Manage Status Names

Manage Status Names

 

What is status?

All MLS systems use a status field to represent which step in the listing process a property is currently on. This lets real estate professionals know which properties are currently for sale, have already been sold, or are somewhere in between.

What statuses are recognized by Dynamo MC™?

The four statuses recognized are:

• Sold – This is a closed sale.
• Active – This is an active listing that is still accepting offers.
• Pending – This is a listing that has an accepted contract, but has not yet closed. Most importantly, it is not accepting offers.
• Inactive – This listing was active, but has been removed for some reason.

 

How does Dynamo MC™ use status?

Dynamo MC™ looks at the status for each property to determine the listing history for your market. Dynamo MC™ recognizes most of the status names used by MLS systems, and we add new status names to our database every day to keep our program easy for new appraisers to use. However, because MLS systems are so different, sometimes a status comes along that Dynamo MC™ does not recognize. If this happens, you will need to teach these status names to the program on the “Manage Status Names” page.

You can access this page by clicking the “Manage status names” button on step 3, or by clicking “Manage Status Names” under the “Tools” menu.

Using the Manage Status Names screen

You can see all of the status names that Dynamo MC™ recognizes on this screen. The status names shown will be different for your copy of Dynamo MC™. The screen is separated into four sections where you can manage one of the four status names: Sold, Active, Pending, and Inactive. Each section is shown below in a different color.

Please be aware that you must click “Save & Exit” when leaving for your settings to be saved. If you have made changes, Dynamo MC™ will remind you that leaving this screen will cause your changes to be lost. If you make a mistake, you can easily reset your changes by closing (without saving) and coming back to this screen.

Adding a status name

When your MLS uses a status name that is not recognized, you will need to add that status name to the appropriate status in Dynamo MC™. The first step is deciding which of the four statuses this status should fit under.

Sometimes determining the correct status is not so easy. This typically happens when dealing with statuses that fall somewhere in between, such as contingent sales or backup statuses. Dynamo MC™ does not automatically classify many of these status names because the true meaning of these varies greatly between MLS systems. To properly classify these status names for your MLS, please consider how your MLS them. You can determine which status is appropriate by asking your self this question:

Are properties with a status somewhere between active and pending still accepting offers on the market?

• If yes – then it is best to consider this as an “Active” status name.
• If no – then it is best to consider this as an “Pending” status name.

You may also look at the date fields in your data (such as pending date) to receive a hint as to whether or not this status is considered to be a pending sale or not. (Please keep in mind that Dynamo MC™ will require any property classified as “Pending” to have a corresponding pending date.)

When you do determine which status you should use, click the “Add” button under the appropriate status.

You will be presented with a dialog that allows you to type in the name of the status you would like to use. It does not matter if you use upper or lower case characters here, as they are all treated the same.

When you click “Ok”, your new status name will be added to the current list and will now be recognized by Dynamo MC™. However, if this name was already being used, you may see one of the following errors:

This status name already exists in this list

You can safely ignore this error, because the status name you were attempting to add is already in place. There is no action you need to take here.

This status name already exists in another list

This error indicates that the status name you are attempting to add is already being used by another status. A status name can only be used by one status at a time. You will need to determine which status this status name should belong to, and if necessary, remove it from the other status before adding it here.

Please keep in mind that you can drastically alter the way Dynamo MC™ performs calculations on your data by manipulating the status names. Please always do your due diligence to ensure that the statuses you add are correct and representative of how your MLS uses them.

Removing a status name

If you discover that the status names in Dynamo MC™ do not accurately reflect the status names used by your MLS, or if you ever make a mistake when adding a status name, you may wish to remove a status name.

To remove a status name, simply select one (or more) status names from the appropriate status. Then click the “Remove Selected” button under that status, and any selected entries will be removed from the list.

 

Downloading updated status names

When you ran Dynamo MC™ for the first time, an updated list of all recognized status names was automatically retrieved and stored from the internet. This only happens the very first time you run the program so that it doesn’t interfere with your status names once you get them working properly.

If your computer was not connected to the internet when you first ran Dynamo MC™, you may want to retrieve them using the “Download and add updated names for all statuses” button. Keep in mind that this will only add status names that are not currently used on your system, and any existing values will remain as they are now.

 

Resetting all status names

You may choose to reset all status names to their initial values by clicking the “Reset all statuses to default values” button. This will remove any status names that you have entered, as well as any that were downloaded by Dynamo MC™. It is almost always a good idea to download the updated status names after doing this, as you will benefit from more of the status names in your data being automatically recognized.

 

Finishing up

Remember that you must click “Save & Exit” when leaving for your changes to be saved. If you have made changes, Dynamo MC™ will remind you that leaving this screen will cause your changes to be lost.