Christmas in June

The recent settlement of a long-running lawsuit between the United States and the National Association of Realtors has Tim Lee feeling festive.

“We’re as excited as kids at Christmas,” said Lee, CEO of Revolution Technologies LLC in Rogers.

Why? Because the settlement defined the rules and regulations of how a Virtual Office Web site can be operated.

RT was one of the first companies in the United States to offer IDX services that display all active listings from the Multi-Listing Service to real estate Web sites, back in 2001, and is expected to be at the forefront of new technology with a soon-to-be-introduced product called VOW PRO 1.0. The product, which Lee said should be available within the next two months, will allow users to search sold real estate data over the past 12 months.

Users will be required to create an account on a secure Web site, then will have access to information such as market value of homes sold over the past 12 months and the average times those homes were on the market, information that wasn’t previously readily available. Lee wasn’t ready to divulge all of RT’s “tricks,” but said numerous new features that will change how customers research real estate and communicate with their agents are on the horizon.

“Anything that improves customers’ abilities to communicate with their real estate agents, and to buy and sell more homes, is good for us all,” Lee said. “The customers and agents alike are going to have a lot more information at their fingertips.”