Realtors Property Resource is here! So what is Realtors Property Resource (RPR), and why does it matter?
In short, NAR has poured more than $10 million into building a national database of houses. Type in any address in the country, and RPR spits out up to 40 pages of reports and data, including ownership history, mortgage history, property tax history, recent sales history, comparable sales history, school and community information… the list goes on and on. It's sort of like "Carfax" for houses.
So I can be sitting in my office in Denver and if someone calls me wanting to relocate, but has a home to sell in California first, in a few keystrokes I can see exactly what that house looks like, know its history, see the mortgage information, and assess its salability. It’s an incredible resource that provides information that’s infinitely more detailed than what consumers can find on Zillow or Trulia or any of the other real estate data aggregation sites on the Internet.
Most consumers don’t understand that Realtors pay thousands of dollars per year in memberships, associations, subscriptions, professional insurance fees and continuing education programs. And many agents are dropping out of the business because unless you are selling homes, the start up costs, day to day expenses and legal liabilities are just too high.
RPR, if used properly by agents, is a game-changer. It’s a valuable tool that will help agents make better assessments about neighborhoods, communities and specific parcels of real estate in particular. It increases the agent's knowledge base and give Realtors access to information that simply isn't available anywhere else. Kudos to NAR for delivering real value at a time when all agents need to be upping their game.
