Service will free Realtors from work related to home showings

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Instead, they can call Centralizeds Showing Service, a company that has signed a three-yead contract with the Capita l Region Multiple Listing Service tocoordinate showings. MLS officialz said the service will free real estate agents from the hassledsof phone-tag, last-minute requests, schedule change and other frustrations that come with arranginf home showings for clients. Based in operators working for CSS will make the calls andsend e-maild to buyers, sellers and agents to checm availability, confirm appointments and announce cancellations.
Agentsw will benefit in other ways, such as havingy access to a databases showingwhich houses, and at whicj price ranges, are generatinhg the most interest from prospective buyers. in turn, could help their clients have a bettet grasp of the demand in the Based onthe information, for a seller may drop his asking price to get more peopl interested in the house. “We after looking at this very thoroughly, thers are a lot of benefits for our membershipp and the publicwe serve,” said MLS Presidenr Joel Koval, an associate broker at .
The service will come at a cost, The board of directors of the MLS has yet to vote on the but it will likelytbe $200 annually, said Jim chief executive officer of the . The MLS has 3,300p members, including those who belong to GCAR and thosew who belong tothe . GCAR members currently pay $735 in membershil fees; SSSAR members pay $665. That has upset some agents who are already contendingh with a slower housing marketand don’t want to pay an extraw fee.
Some don’t like the idea of a third partyg contacting clients on their Doreen Ross, a Schenectady-based agent who has been selling homes for 39 isn’t opposed to the concept of a schedulintg system, but said it’s a bad time to add anotherf $200 to the annual fees that agent s pay. “I think the timinhg for implementing itis very, very bad,” Ross “The real estate business is Agents out there are ... It’s just bad timing.” Ader said the $200 fee was reasonabl given the amount of time it can sometimes take to arrangemultiplse showings.
“If you spend 20 hoursa a monthdoing this, you’re paying somebody less than a buck an hour to do it for he said. Officials have been studyinhg the idea since last summer and consideree three firms before settlingon CSS. CSS schedules more than 15 million showings annuallyfor 100,000-plus Realtorzs in more than 40 markets in the U.S., according to its Web mdemasi@bizjournals.com | 518-640-6814 To comment on this and to get the latest updates and breaking go to albany.bizjournals.com.