The Basics: An Overview of Terms

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We know sometimes all of the terms we use in this association can be hard to remember.  Here is a snapshot of our Glossary of Terms, we created several years ago to make sure you had the tools to stay knowledgeable.

  • REALTOR®: Pronounced Real-TOR (not real-a-tor) Members of the Local, State and National Board of REALTORS® who pledge to uphold the Code of Ethics of the National Association of REALTORS®. We offer anyone equal rights and access to any REALTOR who pays dues to the Berkshire County Board, regardless of where they pay state and national dues (secondary). This includes voting rights at the annual meeting on REALTOR association issues.
  • Designated REALTOR: The Broker in-charge of the agents in a REALTOR office. Most typically, also known as the “Broker-Owner” or the “Broker of Record” with the Board of Registration, but on occasion, another named broker in charge. They are subject to all rules and regulations and are held responsible for the actions of all agents in their office, including being named in complaints.
  • MLS Participant: The Designated REALTOR who also holds MLS membership and is the solely voting member of the MLS, in behalf of the agents in their office. The far majority of Designated REALTORS are also the Participant in the MLS, but they can be different, or they can be REALTORS elsewhere and only Participate in the MLS, not the Board.
  • MLS User: Anyone who is not the Participant who uses the MLS through the oversight and authority of the MLS Participant / Designated REALTOR. While MLS Users may serve on the MLS Board of Directors, they are not voting members on matter brought to the Participants of the Service at the Annual Meeting.
  • Designated Office: Completely different than a Designated REALTOR, a Designated Office refers to the type of agency relationship offered to clients of the firm. A Designated Agency Office must have more than 3 agents and the broker “designates” which licensees will represent firm clients as a fiduciary. In the “traditional agency” model, fiduciary duties to firm clients are owed by all members of the firm and not one agent specific. Designated Agency Offices must lock files, handle broker open houses differently and limit in-office discussions that may contain confidential information.
  • NRDS, now M1: “National REALTOR Database System” Each member’s unique ID number. We assign each member a 9-digit NRDS ID# that will follow a REALTOR indefinitely – to/from other boards, after a hiatus, moving between offices and is always unique to each member. Members that join the Berkshire Board as their first entry into the trade association have a number that begins with 4475.
  • NAR: National Association of REALTORS. Annual dues for NAR is currently $155 per agent. $45 is earmarked for the Consumer Advertising Campaign, $52 is spent on government affairs/lobbing, $23 is allocated for partners RPR, House Logic, Real Estate Radio, REALTOR domain and ePropertyData. The remaining $36 is spent on admin, technology and educational initiatives.
  • RPR: REALTORS® Property Resource: A National Association of Realtors (NAR) member benefit that provides realtors with online access to comprehensive real estate market data, analytics and reports for each of NAR’s constituencies. RPR is available only to NAR members and is included in yearly NAR dues. As of late 2017, RPR tax data is integrated into our MLS and accessible from within the FlexMLS system.
  • MAR: Massachusetts Association of REALTORS: Annual dues for MAR is currently $161, including $10 assessment for the Private Property Protection Fund
  • CMLS: The Council of Multiple Listing Services (CMLS) is the trade organization that serves to unify MLSs, vendors and professional across the real estate industry. They host and handle the MLS roundtables at the NAR meeting and host their own summit in September. We haver been members for many years.
  • AE: Association Executive. This term includes the CEO, but is also a generic term for any association staff that holds a leadership role in the management of the association
  • ERTS: A common abbreviation for the Exclusive Right to Sell Agreement
  • DMCA: Digital Millennium Copyright Act. All website owners need to register an agent with the US Copyright office in order to qualify for safe harbor provisions, if a copyright violation is found on their website (and they act according to the law to respond to a “take-down” demand and remedy the situation quickly) With real estate sites using content from other brokers (all those photos!) that could be in violation of copyright law, it is important for brokerages to file. https://www.copyright.gov/dmca-directory
  • WISP: The Written Information Security Program is a method to safeguard personal information received by a business, according to Massachusetts law. It is important that every office adopt a WISP policy and conform to the legal requirements of the policy to qualify for safe harbor provisions.
  • RPAC: REALTOR® Political Action Committee. Since 1969, the RPAC has promoted the election of pro-REALTOR® candidates across the United States. These are not from members’ dues; this is money donated freely by REALTORS® in recognition of how important campaign fundraising is to the political process. RPAC doesn’t buy votes. Considered “hard dollars”, only personal funds accepted.
  • PAF: Political Advocacy Fund. Donations are solicited to support advocacy efforts regarding housing, finance and legislative issues affecting our profession. PAF donations can’t be used to contribute directly to federal candidates. Instead funds are used for issues mobilization, to help pass or defeat legislation. Considered “soft dollars”, donations be accepted from corporations or individuals.
  • MRECA – Massachusetts Real Estate Community Alliance:  While we used to provide an opportunity to pay a political advocacy contribution, in 2022 we are allocating to a new fund that stays in Massachusetts. Contributions to MRECA are voluntary and are not tax deductible. This fund is used for research, advocacy and analysis on housing issues in Massachusetts and promote a greater understanding of how housing policies affect the state and economy. It is an incredible opportunity for us to be a part of the housing solution in the state and we ask for your support this year with a fair share contribution. We also honor those contributors who instead chose to contribute to the RPAC that provides PAC dollars to housing friendly candidates. Both are valuable tools in our effort to fight for private property rights and opportunities.
  • CTA – Call to Action (legislative issue arises where BCBR, MAR or NAR ask members to respond en masse to legislators.
  • Investors: Donations of $25 Fair Share; $100 Directors Club; $1,000 Sterling R; $2,500 Crystal R; $3,000 Sterling President’s Club. RPAC & PAF donations both count for these designations and our local goals.
  • Triple Crown Award: Local Associations who exceed their RPAC fundraising goal and exceed the number of contributors expected. First year, 2017– Berkshire 1 of 4 statewide to receive this honor.
  • President’s Cup: Local Associations who exceed their RPAC goals AND have a 20% or more Call-To-Action Response rate. First year, 2017 – Berkshire 1 of 4 statewide to receive this honor.
  • PPPF: Private Property Protection Fund: Run by the Mass Association of REALTORS, this fund currently has $2.5 million and in 2018, an additional $10 assessment is charged to all members to continue to build this reserve. The PPPF is used to advance or defeat legislation anywhere in MA that threatens private property rights or suggestions unfair taxation of property owners.
  • RCE: The REALTOR® Association Certified Executive (RCE) is the only professional designation designed specifically for Association Executives. Only 35% of local CEO’s hold this designation. (Sandy is one)
  • Omega Tau Rho: A NAR award for members showing exemplary dedication and service to the
    association. Recipients become members of the Omega Tau Rho fraternity for life. Sherry Street, Debbie Dwyer and Sandy Carroll are local recipients.
  • Emeritus: Any REALTOR may be named REALTOR Emeritus after a local association shows proof to NAR of membership for 40+ years. Anew requirement is that they must also have at least 5 years of service to the local, state and national association of Realtors. Mary McDermott, Arnie Perras, Doreen Perras, Paul Harsch & Debbie Dwyer.
  • CMLX: CMLS’s certification program. 3 level certification training program offered by CMLS that is designed to identify and recognize individuals who meet a specified level of competence in running a MLS. Sue currently holds the CMLX1 and is working towards the CMLX@. Sandy holds the CMLX2.
  • Ombudsman: A trained, informal peer “mediator” working by telephone (usually) to resolve disputes between parties in a real estate transaction.
  • Mediator: A trained Realtor who attends a formal mediation meeting to help 2 or more parties resolve a dispute. We operate in a 2-mediator system where we have two mediators work jointly in every mediation.
  • DRS: Dispute Resolution System: Formerly in the Purchase and Sale, Buerys and sellers can voluntarily agree to participate in binding mediation through the Housing Authority for contractual disputes before litigation.
  • Tribunal: Trained Professional Standards volunteer members who sit on hearing panels, and render a decision in ethics complaints and arbitration disputes.
  • Appeal Tribunal: A 5-person panel of Board of Director members who sit on appeal hearings that challenge the actions of a tribunal. Appointed by the President as needed.
  • SAC / BAC / NAC: Sub-Agent Compensation (sometime confused with Seller’s Agent), Buyer’s Agent Compensation, Non-Agent Compensation (Facilitators). SAC has been removed from the MLS.
  • Short ID: The ID that is assigned by the FlexMLS system for each agent. This ID is used for background applications and when other software attempts to connect to the database (such as Realtor.com, Ziplogix, etc). The short ID can be found by calling the staff or running a roster report (and checking off short ID for a field) Sometimes called the member’s MLS ID.
  • FBS: The makers of FlexMLS. Also known as our “MLS Vendor”
  • Ziplogix / REmine: The ziplogix forms software that WAS part of your NAR membership, and now is REmine through MAR, all that integrates electronic secure signing and transaction management features. Accessible to all REALTORS and integrated with our MLS data. Some users prefer Dotloop, FlexMLS forms or Forms Simplicity.
  • IDX: Internet Data eXchange. At its core, IDX is the concept of allowing your listings to be displayed on other Berkshire MLS member websites, so that you too can display property information taken from the MLS on your own website (“exchange”). There are many ways to create an “IDX feed” for use on member websites, and use is governed by strict display rules (must have the name of the listing agent/agency, for example). Anyone using an IDX feed must sign an agreement to abide by the rules of use.
  • IDX vendor: This is a term used to describe a 3rd party company that provides website services that make use of MLS data for searches and cooperative display according to our MLS Rules and Regulations. IDX Vendors sign use agreements with the MLS before we allow them to access the data.
  • ListHub: A platform that accepts MLS listings for syndication around the internet. First, the broker has rights to allows/deny use of ListHub for their office in their Flex Office setup, and if allowed, then the agent can check to send their listing to ListHub via the distribution input screen when entering a listing. Listings are transmitted to the publishers that are preselected by the brokerage on the ListHub Platform. There are 10 default providers, and over 156 publishers where the broker’s listings can be syndicated. Brokers can also give agents the ability to modify the publisher list as well.
  • SSO: Single Sign-On. This technology allows you to access other password protected websites
    WITHOUT a password, if logged into Flex. We have SSO functionality with RPR and Ziplogix currently.
  • RESO: Real Estate Standards Organization. We are a member $500 / year. They create and maintain Certification Program that all MLS’s are required to comply with (according to NAR) to ensure that we have correctly implemented data standards. It is awarded to MLSs for RETS Clients/Servers, Web API and Data Dictionary versions that conform to current RESO Standards, as well as to Technology partners for RESO RETS Clients/Servers (RETS) and RESO Web API (Spark API). Not only is our database certified, but our staff, Sue and Sandy, are also certified Real Estate Data Certified with the RED-B.
  • RESO Data Dictionary: A nationally adopted template to format the most common fields in the MLS in a unified way. It is the common standard that defines real estate data in consistent terms and data structures, updated, verified and maintained by RESO.org.
  • RETS: Real Estate Transaction Standard. This term refers to the original standards that were set many years ago to align data into one format of fields and display. We also used RETS Servers to distribute the data to other parties, brokers, vendors, etc… This is now considered old technology, as we transition to Web API.
  • FTP: File Transfer Protocol. FTP is a file transfer standard for moving static files from one computer.
  • Web API / Spark API: Application Programming Interface (API). This is a framework for offering our MLS data in ways that can be consumed by a broad range of clients including browsers, mobiles, iphone, and tablets. FlexMLS provides API access to our data to those authorized by the MLS via their Spark API Server. Since its uniform across platforms, many other MLSs (not just flex clients) also use the Spark API to provide access to deliver MLS data in a unified format. http://sparkplatform.com/docs/overview/api
  • SparkBar: The SparkBar is where some vendors have taken the ease of API data and made their products available to all Speak API service providers (like us!) at a lower cost, because of the ease of data connection. CloudCMA for example, built the interface once and can turn Spark accessible clients on at the flip of a switch. http://landing.sparkplatform.com/buy/
  • Metadata: Metadata can be thought of as “data describing the data”. When used with the Web API or RETS interface, retrieving the Metadata for a specific property class (example: Residential properties) will return very specific information about all of the fields, field types, which fields are searchable, etc. A “Metadata-aware” Web API/RETS is the goal, blah blah, blah – you really don’t need to know any more.
  • HomeSnap, now Homes.com: This real estate website service has been around a while (and originally, not entirely friendly to the Real Estate industry), but is the selected vendor for the Broker Public Portal. As such,  Homes.com  displays homes for sale directly from the MLS with easy access directly to the listing agent and brokerage – free from advertising, paid
    agent displays, or content aimed at “capturing” consumers rather than delivering services.