What if you could tap a button like you do to pair a Bluetooth device and all your MLS data would instantly populate in each of your applications? That’s what open standards in real estate are all about. We tackled this subject head-on in a white paper called “Why Open Standards are Vital to the Real Estate Industry.”
We don’t always fully appreciate the significance that open standards play in driving efficiency throughout the real estate industry. This new RESO white paper looks closely at open standards in general – the impact they have had on other industries and the significance that open standards have and can continue to have in shaping the future of the real estate industry and streamlining the real estate transaction.
Understanding Open Standards
Industries have a couple of choices when it comes to standards. There are open standards and proprietary (closed) standards. As the white paper explains, “To be an ‘open’ standard, the development and approval process must be a consensus-based, collaborative process that is transparent to participants.”
At RESO, we do that through workgroups and committees with more than a thousand subject matter experts from every industry segment representing over 800 companies worldwide. That’s where changes to standards for the real estate industry are proposed, vetted on by these experts and formally voted on. It’s why online discussions exist and why meeting agendas and minutes are published for full transparency to all RESO members, not just members of each workgroup. RESO also holds democratic elections for its Board of Directors, which provides final approval and ratification for new versions of standards.
All RESO specifications are vendor-neutral, a requirement of open standards.
An open standard must also openly publish its documentation. Moreover, companies must be able to use the standard at no cost, and the number of implementations must not be artificially limited. RESO publishes standards on its website, in its Confluence workgroup collaboration space and on its GitHub, and RESO does not charge for the use of its standards.
Proprietary Standards
Some have elected to take a different direction and adopt proprietary or closed standards. As the RESO white paper documents, history is littered with failed attempts of proprietary standards. Think Sony’s BBeB (Broad-Band eBook), which lost to the open ePub standard, or their Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC), which failed to the MP3 standard.
For years, every digital camera maker had their own proprietary memory card format: Sony products used Memory Sticks, Olympus used xD, and Fujifilm used SmartMedia. But in 2000, SanDisk, Panasonic and Toshiba created the SD Association (SDA), a nonprofit organization, which developed and enhanced the highly successful, portable and interoperable Secure Digital (SD) memory card standard. The move to open standards led to the obsolescence of other proprietary formats.
As the white paper notes, “(Proprietary standards in real estate) would have a creating entity retaining the intellectual property rights, such as the copyright or patent of the standards. They would be created by a limited set of individuals, eliminating the ability to leverage knowledge and expertise outside the boundaries of any one organization. Standards documentation wouldn’t be openly published, limiting the number of developers that could be contributing to industry innovation.”
The Case Study
The “Why Open Standards are Vital to the Real Estate Industry” white paper, done in cooperation with RESO, strongly demonstrates the need for open standards. It details the dramatic advantages that organizations that adopt standards have and documents how standards significantly benefit real estate brokerages and agents.
Because open standards are consensus-based, they take time to create and change. The case study suggests ways for RESO and its members to diligently press forward in a timely manner.
