What’s the Deal with RESO?
You’ve probably been hearing things like RESO, Web API, RETS, and Data Dictionary more often. What are those and where are they coming from?
The Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) was officially created to make access to MLS data easier for individual REALTORS® as well as other third-party organizations. It presented the first version of the well-documented Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS). RETS is a framework used by the real estate industry in the U.S. and Canada to facilitate the exchange of data.
RESO provides an environment for the development and implementation of data standards and processes that facilitate software innovation, ensures portability, eliminates redundancies, and obtains maximum efficiencies for all parties in real estate transactions.
Why are standards important to the real estate industry?
Standards remove ambiguity and incompatibility across different computer systems within and outside organizations as well as between business partners resulting in more consistent and higher quality data among those that support those standards.
Data Dictionary
The Data Dictionary serves as a guideline for fields and enumerations in MLS databases.
RETS vs. Web API
RETS stands for “Real Estate Transaction Standard.” The integration time on a typical RETS feed takes weeks to months. Data has to be mapped individually from each MLS to whomever is receiving the data. In RETS, data is copied from the MLS’s servers to the server of whoever is hosting your website. NAR requires that data be copied a minimum of every 12 hours. In most cases, data is copied every 15 minutes to an hour. Because full copies of the data is being copied from server to server bandwidth costs are through the roof making RETS the most expensive option.
The Web API (Application Programming Interface) is an updated technology. With implementation of data standards, having similar data field names at each MLS, data mapping can be done quickly bringing the programming time down significantly from RETS. Website data can now be mapped in a matter of days in many cases. With the API, data is requested from MLS servers on demand. So, when a user will receive the most up-to-date data directly from the MLS. With less bandwidth being used to transfer data, and faster integration times, the Web API can be significantly less expensive.
Where are we at?
In the next month or so, you will receive updates with new data input sheets for when the new fields are launched. We are also working diligently to move our current agent websites to the new RESO Web API. Unfortunately, because the Web API is so new, many companies are hesitant to move over and are still opting to use the old RETS standard. We are hoping that by the end of 2019 we can have the majority of our syndication websites like Zillow and Realtor.com on the updated RESO Web API.
The Association is currently silver certified through the RESO data dictionary and will be soon be platinum certified. The Greater Lansing Associations Web API is Platinum Certified through RESO.
Please contact, Nathan Andrus at 517-323-4090, with any inquiries or questions.