My wife has an excellent eye for value (of course) and is an easy to talk to people person. She is could be a Realtor, but her real calling is Teaching. She knows that she can not talk about a specific house but often she will talk about the area, is it a great place to raise a family, nearby attractions, what she appreciates in a home, etc.

 At times she will say "I really love the house at xxx Pine Street because it has xxxx..." As a relative newcomer to the business, I appreciate my wife and know that she will help buyers decide which is their 'dream house'. Not speaking about specific houses, but in giving her knowldge of the area, and what she would like to have in a home is a very nice way to give my buyers a valued source of input for me.

I will probably even have my 8 year old come along with some buyers who may appreciate knowing what she has to say (that's for another Blog). She loves to discover and point out things I was not aware of.

Do you use your family to help sell ? If you had the child who could do it, would you bring that child along to offer a kids point of view ? I love the quality time with her and it helps my buyers. (And your kids will not be considered real estate professionals, so the exclusions about spouses does not apply).

We all look at new listings that come on the market. Many times I come upon a "huh, I have seen that home before, it's been on the market for almost a year." After a few minutes of research, I find out the new listing agent purposely changed some of the facts so that the MLS showed the property with zero days on the market. Sometimes the agent changes the address, such as from 'Court' to 'Road'. (I know it was not a typo). Sometimes the property gets a bit smaller, from 1.29 acres to 1.2 acres. The tax map gets some extra zeros added. Or the creative strategy I saw was entirely changing two adjoining new home listings, including house #, etc. and achieving the coveted zero days on market for both. Wow. That takes guts. I think. Or a zero conscience. It is happening quite often in this current market.

Would I do it ? No way. Am I upset enough to make a complaint. I don't know. I would like to get the AR community's comments.

To add some perspective, I know that a listing may require that a different zip code and city be used so that agents can more easily search for and get to know certain properties and areas. There are zip codes that very people know about. And bordering cities that are frequently known by different names. I get that. Even my own home was found because I knew of a bordering zipcode that my agent at the time was unaware of.

Now we see that agents who acquire a listing are misleading the MLS into re-setting the Day on Market Property to zero (or similar terms for other states MLS). I have done my homework and have concrete examples to demonstrate this practice. These are not typos, but clearly attempts to fool and defraud their MLS.

Now we come back to the meat and potatoes question: What would you do to get your listing shown ? Would you purposely try to reset the Days on Market Property to zero, or not ?