Coming soon, school boundaries will be available as Matrix map layers! We’ve listened to your feedback and have been working on providing you, and your clients, with school boundary information.
With the addition of school boundary layers, you’ll be able to see at a glance which school district a property falls into. Simple, interchangeable map layers make it easy to view High School, Middle School and Elementary school boundaries! Even view all three at once if you choose to! School boundary layers in Matrix will be provided through Great Schools.
Here’s an MRISblog.com reader exclusive first-look at the new school boundary layers. Below is an example of high school boundaries in Loudon County, Virginia.
So tell us what you think! How beneficial will this information be to your daily workflow?
Hooray, and thank you!
Spectacular and thank you!!
Concerned, the school districts change often, will you be able to keep up with this? I just say to call the school board since I can't be sure what school zone a house is located in. If you can keep up with this then it will be great.
Hi Norma, fantastic question! The only way to 100% confirm a listing is within a certain school district is to call the school board directly. The school boundary map layers will serve as an excellent resource to help point you in the right direction of who to call. The Great Schools link (included in every school layer) will bring you to additional school information as well as contact information for the school board. Within two clicks, you can be calling the school board to confirm.
Norma,
That's a great point, but using a third party source, coupled with the disclaimer to buyers that information should be verified should really take some liability stress off listing agents! Thanks, MRIS!
The only way school boundary overlays can be TRULY useful is if agents can search by a given boundary area. I am NOT referring to ES, MS, or HS; these fields are often not filled by listing agents. Rather I believe MRIS would have to create 3 new search fields for each listing, something on the order of MAP-ES, MAP-MS, and MAP-HS. Thus when the listing is created in Keystone, the system would look at the PUSHPIN location and autofill values for the three new data fields. And of course, the local school board should always be consulted before writing a contract if schools are important to the buyer.
Charles- you nailed it! The first step is add school boundaries to the map layers in Matrix. The next step is connect this information with Keystone so that agents can import this information, should they decide to, directly into their new listing. Yeah- pretty awesome, huh! Thanks for the comment.
School zones should be a required entry (not "Call School Board") in MLS entries… just IMHO
Too many agents enter "Call School Board" for one reason or another. I think even with the overlays, the ES, MS & HS fields should be mandatory. What it boils down to is who is responsible for verifying the school information? I feel the listing agent should take the few extra moments it may take to verify the ES, MS & HS boundaries. The buyer's agent should not have to look this information up for each and every property. I know, I know, the school boundaries may change or the listing agent feels the school district is not desirable so they don't enter the information. But who are we to decide what schools are desirable? Plenty of consumers search for a certain school district and if "Call School Board" is selected, a possible perfect match will be over looked. How is that good business when representing a seller?
Professionals who list in a market place should know that market place well enough to know when the school zones change and then look it up to ensure your listing is accurate. Great points, Heater!
Thank you, much needed. One concern with pulling from Great Schools. Hopefully, the correct schools are listed i.e. city falls into two different counties. Will help with initial search, then we need to confirm with school board.
Good point, Margaret — we're not shy when it comes to actively managing vendors and we'll make sure they're up to speed when you provide feedback. Please keep us posted. Thanks to you and all the other posters on this topic. I'm glad we all agree forward movement is a beautiful thing! John
Yippee!
This is wonderful news anda step in the right direction! Very good points made from the various replies as well.
Clients are always asking about school zones!
Fantastic! This is great for searching. The concerns with liability need to be part of the buyer verifying the zone with the school board before making an offer. Excellent addition to the mapping capabiities
Much needed. Full speed ahead. Disclose that it's not perfect… like we do with all of the information in the system, but let's serve this need!
I like the way you think, Sir. Thanks. We're on the case full time, lots more to follow this year. John
This is awesome! Now, we just have to enter School information for every listing, don't we!
I already got my clients in line for this search, so …. can we have it …. today???
This should be a mandatory field as it is so easy to verify online with each locality what the schools are for a given address. Shame on lazy listing agents who don't take the 3 minutes it takes to verify this crucial piece of information.
Much needed and will make is so much easier! Are these new fields for the IDX vendors to add?
LONG, long – l o n g overdue but thanks – 'bout time. Now if only you could make it mandatory that agent NOT put Call School Board – every single property in America has a school district assigned to it – bar none. There is simply no excuse for putting CSB in any listing – having been a listing agent for nearly 30 years, I have a link in my Bookmarks that takes me directly to each school board web site and with just a simple input of the address I can get and post the correct schools – and then print off the page and save it in my PDF file as "proof" and verification that the source of the data is from the county or city – CYA – and put the burden where it should be – on the school board. MANDATORY please – and while you are at it, please don't allow agents to put "Use your GPS" for directions – geezzz, what have we become?
This is a great feature.
Thanks for listening, and thanks for keeping your ears open at all times.
You are the best!
So… when is " coming soon" going to happen
Those of us in jurisdictions where the high school boundaries almost never change (because each school district has one high school) have been wishing for this for some time. I agree with the other commentators who suspect "Call School Board" often is a cop-out for agents in a hurry.
I agree that this is a nice feature.
However I think that this and some other enhancements are not needed if the listing agents woudl do their jobs. As Bob stated above a good listing agent would know their area, have links to the schools and be able to put in the schools for their listing. It just takes a few minutes and then this is not needed because the information is there.
It is also going to be a challenge for MRIS to keep in current, because some school districts are rezoning their schools each year as they build new schools.
I think the functionality is a nice enhancement – however, I don't agree with those suggesting that the school fields become mandatory input fields. Further, given the dynamic nature of the zoning information – I would favor removing the input fields altogether, unless they are auto-populated. There is liability associated with providing incorrect information regarding the same.
Good job and keep it up!
We REALLY appreciate and value everyone's comments and I promise every post is reviewed by the Product Innovation team and factored into the product design and functionality. Many thanks to all and please keep those "cards and letters" coming on this subject — and others too!
Why can't I use this today? When will it be available. Can't tell you how important this is for clients.
I like the idea, if you keep up with the foundry changes.
This is a nice feature. I would like to see a disclaimer on the print out that information given should be varified by calling the school district.
Hi Kathy, we've got that covered. The disclaimer states that the school districts must be called to verify the information is correct.
I agree with the others that MRIS should REQUIRE all agents to put in school information and not allow the listing to be posted until it is there. This information is too important for many buyers and we buyer's agents don't have time to check the address for every listing we send to our clients!! There is no excuse. It takes a few seconds to put the address in and it can be rechecked every summer (if you have a listing that is sitting that long!) to make sure boundaries haven't changed.
Wonderful! Clients ask about this all the time. Finally I can provide some info instead of referring them to another entity. Thank you!
[...] School Boundaries Are Coming Soon! Tell Us How It’s Looking! Coming soon, school boundaries will be available as Matrix map layers! We’ve listened to your feedback and have been working on providing you, and your… [...]
[...] School Boundaries Are Coming Soon! Tell Us How It’s Looking! Coming soon, school boundaries will be available as Matrix map layers! We’ve listened to your feedback and have been working on providing you, and your… [...]
[...] School Boundaries Are Coming Soon! Tell Us How It’s Looking! Coming soon, school boundaries will be available as Matrix map layers! We’ve listened to your feedback and have been working on providing you, and your… [...]