Many agents where “duplicating” listings in our MLS to try to get better exposure. The integrity of our data was jeopardized as we may see a large for listed for $3,000,000 – $5,000,000 entered into our MLS as a “Farm” and again as a “Residential”.

Below is the announcement from our local association, as as they are most of the time, CAAR is right on the money!

Property Type “Farm” Removed from Residential Category

(Effective September 16, 2009) To help with data integrity and property searches, the property type “farm” has been removed from the Residential category. Many properties were listed twice in the same category by manipulating address data, which skews inventory and statistics. Members were also concerned about the public missing searches for farm properties, even though farms showed up automatically in Residential searches unless specifically excluded.

I for one want to see accurate data and this is a big step in the right direction.