Home listings can include price history, market time

Local real estate brokers may include market time and price history for home listings starting in July, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service announced Tuesday.

Listing service members display listings from all other members on their Web sites but must abide by the service's rules about what they can and cannot show.

Including the additional details "is a natural step toward providing more thorough information to consumers," Tom Hurdelbrink, the listing service's president and chief executive, said in a statement. "The amended rules support the brokers' endeavors to meet evolving consumer desires and to position their companies as a definitive source of information sought by consumers."

The market time if used, must include days since a property listing went active (days on market) and the sum of the current listing time and previous listings by the same owner for the same property within 90 days (cumulative days on market). The cumulative rule prevents agents from making a home appear new on the market by changing listing details or pulling it off the market temporarily.

The changes are effective July 3. Hurdelbrink expects market time and price histories to start showing up on Web sites in mid-July.

The news release said the listing service would not release market-time statistics for counties and other areas as part of its monthly report because that would require different programming, which was not yet developed.