Sorry, I didn't get notification about new post, only about new PM. Create new topic at the future :)
Try this:
$parents = e107::getDb()->retrieve("property_location", "*", "WHERE parent_id = 0", true);
$parent_item[0] = "None selected";
foreach($parents as $parent) {
$parent_item[$parent['id']] = $parent['title'];
}
$this->fields['parent_id']['writeParms']['optArray'] = $parent_item;
You need to have your options array with key 0. Value 0 means that nothing was selected.
If this is not clear, let me know.