The following active members of the Regional Multiple Listing Service hereby petition the RMLS Board of Directors to revise Rule 3.25 regarding the advertised status of short sale listings: “A Short Sale listing may remain designated as “active” after the Seller’s acceptance of an offer until all necessary 3rd Party approvals have been obtained or unless additional offers will no longer be presented to or considered by the 3rd party.”

This rule can be extremely detrimental to a short sale seller who is facing a pending foreclosure date. There is often very little commitment from a buyer submitting an offer on a short sale property. If the 3rd party has determined that only 1 offer will be submitted, and the listing is marked Pending, the seller is left to wait & hope that the buyer remains committed to the property. Too often, buyers continue viewing homes, tire of waiting for 3rd party response, or just change their minds, leaving the seller and listing broker to start the entire process all over again.

RMLS gives brokers two fields which communicate information regarding short sale listings. One identifies whether or not the listing is a short sale, and the other identifies if an offer has been submitted to the 3rd party. With over 17% of the Active inventory in the Portland Metro area identified as short sales, the RMLS Agent Full Printout should be providing more specific information regarding the status of short sale listings. In contrast, we have a status option specific to “bumpable offers” which make up less than 1% of the available inventory in the Portland Metro area.

Buyers have the right to know the status of short sale listings, but it should not be to the detriment of sellers. There needs to be a different solution, other than marking these listings as Pending.  Please revisit Rule 3.25 and the data fields available on RMLS Printouts. 

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