Dear MLS Partners:
Given the change in market conditions due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Homesnap is in the process of adding a special virtual open house display to our platform. We are excited to add this functionality and we think your members will find it to be a welcome addition.
If you have already requested that Homesnap display your virtual open houses, know that we are in the process of making those visible on the Homesnap website and they will be visible soon on iOS and Android. If you have not requested this and would like us to add virtual open houses to Homesnap, please let us know.
There are a few issues to be aware of, which hinge on educating agents about the difference between a virtual open house and a virtual tour.
1. Some agents are putting Virtual Tours in the Virtual Open House URL field. The Virtual Open House display implies that there is a "live" event occurring (i.e. a Facebook live event, YouTube live stream, etc.), so if a virtual tour appears instead this could be disappointing for consumers who are simply directed to static content.
2. Some of these agents who are confusing virtual tours for virtual open houses are also setting their virtual open houses to last 24 hours. If possible, it would be great if you could limit the number of hours for which an agent can schedule a virtual open house.
3. In some cases agents are also putting the URL and a description into the URL field and are not using the description/remarks field for non-URL content. Nothing will show up on the website at all if an agent types a description into the URL field. So if you can instruct them to put non-URL content into the description/remarks field, that would be helpful.
These issues are not widespread but I wanted to point them out in case you receive any questions. Again, let us know if you have added virtual open house functionality to your MLS and you'd like us to enable it in Homesnap as well.
Thank you, and have a wonderful, safe weekend.
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Ana Nunez | MLS Operations Manager
