Review
image of the REALTOR® organization.
They decided that ethical practice was to
never mislead the public in any way.
One way a REALTOR® must determine
he or she is being ethically compliant
is by using the term MLS correctly. Using
the term MLS, or Multiple Listing Service,
on your Web site implies that all of the
information and data REALTORS® have
access to is also available to the public.
Since this is not the case, and Internet Data
Exchanges (IDXs) provide only limited
fields of data, the use of the terms “MLS
Search” or “San Antonio MLS” link is misleading.
If you have an IDX feed for people
to search on your site, the link should
say “Home Search” or “Houses for Sale.”
Another way REALTORS® must be
compliant is by providing their name and
company information in a readily accessible
format on every page of their Web site.
According to the Code of Ethics, Article 12-
5, “REALTORS® shall not advertise…listed
property in any medium (e.g. electronically,
print, radio, television, etc.) without
disclosing the name of that REALTOR’S®
firm in a reasonable and readily apparent
July 1, 2008 REAL ESTATE NEWSLINE 3
manner.” In other words, the company/broker
information should not be buried pages
deep into your Web site. You cannot mislead
the public to think you are a standalone
broker when in fact you are an agent in
someone else’s company or vice-versa. You
must also keep in mind that if you are conducting
real estate under a different name
than what appears on your license and what
is registered with TREC, you must fill out a
DBA (Doing Business As) form letting
TREC know what that other name is. For
example, if your license says Robert M.
Smith, but you go by Bob Smith, you need
to notify them.
When creating a Web site, many
REALTORS® don’t realize that when they
hire a programmer, the REALTOR® is ultimately
responsible for what the programmer
creates, even if the REALTOR® doesn’t
understand the underlying code of the
page. Metatags, for example, are often
placed in the code of Web sites to make the
site appear on Search Engines. These keywords
are hidden from view to the consumer
and are used to direct, drive or divert
Internet traffic to a certain site. When you
create a Web site or hire someone to create
it for you, the metatags used must comply
with the Code of Ethics. You cannot, for
example, place key words in the coding that
do not pertain to your specific company or
profession just so your Web site will come
up over someone else’s. An example would
be that Burger King cannot place the key
words “Big Mac” into the coding of their
Web site so that when people search “Big
Mac” Burger King will come up instead of
McDonald’s.
When placing any kind of information
online, it is very important to keep it all
consistent and current. Many times, listings
will end up in various locations on the Web
without your knowledge through an IDX,
but if the information is conflicting, it is
misleading the public. REALTORS® are
expected to make timely updates to their
information in a reasonable amount of time,
not necessarily two or three weeks after you
realize the discrepancy.
In addition to maintaining current
information, it is important that REAL-
TORS® use the term “REALTOR®” and
the REALTOR® “R” correctly. When placing
the name “REALTOR®” in a domain
name, it can only refer to you as a member
or your company name. You may not use
the term REALTOR® in your domain name
with descriptive words or phrases such as
www.number1realtor.com. That is considered
a violation. You can, however, have
something like www.janrealtorbroker.com.
When placing the term REALTOR® on
your site, it must be capitalized in all places
unless it is in a domain name or internet
address. Additionally, if you use the
REALTOR® R as a link on your site, it can
only go to one of two places:
REALTOR.org or REALTOR.com. Any
other link is not allowed.
If all REALTORS® were to abide by
these rules, the REALTOR® image would
improve and REALTORS® could remain
central and valued in real estate transactions.
For more information on this topic
and the NAR Code of Ethics, I invite you to
visit www.sabor.com and www.realtor.org.