It’s been a month since the launch of the CREB^® REListCheck™ tool. Since then, we have been reviewing the feedback you have provided us, and the Member Practice team has addressed some common questions we’ve received.

I’ve checked my listing, and it does not appear to violate the rule that was detected. Why is the tool flagging my listing? 

The REListCheck™ tool is a self-audit tool that uses trigger words and phrases to identify potential listing errors that commonly occur. Sometimes, the trigger words and phrases are used in a way that does not violate the listing rules but still gets detected.

This is called a false positive. If you’re unsure if it’s a false positive, please get in touch with Member Practice, who can review the detection and provide guidance. 

Why don’t we remove the trigger words/phrases detecting false positives? 

While sometimes the trigger words and phrases are causing the detection of false positives, the same trigger words and phrases are also detecting actual violations. An example of this would be ‘587.’ This common area code is a trigger phrase that will get flagged by the REListCheck™ tool if it is in your public remarks, as contact information is prohibited from public remarks.

This means the tool will flag your listing if, for example, you state that the property is 587 sq. ft. in your public remarks. This would be a false positive. However, because ‘587’ is a common area code, the tool has detected many actual violations from this trigger phrase.

Removing this phrase as a trigger would result in our members missing out on actual violations detected and, as a result, losing the chance to correct their listing before the Member Practice team reviews it.  

Since the notifications are now being sent to members for review, does this mean the Member Practice team no longer manually checks our listings? 

It depends on the listing. If you haven’t adjusted the listing, the Member Practice team receives a potential error alert one business day after you receive the notification.

Member Practice then manually checks those listings and will either mark the listing as correct (because it’s a false positive) or send a notice to the listing agent (because it’s an actual error that needs to be fixed). A notice is avoided if a violation is corrected before Member Practice checks! 

The future of the REListCheck™ tool 

We consider and review every suggestion and feedback provided to us. While it may take time to check through false positives, we hope this tool will also catch many violations and help our members avoid receiving notices from the Member Practice team.

We continue to work on minimizing as many false positives detected by the tool as possible and further ways to improve user experience on this tool.  

Have questions?  

Check out the REListCheck™ FAQ page or Ask An Advisor!