RESO Monthly, November 2022: $90K Raised for Disaster Relief, Fall Conference Recap and More!

2022 RESO Fall Conference Recap

The 2022 RESO Fall Conference, held October 25–27 in Sarasota, Florida, was another incredible gathering of the best technology minds in the real estate industry. More than 400 onsite and livestream participants enjoyed a week of presentations, networking, working on real estate’s toughest tech problems and – we cannot tell a lie – a lot of fun.

Hurricane Relief Donations

The best news of the week was that RESO’s members raised more than $90,000 for the REALTORS® Relief Foundation and Florida Realtors® Disaster Relief Fund in conjunction with Stellar MLS. Lead donors were Triangle MLS, Heartland MLS and Homes.com/Homesnap.

The money raised through these two incredible outlets have been instrumental in efficiently getting funds to the people who need them most. Thank you all for coming together for this cause.

In addition, two RESO members, TRIBUS and Solid Earth worked with many Florida MLSs to create HurricaneHomes.org, a listings repository of homes immediately available for rent across Florida for those who were displaced by Hurricane Ian. The site went from idea to reality within three days. Standards are not the hero of this story, but the supporters of standards stood tall in service, and RESO was cited as a great partner for helping to get this done so quickly.

RESO Today – Web API Transition Update

During opening remarks, RESO CEO Sam DeBord provided several updates on current activities, starting with welcome news about the RESO Web API. Almost all MLSs have RESO Web API services, but moving customers off of the old RETS data feeds has taken time. That said, utilization of the RESO Web API standard has skyrocketed to more than 30% of the industry’s subscribers in the last 18 months (chart 1). The trend line is most definitely up!

Nearly half of the industry’s MLSs have committed their organizations to fully converting their data customers to Web API feeds (chart 2). If your organization has begun the process, let us know at certification@reso.org so we can recognize your leadership.

Main Stage Presentations

We were once again able to provide a varied and excellent group of presenters who shared standards-based work, oncoming trends and plenty to think about as we all continue to make the industry tick a little faster, a little cleaner and a lot more efficiently.

Dan Troup of RE/MAX presented new insights available through RESO Analytics. Industry aggregate statistics are now available in the Data Dictionary Wiki, so developers of technology and their management teams can make data-driven decisions. Are other MLSs using a particular field? Does a certain lookup already exist in another market? We are letting usage statistics lead the way for the first time in the history of the Data Dictionary. | VIEW PRESENTATION – What is RESO Analytics Telling Us?

Al McElmon from CoreLogic provided a fascinating, real-time view of metrics and opinions about RESO’s most important projects and how the Data Dictionary directly affects the industry. Attendees were given questions to answer on the spot and shown anonymized answers with a series of easy-to-read charts and graphics that reflected interesting tidbits like the fact that nearly 20% of RESO conference attendees were first-timers, that people feel as though custom fields and slow adoption are the two biggest challenges facing the Data Dictionary, and that time and money are the greatest barriers to achieving Data Dictionary adoption. | VIEW PRESENTATION – Data Dictionary’s Dramatic Effect on Your Business

A new way to replicate data from an MLS provider to a broker or broker’s vendor was demonstrated by Rick Herrera of Constellation1. Traditionally, data consumers would check constantly to look for changes on the data provider’s system. Did a new listing show up? Did one sell? Did one change? This expensive and inefficient process can become a thing of the past based on a RESO standard for push notifications and webhooks. Rick demonstrated how the MLS provider could simply push a change to the data consumer for them to know exactly when they needed to update their data without the constant checks. | VIEW PRESENTATION – Pushing vs Polling: The Future of MLS/Broker Data Distribution

Kerry Rakuson from Openn shared how standards in transaction management can drive innovation and affordability with data opportunities like audit trails and marketplace intelligence in order to break down barriers toward fair housing. | VIEW PRESENTATION – How Standards in TM Can Drive Innovation, Fair Housing and Affordability

Dave Conroy from the National Association of REALTORS® shared a fascinating look at how artificial intelligence is going to continue to impact listing photos in the near future. | VIEW PRESENTATION – What You Say is What You Get – Advanced AI’s Impact on Listing Photos

Joseph Szurgyi of MLS Grid and Turan Tekin of Zillow Group (and Co-Founder of Zillow’s Bridge Interactive data solution) delved into the promised land of one data feed to rule them all in accordance with NAR Policy Statement 8.6: One Data Source, which requires MLSs to offer their participants a single data feed in accordance with the participants’ licensed authorized uses, thus creating efficiencies for brokers who participate in an MLS and who use MLS data for multiple purposes. The data feed must be in compliance with RESO standards. | VIEW PRESENTATION – One Feed to Rule Them All: Getting It Done Right

Jessica Edgerton from LeadingRE was featured in the Broker Advisory Technology Spotlight, offering an enticing view of what the Data Dictionary of the future should look like. LeadingRE represents an international audience and wants to see the dictionary built in multiple languages, with a variety of measurement and monetary displays to truly create standards without borders. | VIEW PRESENTATION – Broker Advisory Technology Spotlight: LeadingRE

Denee Evans provided an update on Council of Multiple Listing Services (CMLS) activities over the last year and going forward, including the Champions of MLS phase of the “Value of MLS” initiative, which we highlight later in this newsletter. | VIEW PRESENTATION – CMLS Update

Kristen Carr and Donna Rauch from RPR shared practical tips on how your company can get the most out of RESO workgroups (hint: show up and participate!) in what may have been the friendliest and most team-oriented presentation of the conference. | VIEW PRESENTATION – How Your Company Can Get the Most Out of RESO Workgroups

Workgroups

Onsite meetings were held for all eight RESO workgroups and four subgroups. Summaries and links to more complete notes are shared in a dedicated section later in this newsletter.

Workgroup notes can always be found on each group’s page located on RESO’s workgroup collaboration system for members, Confluence. If you haven’t signed yourself into that member-only space yet, you are not getting the full benefit of your RESO membership, so check it out today!

Roundtables

In-person roundtables delved into discussions about:

transitioning to the RESO Web API
what should be contained with the WWRED Technical Module (RED-T)
smart home tech
how market dynamics can affect standards
Data Dictionary basics
the oncoming world of Web3
rental metadata for future entry into the Data Dictionary

Virtual roundtables covered:

the WWRED course
RESO Analytics
RESO certification from the MLS vendor perspective
building collaborative environments with RESO tools
a show and tell about cool things member organizations are working on right now

Pain Points

This year’s Pain Points session continued to work through the frank discussions that have become a staple of this open forum. The fire and brimstone of past meetings gave way to more even-keeled discourse about some commonly discussed topics and some new ones.

There was still a lot of interest in some form of vendor endorsement system or certification that RESO could help facilitate so that MLSs have a better idea of which vendors are on a healthy standards path.
There was a call for a standard for customized fields. Now that we can find them easily with RESO Analytics, it’s a matter of knowing what to do with them. Do we put them in existing Data Dictionary resources or create a Custom Resource?
Data consumers and MLSs alike would like a best practices guide for data updates – something reliable and understood across the industry.
Multi-use local fields have been a problem for some vendors. For example, a generic local field name like custom_01 will be used in multiple areas for multiple purposes and can’t be mapped correctly without lots of extra dialogue or workarounds.
Getting association management systems (AMS) to be more compliant with RESO standards was a noted desire.

Although the conversation was polite, it is clear that there are still many industry pain points to resolve. The industry pros in the room seemed to recognize and trust that RESO is aware of, working on and often resolving the major points that have been brought forth during the years in which conferences have closed with this open forum. | VIEW SESSION – Certification Analytics, Data Consumers Joint Subgroup and Pain Points

Conclusion

RESO will continue to listen to and work on what its members ask. Our mission is to create and promote the adoption and utilization of standards that drive efficiency throughout the real estate industry. The Pain Points session and the conferences themselves are important tools that we use to serve our mission. Thank you to everyone who participated. We will see you in San Antonio!

Members can view slide decks, videos and workgroup notes on the Conference Presentations page of RESO’s Confluence system. Much of this material can also be found on the RESO website.

2023 Conference Bundle

Registration is already open for the 2023 RESO Spring Conference that will be held April 18–20 in San Antonio, Texas. We are currently running a member-only exclusive bundle to attend both 2023 conferences for just $1,000!

You can save an extra $50 on the bundle if you renew your membership at the same time. Contact brian@reso.org for more information.

This offer closes Friday, November 18, 2022.

BUNDLE REGISTRATION FOR ONSITE | BUNDLE REGISTRATION FOR LIVESTREAM | VISIT THE RESO EVENTS PAGE

It’s Time to Renew Your RESO Membership for 2023

Thank you for your valued membership in RESO. In order to remain at the forefront of real estate technology standards, please renew by December 31, 2022. | RENEW ONLINE NOW

Your support is essential for ensuring more accurate, robust and informative data in real estate.

Renewing membership online is the most convenient route, but there are other ways to pay dues, should you desire it. | MORE INFO

If you have any questions or are having issues logging in, please call 919.504.9898 or email brian@reso.org.

RESO Board of Directors Election

It’s time to prepare to elect your RESO Board of Directors for 2023.

Voting opened on Monday, November 14, and closes on Sunday, December 4, 2022.

The open seats that are available in this election are:

Class B (Technology Companies, Developers, Partners & Consultants): one seat with revenue of $25 million and above annually
Class C (MLSs and REALTOR® Associations): two seats with under 25,000 subscribers
Class D (Real Estate Brokerages, Brokers, Agents & Appraisers): two seats

Each RESO member organization may cast one vote. The ballot was sent to the primary contact on your account on Monday, November 14. If you are not sure who that is, or if you need to make a change to your primary contact, email support@reso.org.

VIEW ELECTION INFO, NOMINEES AND QUESTION RESPONSES

Certification Update

Growing the list of RESO certifications for the Data Dictionary 1.7 and Web API Core 2.0.0 endorsements is an exciting daily activity at RESO. Congratulations to the following additions to RESO Analytics:

View the certification status of all MLSs on the RESO Certification Map, which is also a good place to review your address and subscriber count. Contact certification@reso.org for changes.

To attain Certified Current status on the map, MLSs must accept their certification reports from their vendors. If you are an MLS, you will approve two items, one Data Dictionary endorsement and one Web API endorsement. These endorsements will arrive in your email inbox for approval as a pair.

If you have questions about your RESO certification, contact your MLS vendor. If you have questions about self-testing or the technical aspects of certification, contact dev@reso.org.

New Members

Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver
The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) is a member-based professional association of 14,000 REALTORS® and their companies who live and work in communities from Whistler to Maple Ridge to Tsawwassen and everywhere in between. They are one of Vancouver’s earliest professional associations and have been in continuous operation since 1919.

Omni MLS
Omni MLS is providing real estate associations with technology aimed at elevating the real estate profession and growing membership. They aspire to create an environment in which real estate professionals in México and throughout Central and South America will adapt to technology-related products that will organize the real estate industry, ultimately giving buyers and sellers the best service offered by the real estate community.

Metro Market Trends
Metro Market Trends provides MMT Searchnet, a powerful research platform that provides accurate, current and comprehensive real estate data, along with property ownership records and sales transaction information to real estate, appraisal, construction, development, financing and other related industries. Their data is linked directly to most county tax records and includes warranty and trust deeds, along with mortgage and foreclosure history.

We welcome these three inspiring companies to RESO with open arms!

WWRED (Pronounced Red)

How well do you know the real estate data ecosystem?

RESO’s Working With Real Estate Data (WWRED) course is the best primer for understanding how data flows through the industry. The course’s Business Module is designed for both nontechnical and technical professionals, covering the organizations, rules, processes and technology systems that create the real estate data ecosystem.

Show the industry that you know what it means to be a strong partner by harnessing a complete understanding of how to work within the real estate data environment by earning your RED-B designation.

The end of the year is just around the corner! Complete the WWRED Business Module and earn your RED-B designation by November 30 for a chance to win the RED-B Bundle Prize!

RED-B Bundle Prize

$100 Amazon Gift Card
Apple AirTag 4 Pack ($100)
JLab JBuds Air Pro True Wireless Earbuds ($60)
RESO Swag (Hat, Shirt, Stickers)

Note: Anyone that has completed the course in 2022 is automatically entered!

The WWRED course continues to be highly popular with organizations onboarding new employees that haven’t worked in the real estate industry. We’re pleased to say that 546 students have registered for the course in less than two years, and many companies are making it a default training course for their employees. | SEE THE COMPLETE LIST OF RED-B DESIGNEES

Consider incorporating WWRED into your new staff and volunteer leadership onboarding strategy today. | MORE INFO

On the RESO Blog

Return of the Rentals
More rentals are entering MLS systems. RentSpree and Rental Beast, two companies at the forefront of this trend, presented at the 2022 RESO Spring Conference about the rental market and how rental standards will create greater interoperability and speed to market. | READ MORE – Return of the Rentals

RESO@

RESO is often invited to participate in industry events, but we had just one big one in the past month because we were pretty busy with our own fall conference.

NAR NXT, The REALTOR® Experience!
RESO’s CEO Sam DeBord and three other RESO staffers were on hand at the annual National Association of REALTORS® conference and expo in Orlando, Florida. They attended governance meetings, sold the benefits of the WWRED course and its accompanying RED-B designation on the expo floor and even found time to rock out to John Cougar Mellencamp and ride brooms with Harry Potter. It was another productive annual meeting by the incredible NAR team, which persevered despite not being blessed with weather.

Industry News

CMLS: Champions of MLS
As shared at both their own CMLS2022 conference in Indianapolis in September and at the 2022 RESO Fall Conference in Sarasota, the Champions of MLS is the next phase of the “Value of MLS” initiative by the Council of Multiple Listing Services (CMLS).

The idea is to establish an increased level of engagement with federal regulators. In order to do this, CMLS has hired attorneys, Dylan Carson and Alicia Batts, to help them advocate and tell the story of the MLS at the national level with the following key points in mind:

Advocate and educate regulators on the consumer benefits that the MLS provides
Highlight the pro-competitive benefits the MLS provides
Draft a white paper and economic study to share

There is more to come, and CMLS will be asking their members for support as the initiative gets off the ground.

International Update
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) has decided that its national aggregated data feed (realtor.ca DDF) will make all future new customer connections on the RESO Web API standard. CREA worked with RESO to develop a French-Canadian display layer for the Data Dictionary.

New member, Omni MLS, should be able to use and/or help enhance RESO’s Spanish display layer for the Data Dictionary.

DD 2.0
Data Dictionary 2.0 arrives next year, and it’s a major change for the industry, bringing broad new standardization in lookup values that agents and brokers use in MLSs.

For example, the StandardName for the DisplayName of Original List Price in the Property Resource is OriginalListPrice in our data language, not OriginalListingPrice, FirstListPrice or otherwise. Industry technology systems can display however they’d like to their customers, but our universal technology language in the background does it one way and one way only.

Three Questions

The Three Questions interview series introduces you to real estate professionals with a hint of personality and humor. | VISIT THREE QUESTIONS

Here’s who has been interviewed since the last RESO Monthly:

RESO Workgroup Meetings

Transport Workgroup | October 3, 2022
The Transport Workgroup discussed adding translations of display names as well as payload data to support other languages. A demo was given of the RESO Industry Aggregates service and the new usage metrics that have been added to the Data Dictionary Wiki showing adoption of each field and enumeration in DD 1.7. | VIEW NOTES – Transport Workgroup

Research & Development Workgroup | October 6, 2022
The R&D Workgroup and ULI Subgroup held a combined meeting that continued the discussion on smart home devices in home sales, the search for implementations of Days in MLS (DIM), the Unique Licensee Identifier (ULI) Survey results and the ULI service process. It was decided that the ULI case is ready to move beyond R&D and into the more technical realm of the Transport Workgroup. | VIEW NOTES – >Research & Development Workgroup

Board Liaison Committee | October 7, 2022
This meeting is held once per month in order to give workgroup chairs an opportunity to converse about their top agenda items, request help from each other and provide summary reports to the RESO Board of Directors. The reports of each chair are collected and shared as part of the meeting’s official call notes. | VIEW NOTES – Board Liaison Committee

Data Dictionary Workgroup | October 25, 2022
The meeting at the 2022 RESO Fall Conference covered the history and high-level view of the Data Dictionary, native compliance, updates on current topics and subgroup progress. There were also two votes, both passed: “Affiliate” was approved as a new lookup under MemberType and a set of Internet Tracking Data Elements were also approved. | VIEW NOTES – Data Dictionary Workgroup

Transport Workgroup and Certification Subgroup | October 25, 2022
The combined Transport Workgroup and Certification Subgroup meeting was held at the 2022 RESO Fall Conference. Many topics were covered, including a list of nine updates since the 2022 RESO Spring Conference, six items listed as work in progress and 16 items on the 2023 Transport/Certification roadmap for 2023. A slide presentation is available in the notes that goes over everything that was covered. | VIEW NOTES – Transport Workgroup and Certification Subgroup

Internet Tracking Workgroup | October 26, 2022
The abbreviated meeting at the 2022 RESO Fall Conference covered an overview of the group mission, examples of Internet tracking in use and an update on the work done by the group so far this year. | VIEW NOTES – Internet Tracking Workgroup

Interoperability Workgroup | October 26, 2022
The meeting at the 2022 RESO Fall Conference covered the scope and goals of the workgroup, the work done so far in 2022, and an explanation of the industry map and its role in creating interoperability standards. Additionally, there was a detailed update on the ongoing work in creating the Offer Management (OM) data shape. | VIEW NOTES – Interoperability Workgroup

Broker Advisory Workgroup | October 26, 2022
The meeting held during the 2022 RESO Fall Conference, as with the 2022 RESO Spring Conference, was less of a workgroup meeting and more of a fireside chat. This time, workgroup vice chair Nina Dosanjh joined chair Jeff Bosch on stage with Jessica Edgerton, EVP Operations & Corporate Counsel at Leading Real Estate Companies of the World and a RESO board member, to discuss how LeadingRE is using RESO technology to streamline how they ingest data from 150 different methods down to three RESO-supported methods. | VIEW NOTES – Broker Advisory Workgroup

Research & Development Workgroup | October 26, 2022
The meeting at the 2022 RESO Fall Conference covered an overview of the group charter along with updates on the Smart Home Standards and Days in MLS (DIM) business cases. They then reviewed a survey sent out to RESO members in order to gauge interest in the Unique Licensee Identifier (ULI) and willingness to participate by sharing data. The ULI project will be sent to the Transport Workgroup in order to develop protocols and technical standards. | VIEW NOTES – Research & Development Workgroup

Universal Property Identifier (UPI) Workgroup | October 26, 2022
The meeting at the 2022 RESO Fall Conference covered some of the milestones of the workgroup, an overview of the UPI, and discussion around challenges and solutions for the state of the UPI today. Additionally, the chair outlined the next steps for the UPI and direction for the group going forward. | VIEW NOTES – Universal Property Identifier (UPI) Workgroup

Distributed Ledger Workgroup | October 27, 2022
The meeting at the 2022 RESO Fall Conference covered a comparison of old and new blockchain technologies and the potential role of the newer, Web3 tech in real estate data. Additionally, two active business cases, Listings on Blockchain and User-Defined Terms of Use and Tracking on a Blockchain were covered by Michael Fry and James Wang, respectively. | VIEW NOTES – Distributed Ledger Workgroup

Certification Analytics and Data Consumers Subgroups | October 27, 2022
This joint meeting was held at the 2022 RESO Fall Conference and covered how the Certification Analytics Subgroup is defining its mission statement to include bringing Data Dictionary utilization to light, what consumers are really getting and trend analysis. The Data Consumers Subgroup discussed recent accomplishments and forthcoming efforts that can be viewed in the slideshow posted in the notes. | VIEW CERTIFICATION ANALYTICS NOTES | VIEW DATA CONSUMERS NOTES

Upcoming RESO Workgroup Meetings

If you want to participate in any of the following workgroups or subgroups and don’t already see that you are a member of the group(s) in your Confluence member profile, please write jason@reso.org. RESO also uses Google Calendar for invitations, and most of these are recurring meetings.

Thursday, November 17: Data Dictionary Workgroup
Thursday, November 17: Certification Subgroup
Monday, November 21: Rental Subgroup
Tuesday, November 22: Distributed Ledger Workgroup
Wednesday, November 23: Universal Property Identifier (UPI) Workgroup
Thursday, December 1: Research & Development Workgroup
Friday, December 2: Board Liaison Committee
Monday, December 5: Transport Workgroup
Thursday, December 8: Broker Advisory Workgroup