The next International MLS Forum will be September 25–26 in Toronto, Canada.
Registration details, including hotel information and pricing will be announced soon, but we wanted you to get this marquee event added to your calendar.
International MLS Forum 2024, October 7–8, Milan, Italy | MEDIA PAGE (Gallery & Videos)
For those based in North America, the Toronto destination not only brings the event closer than past events in Paris and Milan, which hosted representatives from more than 50 countries, but it will begin directly after the Council of Multiple Listing Services CMLS2025 conference taking place September 23–25 at the same venue!
RESO’s membership involvement in global markets has increased greatly in recent years. International MLS Forum host Joe Schneider, EVP of Consulting at Modern.tech, recently led a panel on international growth of real estate standards at the RESO 2025 Fall Conference. | VIDEO
Lynette Keyowski, Managing Partner at REACH Canada; Joshua Lamerton, Cofounder at Proptexx; and Kerry Rakuson, Industry Engagement Partner at Centris each spoke about the importance of growing the utilization of RESO standards across the world.
According to Keyowski, standards break down barriers, not just in data but in culture and business behavior. RESO standards inevitably increase the total available market (TAM) for proptech companies while also bringing more excellent, high-quality data online.
For proptech founder Lamerton, whose business has offices in France and the U.S., he has seen how operations are completely different around the world, down to how listings are entered into a portal. There are ambiguous ways to classify and tag an image, for example, and other steps in the process that are ripe for standardization.
Standards allow a structure to be built on top of a solid foundation, expediting development time through reliable resources like the RESO Data Dictionary.
For Rakuson, ignoring the global marketplace is to your detriment. Standards have helped Centris, a Canadian MLS, make great strides in Europe.
All panelists spoke to how building a great community is important for building momentum for the fairly new and difficult concept of expanding standards internationally.
Help comes from MLSs, government stakeholders, brokerages, investors, banks, proptech companies and fellow event organizer CEPI (European Association of Real Estate Professions).
Government agencies, in particular, see the value of an organized real estate market. With accurate data, their information resources for planning and development can be better utilized under the banner of RESO standards.
“This is not something that RESO can do on its own,” said Schneider. “Everybody needs to come together to build this community – moving forward to get to that final goal of creating an international standard.”
