With 400 attendees, the RESO 2025 Spring Conference was a smashing success. Although RESO prides itself on being one of the industry’s more intimate affairs, it was remarkable to see such a wide and varied amount of support for real estate data standards, especially at a time when the industry is in a period of challenge.
No matter where real estate professionals and observers line up on the debates of the day, there is a widespread belief that having an underlying set of standards that promote technological advancement and interoperability is good for business.
The messages, products and projects shared from agenda presentations, in roundtable sessions, in workgroup meetings, on panel discussions and in hallway conversations should give all proptech participants several reasons to believe that the RESO mission is on track for more great things ahead.
All presentations can be found on RESO’s member-only Workgroup Collaboration System in the sidebar at Conference Presentations. Videos can also be found there and on the RESO website within Past Events – or just click any of the titles below! Event photos can be found in RESO’s website Event Gallery.
Let’s begin the recap!
Welcome and RESO Today – RESO Chair Rebecca Jensen from Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) and RESO CEO Sam DeBord kicked off the meeting by highlighting the achievement of Data Dictionary 2.0. In just the last six months, MLSs serving more than 50% of the U.S. subscriber base have achieved Data Dictionary 2.0 certification, and more are coming in every day!
They also applauded the growth of RESO Common Format (RCF), membership expansion to 20 countries, RESO’s involvement in the International MLS Forum, new and updated case studies and white papers, and improvements in RESO Alignment Reports. In addition, RESO Contributor and Leading Edge Awards were presented during the opening session.
RESO to RAG: Transforming Real Estate Data for Smart Search – Dan Troup and Tyler Olmsted from Broker Public Portal (BPP) explored how the RESO Data Dictionary transforms into a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system for real estate search. By leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) and OpenAPI specifications, they have enabled dynamic tool usage, allowing a model to efficiently interact with structured RESO data. Olmsted provided several video walk-throughs that offered insights on how to build an AI-powered real estate search experience that understands natural language queries, fetches structured data via API calls and iterates for better results.
Broker Spotlight: Why Brokers Need RESO, and What Brokers Want from Us – James Dwiggins of NextHome has been one of the most vocal proponents of broker cooperation and competition in the real estate industry. He sat down with Broker Advisory Workgroup Chair Jeff Bosch of IRES MLS and Vice-Chair Nina Dosanjh of Vanguard Properties to reinforce the benefits that brokers get as end users of standardized data. Dwiggins is adept at challenging his listeners to do more than talk about bettering the industry. Many in attendance counted this conversation among the best of the spring sessions.
Boosting Replication Integrity Through Sequencing – Janine Sieja from Realtors Property Resource® (RPR) shared how RPR is onboarding MLS data sets with a new replication system that uses RESO’s Entity Event standard to ensure that records are sequenced and transported for accuracy, eliminating data loss. RESO continues to deliver new ways to improve the format, transport and replication of data for industry stakeholders. See RCP-27 and RCP-28 for more information.
Applying Standards to Support Global MLS Expansion – Matthew Kallumadil from Stellar MLS and Ethan Bailey from Cotality teamed up to present their respective experiences in international expansion. The common thread was how RESO standards supported both of their endeavors. Some other countries have more government involvement in the real estate transaction; others don’t have formal licensing or agency, and they rarely have the North American style of MLS infrastructure. Some don’t even use Latin-based language characters, but their languages can still be used to perform Web API queries. Each presenter laid out their challenges and how they are overcoming them.
What’s New in Startup Proptech? – Greg Robertson of Giant Steps Advisors, a veteran presenter and entrepreneur, moderated a panel with three relatively new RESO members about their experiences in what can now be called a mature system of MLSs and other organized real estate entities. Eileen Romito of Zenlist, Jessica Richardson of PropStream and Ben Quinn of Roomvo talked through their respective technologies, the opportunities that proptech companies provide to the industry and the challenges that still exist for breaking through.
Accelerating Rich Media into Diverse Technologies – Michael Lane from ShowingTime+, Megan McFarlane from New Mexico MLS and Michael Wurzer from FBS discussed how rich media is moving out of silos and into efficient connections between MLS and broker tools. From floor plans to high-quality photography to three-dimensional content, each company has a vision for expanding this value and how standards like RCF can support it.
Light Speed Listing Development That Started at RESO – Katy Campbell Davenport of First Multiple Listing Service (FMLS) and Hayden Rieveschl of Ocusell chatted about how they met at a RESO conference, providing a refreshing reminder of just how many MLS/vendor partnerships begin with RESO at the core. In the case of FMLS and Ocusell, a chance encounter blossomed into an initiative for a simplified listing input into multiple MLSs with real-time compliance through a front end of choice. RESO Web API Add/Edit, Data Dictionary 2.0 mapping and Web API Validation Expressions were the technical standards that created business wins, with agents now submitting listings faster, more accurately and with richer data.
How MLSs Can Lead the Future of Secure Real Estate Transactions – Ashley Stinton from NAR REACH and Russell Smith of Earnnest were on hand to represent the new iOi Collective, a year-round collaboration that engages the industry in tech-forward topics. For this fireside chat, the duo talked about secure, digital payment solutions that streamline workflows and reduce fraud risks. Today, MLSs can integrate digital earnest money deposits, enhance transaction security and empower agents with seamless fintech solutions.
Not Another AI Presentation! Customer Service Supercharged – Jim Yockel from Upstate New York Real Estate Information Services (UNYREIS) and Kurtis Cicalo from Voiceflip shared how new AI tools that understand your specific rules, procedures and standards can allow your organization to inform its customers better, faster and more comprehensively in any language at any time.
Research & Development Workgroup – Chair Greg Moore of Regional Multiple Listing Service (RMLS) and Vice-Chair John Breault of State-Wide MLS went over the group’s position within the RESO framework, the process of submitting a business case and a refresher of the Unique Licensee Identifier (ULI), the newest RESO identifier product that began in R&D and was evolved in an R&D subgroup. The ULI is becoming increasingly relevant and top of mind to real estate practitioners as companies begin building their own nodes for the network.
Pain Points – To close out day one, Rick Herrera of Constellation Data Labs, Olga Ermolin of MLSListings and Gayle Ludemann of MRED served as emcees for another engaging rendition of a RESO session that has become a solutions-generating staple. NAR’s Delayed Marketing Exempt Listing (DMEL) MLS Policy was the topic du jour with a focus on how standard fields might play into it all. Several other topics were discussed, including ModificationTimestamp issues, record deletions, custom local fields, the removal of photos after closing and a specific need for more flexibility and depth in pool fields.
After a hot breakfast – a long-time perk of RESO conferences – day two split attendees into seven rooms for “roundtable” sessions, including:
AI Without the Cost
Moderator: Bernie Alen, The STEM Practice
Data, not dollars, is the key to success. This roundtable covered how to stay competitive and innovative while avoiding unnecessary AI spending.
RESO Alignment Reports
Moderators: John Breault, State-Wide MLS; Joshua Darnell, RESO
RESO Alignment Reports help organizations align their data by showing points of similarity and discrepancy between products and across marketplaces. Product updates were provided.
Getting RESO Certification on the Fast Track
Moderators: Jason Darrough, RESO; Joseph Szurgyi, MLS Grid
RESO Analytics helps RESO staff and the Fast Track Subgroup look more closely at local fields to make data-driven suggestions to achieve certification and to improve the Data Dictionary.
The Power of Positivity: A RENEW Discussion
Moderator: Lauren Martin, RentSpree
Positive thinking about challenges and staying optimistic when faced with setbacks are not technical specifications that RESO can certify, but there is no doubt that resilience is an important word in real estate today, which is why this nontechnical roundtable was popular.
Days on Market: Putting the Metric Under the Spotlight
Moderator: Bryan Burgers, Zenlist
It was a full house for a discussion about the Days on Market metric and its methodologies. The Data Dictionary Workgroup has covered this ground, and the Transport Workgroup has come up with a new and efficient standardized calculation method, all of which can be found within RESO’s member-only Confluence workspace.
Not Another AI Roundtable!
Moderator: Jim Yockel, Upstate New York Real Estate Information Services (UNYREIS)
If AI isn’t part of your business strategy in some manner, you are already falling behind. This was a discussion to share what is possible and which tools are being used to do day-to-day work.
What’s Changing in Broker Technology?
Moderator: Nina Dosanjh, Vanguard Properties
This informal gathering provided an opportunity to share what tech is working for brokerages today. Amidst the mass of available tools, the primary message among attendees was to keep tech simple enough to use and human enough to connect with clients in order to maximize transaction volume and increase client happiness.
Supersonic Integrations Powered by RESO – James Rogers of RealReports began day two of the conference with a short presentation about how RealReports has created partnerships through RESO, then he served as panel moderator to discuss a collection of case studies highlighting collaboration and a commitment to integrating standards into operational frameworks. Sara Fogg of Prime MLS, Tyler Decker of FBS, Garry Marsoubian of MLS Now and Paula Nash of Hive MLS all shared their experiences with fast integrations.
Technology Crossing Borders – Kerry Rakuson and Nikolas Provencher from Centris joined Joe Schneider of Modern.tech to talk about how data standards aren’t held back by political borders. The trio discussed how Canadian, American and European companies are working together to advance the industry.
Architecting the Future of MLS Cooperation – Denee Evans, CEO of the Council of Multiple Listing Services (CMLS) shared the latest guidance from the influential trade organization on how MLSs can become stronger, cooperative organizations.
Why Days on Market Needs to Change and Why That Shouldn’t Scare You – Bryan Burgers of Zenlist gave a master class on how to solve vendor issues with Days on Market without reducing the authority of data providers.
When AI Speaks RESO: The New Language of Property Intelligence – Dominik Pogorzelski of Restb.ai gave an articulate breakdown of complex subject matter for technical and nontechnical audiences. He delved into the modularization of real estate data tools. Coupled with Data Dictionary 2.0 and RESO Web API Add/Edit, it has never been easier to create, update and distribute data from the source to all MLS data consumers.
Agile MLS Data Exchanges and Structures – Bill Fowler of SourceRE and Andrew Coca of Modern.tech described how they worked with Daniel Jones of Hive MLS to reinvent the MLS’s data management and relationships with other organizations. RESO standards were used to upgrade internal tools and improve the exchange of data between data providers. RESO worked with this group on an accompanying case study, and Modern.tech published an independent white paper.
Independent Data: How It Started vs. How It’s Going – Katie Smithson of REcore provided a historical and forward-looking narrative on how MLSs like the California Regional Multiple Listing Service (CRMLS) are providing infrastructure, independence, flexibility and control in one core, standards-based product for many front-end MLS systems.
Where Data Standards Can Drive New Technology Innovation in the Future – Eugene Pak from Sidekick and Joshua Lamerton of Proptexx explored where real estate data standards can expand in the future to bring more innovation and efficiency to brokers and agents.
Interoperability Workgroup – Chair Chris Haran of MRED and Vice-Chair Catharine Macintosh of Listed provided an overview of current workgroup projects in their telltale, humorous style, covering projects worked on since the last RESO conference. Key accomplishments include finishing payload-tagging for Offer Management, Association Management Systems, Appraisals and Client Contracts, as well as a Best Practices Guide of user stories, all of which are being finalized. A majority of the meeting covered an exciting new decentralized networking protocol called ActivityPub that could revolutionize how listing information is shared between data exchange participants.
Data Dictionary Workgroup – Chair Rob Larson of Larson Consulting LLC covered workgroup basics, current topics and subgroup activity. Key agenda items included energy performance certificates for the EU, international currency types and conversion, disaster fields, high-speed Internet, U.S. Territories, additions to StateOrProvince, and a Data Dictionary definitions update. Current subgroups include ActivityPub, ADU (aka Additional Living Quarters), Bulk Sale (aka Package Sale), Data Dictionary Policy, Duplication, Fast Track, Multi-Select Lookups and New Construction. RESO members can participate in discussions on all of these topics in the Data Dictionary Discussions Forum.
Day two closed with the popular Web API Office Hours. This mini-expo has become a valuable conference feature, providing a simple way for MLSs and vendors to talk about RESO-certified Web API services and other organizational needs. Vendors included Cotality, Rapattoni, Bridge Interactive, FBS, MLS Grid and Modern.tech.
Diving Deep on Search Tooling – Matthew Purcell and Brian Tran of BPP kicked off day three’s technical content with further exploration of day one’s BPP session about transforming the RESO Data Dictionary into a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system. The duo dove deeper into search tooling and exploring the differences between lexical and neural retrieval, comparing traditional keyword-based search (BM25, Elasticsearch) with modern embedding-based retrieval (vector search, kNN and hybrid approaches) to understand their strengths and trade-offs in real estate search.
Transport Workgroup and Certification Subgroup – Workgroup activity targeted to technical staff rounded out the final day of the conference with a deep dive into the discussions happening within each group. Vice-Chair Sergio Del Rio of Templates 4 Business ran the meeting while Chair Paul Stusiak of Falcon Technologies participated over video for pressing questions. RESO’s GitHub is the best place for public discourse and is open to all members.
Louisville is Up Next!
The RESO 2025 Fall Conference site is live with registration links for hotel, onsite registration and livestream registration. | REGISTER TODAY
That’s a wrap on another successful gathering of brilliant minds sharing forward-leaning activities. Thank you to all attendees and to the organizations who contributed to the conference’s success.
