Boise area MLS to enforce selling price disclosure

Starting July 1st, 2008, the Intermountain MLS, the multiple listing service (MLS) in and around the Boise area, will begin to enforce Section 2.5 of its Rules & Regulations regarding disclosure of sales price. And I say, “Hooray”. Over the past year or so as prices have been coming down off their unsustainable highs, more and more homes that were sold reported a “0″ (Zero) sales price. That made it even more difficult for Realtors to provide accurate information to potential sellers.

When a Realtor provides a CMA (comparative market analysis) to a potential seller to establish a sales price, they pull “sold” properties off the MLS. When sold properties report a Zero ($0) sales price, the Realtor is unable to use that “comp” - even if all the variables about that house match well with the seller’s home.

You ask, “Why would someone report a $0 sales price?” Several reasons come to mind:
1) New construction - the builder doesn’t want to reveal the sales price because it might affect the sales price of the next home he/she builds,
2) If the buyer is “flipping” the house, the buyer may not want to reveal what they paid for the house,
3) A local real estate company was advertising that they were selling homes at or near the asking price but then began to report the sales price on many of their listings as $0 in the MLS.

All in all, I’m glad that the Idaho legislature amended the Idaho Real Estate Code and that the IMLS will begin enforcing its Rules so that sold prices will be disclosed in the IMLS. In this time of falling prices, it’s important to provide up-to-date and accurate information to sellers.