A RESO Case Study
Released: 2018, Last Reviewed: 2024
Supporting Broker Expansion, Efficiency and Productivity Through Standards
Membership among brokerages in the Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) has grown dramatically in recent years. Nearly one million agents are members of RESO through their brokerage organizations. Brokers and agents play a crucial role in the mission of RESO to create and promote the adoption and utilization of standards that drive efficiency throughout the real estate industry.
That’s why RESO collaborated with real estate brokerage technology provider and RESO member TRIBUS to better understand the practical value that standardized data can deliver to real estate brokerages.
This case study showcases the vital role that broker technology partners perform in addressing many of the crucial challenges that brokerages face today.
In order to understand how RESO is fueling broker success by improving expansion opportunities through more streamlined transactions that increase broker profitability, it is important to assess where brokerages find themselves today and the challenges they face.
What Forces are Challenging Brokers Today?
Brokers face many downward pressures on profitability.
Increasing Pressure for Technology Investment
To compete for the attention of agents and consumers today, brokerages are pouring money into their technology solutions. They are quickly realizing that the most effective technology suite needs to be scalable, integrated and flexible.
Margin Compression
Brokerage profit margin compression continues to accelerate, dropping from 22.4% in 2012 to under 15% in 2017, according to RealTrends. Increased competition and diverse business models continue to push brokerage organizations to run leaner and more efficient.
Increasing Marketing Costs
Property owners expect a suite of online marketing technologies to sell their home. Because of ever-increasing consumer expectations, demand and commensurate costs for online marketing tools are increasing significantly.
How are Technology Companies and RESO Helping Brokers Address These Pressures?
Brokers are responding to these profitability pressures by finding new ways to strengthen their businesses, including expansion, efficiency and productivity. The standardized data models that have been built by RESO are available to help brokers improve profitability by making their technology initiatives more efficient. Companies like TRIBUS that support brokers are embracing these standards to open up opportunities for innovation and speeding time to market.
Expansion
Many brokers are rapidly expanding into new markets with acquisitions and organic expansion. According to the 2018 RESO Broker Survey, 79% of large brokers are either considering or actively expanding into new MLS regions.
Many brokerages are also expanding their service offerings including mortgage, title, home improvement, insurance and other home services.
Acquisitions
Brokers are moving into new MLS regions locally and nationally. Several of the largest independent brokerages are being acquired, expanding the acquirer’s footprint and its underlying MLS coverage. Some franchise groups are providing funding to acquire businesses as well.
Efficiency
Brokers are actively working on ways to improve efficiency by eliminating redundancy. Since most brokerages offer at least ten technology solutions, according to the RESO 2018 Broker Survey, there is a movement to find ways to seamlessly integrate all of these tools.
The introduction of new business analytics tools is helping brokers find ways to more closely target their recruiting efforts, evaluate their businesses strengths and weaknesses and identify ways to expand into new geographies, price points and property types.
Productivity
Brokerages are also improving agent productivity by providing agents with client relationship management systems that are integrated with online lead generation systems. The best brokerages are providing consistent training on the best ways to increase professionalism and provide extraordinary service to increase customer satisfaction.
What Role is RESO Playing in Broker Expansion, Efficiency and Productivity?
Addressing many broker challenges requires a commitment to technologies fueled by real-time real estate information. RESO data standards make it faster, easier and less expensive to expand into new markets, ingest real-time real estate data for analytics and arm agents with insights to make them local real estate experts.
RESO’s Data Dictionary provides thousands of standardized fields that brokers can use in their online marketing tools, marketing automation software, back office solutions and business analytics. When a brokerage works with companies that are using the standardized fields from the RESO Data Dictionary, it is significantly easier to seamlessly pass information from one system to another.
A brokerage can enter property information once and the information can pass seamlessly from one system or application to another. This integration is not limited to property listing data. Any of the thousands of fields and values included in the RESO Data Dictionary can be used to simplify processes that provide critical data to accounting, marketing, transaction management, title and escrow.
RESO has also built an efficient way for technology companies to easily populate standardized data into their applications and seamlessly share real-time data with the RESO Web API. RESO members are among the most aggressive in addressing these issues facing brokerages today.
How Can Technology Companies Help Increase Broker Profitability by Supporting Expansion, Efficiency and Productivity?
RESO interviewed TRIBUS, one of its forward-thinking members, to better understand the practical value that standardized data combined with standardized methods for accessing data can deliver to real estate brokerages and their technology partners. TRIBUS believes that RESO is the foundation of success for broker tools that depend on real estate data.
TRIBUS builds custom software for real estate brokerages, including consumer-facing websites and tools for brokerages, agents and staff like lead and transaction management, email marketing and more.
According to Katie Ragusa, VP Product Development for TRIBUS, “Real estate data runs through literally every aspect of what TRIBUS builds, from listing search and market stats on broker websites to the agents enhancing their MLS listings with media, automated listing alerts for consumers, and even in our coaching product where agents can track their production and set sales goals.”
TRIBUS Believes Standardized Data Builds Better Businesses
The move to RESO standards does take some work for technology companies that support brokers, but TRIBUS believes this move is well worth it. Standardized data allows TRIBUS to anticipate details about listings that technology products should be receiving, even when the vendor is working with a brand-new MLS where it previously didn’t have data coverage.
TRIBUS currently manages data feeds for well over 100 MLSs and is adding anywhere from one to five new markets per month. Standards allow the company to scale quickly and keep its import processes simple.
Why Does TRIBUS Commit Its Products to RESO Standards?
TRIBUS strongly believes that building technologies in accordance with RESO standards makes their products stronger for customers.
“We have huge respect for what RESO has done for our industry – from the obvious benefits associated with adopting data standards to the expertise they have with real estate data as a whole. So we knew official RESO certification was the logical step to take,” said Ragusa.
TRIBUS supports many of their customers that are interested in expanding into new markets, either by organic growth or acquisition.
TRIBUS Leverages RESO to Help Clients With Expansion
According to TRIBUS, as brokers expand into new MLS markets or acquire additional businesses, the process of aggregating and normalizing real estate information from multiple markets can become a daunting task. Before RESO, it was very difficult to expand into new markets because every market described its real estate data differently.
When an MLS provides a vendor with a RESO-compliant data feed, tapping into standardized data makes the process of expanding from one market to many while merging in data from one brokerage to another much simpler. Brokers that are expanding into new markets need technology partners that can help merge data from multiple markets quickly and easily.
TRIBUS works with large brokerages that are members of many MLSs (sometimes 10 or more). Data standards alleviate many of the normalization challenges and make it much simpler to commingle data from multiple markets into one feed.
RE/MAX Results Supports Acquisition Strategy with TRIBUS Through RESO Standards
RE/MAX Results is a stellar example of the value that RESO delivers to brokerages looking to expand. One of the most successful RE/MAX franchises in the country, it is focused on expanding its business with brokerage acquisitions. When the company launched its program with TRIBUS, it was operating in four markets. RE/MAX Results quickly reached into six new MLS markets.
Brenda Tushaus, COO of RE/MAX Results, explained: “When we were looking for a new technology partner to help us take our business to the next level, we were keenly interested in someone that knew how to help us expand into new markets quickly. We looked for a company that had proven knowledge of how to leverage RESO standards and knew how to commingle data feeds and normalize information across markets from a variety of states. TRIBUS’s expertise in this area makes it easier for us to expand quickly. We can continue to aggressively explore acquisitions because we know we have a partner that can ingest new markets and get us up and running quickly.”
TRIBUS put its RESO expertise to work to help RE/MAX Results ingest information from several new markets when they acquired multiple new offices.
This meant that TRIBUS needed to connect to their three newest markets (Duluth Area Association of REALTORS®, Superior Area Association of REALTORS® and Range Association of REALTORS®) quickly. TRIBUS was able to obtain approvals and map in the data from all three new boards with plenty of time to spare before launch.
RE/MAX Results also acquired another office, Mankato, just one month before their TRIBUS website was scheduled to launch, requiring TRIBUS to add the REALTORS® Association of Southern Minnesota market. They notified TRIBUS prior to the planned acquisition, and TRIBUS was approved and had data importing for that MLS about a week later.
In 2018, Duluth and Superior merged, requiring TRIBUS to merge two boards into one with just one month of advance notice from the MLS. Without good mapping and import processes, this could have been a nightmare of a task. However, their infrastructure allowed TRIBUS to update, test and import the new data feed and seamlessly replace the formerly separate feeds.
Efficiency
The brokerage business model has very tight margins. To survive for the long haul, smart brokerages are finding ways to become more efficient.
Supporting automation
TRIBUS told RESO that smart brokerages are implementing automation tools to manage client relationships, the development of marketing materials and the processing of transactions. All of these programs work best when real-time real estate data flows seamlessly from the MLS database into these important broker differentiators.
The launch of the RESO Web API makes it much easier for brokers and the tech companies that support them to access, ingest and even replicate information to populate broker tools with rich, real-time data that makes the tools much more powerful.
Seamless integration
Brokers are looking for ways to eliminate the need to input the same data into multiple systems. WAV Group estimates that in some brokerages, property owner data can be implemented in as many as 50 different locations within a brokerage, wasting hours of work and costing thousands of dollars per listing every year.
When a brokerage works with companies that are all using the standardized fields from the RESO Data Dictionary, it makes it significantly easier to seamlessly pass information from one system to another.
Smarter operations
With the explosion of business intelligence tools, brokers have a much stronger ability to monitor the strengths and weaknesses of their business. Real estate data can be ingested into these systems to evaluate market share, revenue and profitability trends, lead conversion, online marketing effectiveness, and trend analysis to help a brokerage make informed decisions about strategy, investments, recruiting and technology selections.
RESO supports the broker’s ability to fully leverage business intelligence tools by making it easy to ingest standardized data sets from multiple MLS markets.
Standardized data definitions simplify challenges with overlapping market disorder
RESO is also helping to eliminate the frequent data breakdowns caused by operating in multiple MLS markets where listings are promoted in MLS systems in more than one contiguous market. The organization is providing specifications for a simple way to assign a unique identification number to every property in America today. It is called the Universal Parcel Identifier (UPI).
This protocol makes it much easier to deduplicate listings in different MLS markets that may be shown with different price points or even a slightly different address. It also makes it much easier to do historical analysis. Even when a property changes hands, agents or brokerages, the UPI stays the same, making it easy to track property value, financing, renovations and even events like damage from a fire, earthquake or flood.
Faster time to market
Standardized data empowers brokers to move faster. Whether it be launching a new website with data from multiple markets, installing a new accounting system or launching a completely new brokerage, RESO helps make the process of gathering and distributing data much easier and faster. Simplifying these processes allows the brokerages to take resources previously dedicated to data normalization and breakage and to redeploy them to technologies, training, support and marketing that helps the brokerage focus on business growth and profitability instead of spending additional resources.
Keeping agents at the center with better preparedness
Companies like TRIBUS that are fully leveraging RESO standards make it easier for brokerages to position their agents as local experts. By making it easy to incorporate the full MLS data set and merging it with other types of data as well, brokers can bring new insights to consumers that can help nurture relationships with prospects and help maintain long-term relationships with clients. By providing comprehensive, accurate and real-time updates on market conditions and pricing trends with the support of standardized data, RESO is helping brokers to ensure that consumers continue to use real estate professionals and demonstrate they are the local experts who provide the best data available to consumers.
Fueling sales discipline and sales success
RESO standards also help agents become more productive by integrating rich, real-time property and customer information into client relationship management systems. Because of the ease of use of the RESO Data Dictionary, RESO Web API and other APIs, TRIBUS is integrated with hundreds of technologies. RESO is the foundation that allows brokers to completely customize the suite of solutions they offer to their agents, making them as productive as they can be.
Are Brokers Asking for Standardized Data Feeds?
While all of the benefits outlined here are clear, the common belief among MLSs and tech companies is that brokers are not yet asking for RESO-compliant data feeds. While a move from irregular, market-specific property definitions to one simplified Data Dictionary is, in actuality, not very difficult, many are avoiding the inevitable move. Nearly half of brokers (45%) are asking for RESO data feeds according to the 2018 RESO Broker Survey, yet less than half of MLSs are making brokers aware of the availability of RESO standardized feeds to date from their individual MLS.
Today, RESO broker members include nearly every major brand. These data leaders include Realogy, Sotheby’s, Century 21, Coldwell Banker, RE/MAX, Keller Williams, eXp Realty, Redfin, NextHome, Long & Foster, Home Services of America, Windermere, Leading Real Estate Companies of the World and many of the nation’s largest independent brands, including Sibcy Kline, Crye-Leike, Cressy & Everett, The Group, Hunt and many others. Together, these more than 900,000 agents are RESO members through their brokers.
With this explosion of membership, the broker voice has increased dramatically in the formation of RESO data standards. Brokerage RESO workgroup participation alone has tripled in the past two years, and RESO has added a Broker Advisory Workgroup to further expand the efforts addressing brokerage needs.
Nearly half of the largest brokers are now including a question about RESO compliance, certification and standards experience when they submit request for proposals (RFPs) for new technology selections. According to the 2018 RESO Broker Survey, brokers clearly understand the many advantages of leveraging standardized data in their applications.
Vin Socci, COO at William Pitt and Julia B Fee Sotheby’s International Realty recently kicked off a project with TRIBUS. Their company currently operates in nine MLSs in the Northeast (many small markets with unique fields, multiple states and many luxury listings in their portfolio). The consistency of data fields across multiple markets in fields like schools was crucial to them and weighed heavily on their decision about which technology platform they would partner with.
TRIBUS detailed these needs during a scope of work meeting and was able to confirm that TRIBUS could satisfy that search requirement. In less than 30 seconds, they were able to show that Elementary School Name was already included in the RESO data standard by pulling up the Data Dictionary Wiki. They were able to show that every market they operate in is RESO certified by pulling up the RESO MLS Certifications page. TRIBUS believes its engagement with RESO, in addition to the quality of their solution, helped them secure a new contract with one of the largest brokerages in the United States.
What Business Advantages Do Technology Companies Receive from Becoming Certified with RESO?
In addition to clients of technology companies starting to take notice of those companies that are positioning them well for the future, there are other advantages of aligning applications with RESO data standards, which are now available in most MLS markets across the United States and Canada.
TRIBUS shared these additional benefits:
- Stand out during a broker’s new vendor selection process
- Save time mapping data, launch new brokers in less time (from weeks down to a few days for each MLS)
- Have greater confidence in imported data being accurate
- Decrease likelihood of data import and/or normalization errors
- Make changes more efficiently since most MLSs follow the same data standard
- Increase employee morale (specialists from product development and innovation aren’t required to take on tedious legacy RETS-based data import tasks)
- Have more time to build new valuable features
RESO asked TRIBUS if they realized a time/cost savings by having the same set of data in more than one market instead of having to map new fields during every deployment.
TRIBUS said that they were able to reduce the time investment in mapping MLS data from 5 to 10 hours down to 5 to 15 minutes.
- Before: 5 to 10 hours per MLS (can vary based on number of classes to map, number of custom fields and how logically fields are named)
- Now: 5 to 15 minutes per MLS, with potential to improve even more.
What’s the Bottom Line for Broker Technology Companies?
RESO asked TRIBUS whether they believe the move to RESO has been worth it for their organization.
Ragusa said, “Yes, it is definitely worth the effort to move to the RESO Data Dictionary and RESO Web API. It cuts way down on errors and wasted time. You end up with less technical debt because there are fewer things being done wrong which you just haven’t identified yet. Many technology companies like to hope there are few to no errors, but without the Data Dictionary, it’s really difficult to have monitoring in place for every single scenario.”
TRIBUS Strongly Recommends That All Technology Companies Build with RESO Standards
TRIBUS believes that all data-dependent technology companies will be better off once they evolve to the RESO Data Dictionary and preferably RESO Web API. According to Ragusa, “If you’re looking to begin working with RETS data, building your importer based on RESO’s specifications is a must.”
“For those with existing RETS importers, the goal would be to get over to the Web API as soon as possible, which has a much smaller scope than building a RETS importer. If going directly onto the Web API isn’t practical for you yet, the benefits described above definitely surpass the time it took for us to rebuild our RETS importer.”
What Materials are Available to Become RESO Compliant?
According to TRIBUS, “RESO does a good job of explaining the main benefits of RESO along with a ton of support materials to help move to RESO standards. They have public lists of officially certified technology companies, and RESO provides certification logos that companies can use to promote their certification on their own website and in marketing materials. There are also tons of support resources to help you make the move to RESO compliance.”
Value of RESO Workgroups and Conferences
Ragusa and many members of her team have been actively engaged in RESO workgroups for many years. When asked about why TRIBUS dedicates time to workgroups, she says, “The RESO workgroups are pretty intimate, and everyone shares ideas. It’s nice to be in a group where everyone is as passionate about consistent data practices as we are. And they allow us to continue to improve on the standards.”
In addition to participating in RESO workgroups, TRIBUS has attended several RESO conferences. According to Ragusa, “TRIBUS has both attended and presented. Honestly, it’s probably the most interesting conference of the year for me and my team. There are lots of innovative and thought-provoking projects to learn about and practical ideas of how to better use data in our industry. At other real estate conferences, I walk away wanting more depth in the sessions, but RESO is definitely not lacking there.”
RESO Advice From One Technology Company to Others
Ragusa provided advice for other technology companies thinking about making the move to RESO. “Give it a try, and you’ll see the value very quickly! RESO offers free data access for developers, so you can try it out for yourself and understand the scope of a project like that before you commit to making a change. I can guarantee that calling data via RESO’s Web API will be easier to build than building a RETS data importer.”
“RESO has several workgroups that host monthly meetings. These groups allow you to home in on the topics you care about most, and they give you a voice to suggest new data fields and necessary updates to standards. Don’t think of standards as restrictive, because they’re always improving based on feedback from these workgroups.”
About
RESO
The mission of the Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) is to create and promote the adoption and utilization of standards that drive efficiency throughout the real estate industry. RESO was incorporated in November 2011 as an independent, not-for-profit trade organization that was previously a section of the National Association of REALTORS®. RESO has more than 775 active members, including NAR, multiple-listing services, real estate associations, brokerages and industry technology providers.
TRIBUS
TRIBUS provides medium and large brokerages around the world with custom websites, intranet, email marketing, transaction management and CRM systems. Through their open API, TRIBUS Source, the system connects brokerages’ listing, agent, and consumer data with numerous of other tools like marketing, back office, accounting, lead generation and more; where and when the brokerage needs it.
