RESO Monthly, February 2023: A-I, A-I, Oh! AI is Coming and So is the RESO Spring Conference!

Letter From the Chair

It’s safe to say that the robot is out of the lab where artificial intelligence (AI) is concerned.

Last year ended with a flourish of new avatars in our social feeds from friends using the Lensa app. New tech from OpenAI, including ChatGPT, has written school reports and a compelling ad campaign. The powerful DALL·E 2 has created realistic changes to existing images from natural language.

The most immediate impact on real estate could be AI’s effect on listing descriptions and photo modifications, so it’s important for us to be aware of these new technologies.

The good news is that RESO is already thinking about the robot takeover with solutions to handle image modifications in the Research and Development and Data Dictionary workgroups. A fresh set of lookups have been drawn up to account for media alterations that will be included in Data Dictionary 2.1, such as virtual staging and twilight conversion, among others.

But we will need more help, of course. Which is why I wanted to talk about the importance of HI. I’m not talking about Hawaii, but rather human intelligence.

HI still has great value, and RESO is providing it. In 2023, we will be rolling out a Web API Transition Guide for MLS administrators, and we have started creating the Working with Real Estate Data (WWRED) Technical Module (and RED-T designation) to go along with our popular WWRED Business Module (and RED-B designation).

In 2021, RED-B had 187 registrants and 128 people completed the course. In 2022, those numbers jumped to 386 registrants and 280 completed, marking increases of 106% and 119%, respectively. We built the tools for greater intelligence, and you responded.

We are still holding our own alongside the artificial, and we will use our real estate smarts to harness the power of these incredible new tools at our disposal.

By the way, this entire letter was written with ChatGPT.

No, it wasn’t. But how will we ever know? We need your intelligence and dedication to keep the robots honest. May your year be off to a happy and truthful start.

Rebecca Jensen
Chair
RESO 2023 Board of Directors

Call for Presentations: RESO 2023 Spring Conference in San Antonio

The 2023 RESO Spring Conference will be held April 18–20 in San Antonio, Texas. Registration is open!

We are accepting speaker requests for innovative presentations to fill out our standards-based, tech-focused agenda. Is RESO Analytics providing a tangible benefit to your company that you would like to speak about? Are you experiencing measurable efficiency improvements by using the Data Dictionary and RESO Web API?

If you or someone you know would be a good fit for our audience, please submit your request.

VISIT EVENT SITE | SPEAKER PRESENTATION REQUESTS | REGISTER

Sponsorship Slots Available for RESO 2023 Spring Conference

RESO events are intimate gatherings that put you in direct contact with the best minds in real estate tech. Sponsorship boosts your brand reach, credibility and leadership in the industry.

Our sponsors gain access to an attendee list packed with executives and experts from the largest MLSs, real estate technology companies, brokerages and franchises.

If you are interested in becoming a RESO conference sponsor, please contact Suzanne Biegenzahn at suzanne@reso.org for more info.

Product Updates

Updates to the Data Dictionary, RESO Web API, RESO Analytics, WWRED, identifier products (UPI, UOI, ULI) and more will be shared here in RESO Monthly and on our website at RESO Product Updates.

Transport
Data Dictionary JSON Payloads (RCP-025) has been renamed RESO Common Format.

Data Dictionary
A new resource and accompanying fields were approved for Data Dictionary 2.1.

PowerStorage
- PowerStorageType
- NameplateCapacity
- DateOfInstallation
- InformationSource

Certification Update

Congratulations to the First Multiple Listing Service (FMLS) and the Luzern County Association of REALTORS® for achieving their Data Dictionary 1.7 and Web API Core 2.0.0 endorsements and being added 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.

In order to be listed as Certified Current on the map, MLSs must approve their certification reports from their vendors for two items – a Data Dictionary endorsement and a Web API endorsement – sent as a pair to the MLS’s primary contact by email.

Questions about RESO certification should be directed to your MLS vendor. Questions about self-testing or the technical aspects of certification, may be directed to dev@reso.org.

WWRED (Pronounced Red)

RED Ambassadors
Let’s hear it for the organizations that are paving the way for RESO’s one-of-a-kind Working with Real Estate Data (WWRED) course, our RED Ambassadors!

A RED Ambassador is an organization that has registered 20+ staff members and/or uses the course as an onboarding tool for staff and volunteer Board of Directors leaders. Join them and hundreds of your colleagues who are already taking the course that encompasses how data flows through the industry. Start working toward the RED-B designation today!

New Members

NoCoast MLS
NoCoast MLS is a regional MLS created by the Iowa Association of REALTORS® with the goal of getting all Iowa and other regional REALTORS® into one MLS system to best serve their clients and members.

PropTexx
PropTexx uses AI to generate engaging descriptions, pre-populate listings, tag images, enhance photos, analyze databases and more in seconds.

ROAM MLS
ROAM MLS was formed by the aggregation of several MLSs in Louisiana to deliver the benefits of consolidated MLS services with the least amount of disruption to established broker and agent business practices and routines.

RealPlus
RealPlus has been providing technology solutions to the New York City real estate industry for more than 30 years. They were the first service to provide electronic interchange of exclusive listings data for Manhattan-based brokerages and helped REBNY to develop the current system.

Welcome to RESO!

Industry News

RESO Developers Conference
RESO is planning two developer conferences this year (Q1 and Q3) to tackle important issues in a focused setting. The meetings will be virtual and the official schedule will be shared soon.

During the February 6 Transport Workgroup meeting, it was determined that the dates for the Q1 meeting will be Monday, February 27 to Wednesday, March 1. The anticipated meeting time each day is 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm ET / 10:00 am to 2:00 pm PT, with a 30-minute break.

The agenda for these conferences will be made up of items from the Transport Workgroup backlog and the Transport Discussions Forum, both on RESO’s GitHub.

If you have suggestions for topics or are interested in joining, please email transport@reso.org.

On the RESO Blog

Kristen Carr and Donna Rauch

How Your Company Can Get the Most Out of RESO Workgroups
Kristen Carr, Director, Partner Integrations and Industry Relations, and Donna Rauch, Vice President, Data Support, both from Realtors Property Resource (RPR), discussed the helpfulness and importance of the RESO workgroup community to their teams for building awareness of the standards and other issues that are moving through the RESO pipeline. “RESO standards help us define our technologies when we’re creating something new,” said Carr. | BLOG | VIDEO (23:33 minutes)

Dave Conroy

What You Say is What You Get – Advanced AI’s Impact on Listing Photos
Dave Conroy, Director of Emerging Technology at the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) and current member of the RESO Board of Directors gave a fascinating presentation about artificial intelligence (AI). Misrepresentation of listing photos is a serious issue for MLSs, brokers and consumers. “We might need AI to tell what photos have been edited by AI,” said Conroy. | BLOG | VIDEO (16:13 minutes)

RESO@

Left to Right: Denee Evans, Nikola Dosev, Sam DeBord.

Inman Connect New York, January 24–26, 2023
RESO CEO Sam DeBord was joined by Nikola Dosev, Product Manager of Innovation at SkySlope, and CMLS CEO Denee Evans, who moderated a session called “How MLSs Can Leverage Tech to Offset Data Challenges.”

The group discussed how MLSs need to understand their data through the eyes of their technology vendors and customers. RESO Analytics reports for provider alignment (multiple MLS software vendors) and market alignment (multiple MLSs in the same geography) allow MLS leadership to have objective discussions about what they offer. This equips them to fuel up their API with a “weaponized” data set that includes both RESO standard and custom local data.

The evolution of MLS technology now provides MLS operators with many options to streamline the transaction. From what was traditionally known as transaction management to a much broader pre- and post-transaction customer relationship process, the panel talked about the opportunities MLSs have to use tech tools that can talk to one another, through RESO standards, and to provide broad integrations that make digital real estate experiences simple for brokers and consumers.

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

Data Dictionary Workgroup | December 15, 2022
The meeting started with a discussion about conveying usage information for single data feeds. A “Steel Frame” lookup was added to the ConstructionMaterials field, and the group worked on streamlining lookups between WaterfrontFeatures and FrontageType, as well as fields to convey power storage and bulk sales information. | NOTES

Research & Development Workgroup | January 5, 2023
The meeting continued the discussion of the Smart Home Business Case and revision/simplification of the Business Case Proposal Template, which was presented at the February meeting. The NAR Safety Fields Recommendation was discussed with representatives from NAR and pilot MLSs implementing fields to convey the safety information. A business case has been created and feedback gathered from the pilot MLS. Review of the definitions of the StandardStatus lookups have also been recommended, and a subgroup will be created with that goal. | NOTES

Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Subgroup | January 6, 2023
The group commenced working through the CRE Mapping Sheet and discussing which options should be added to the Data Dictionary’s Commercial Real Estate (CRE) fields. | NOTES

Transport Workgroup | January 9, 2023
The Add/Edit and RESO Common Format proposals were reviewed and are ready to be moved forward. Another implementation of Add/Edit (RCP-010) is needed before it can be ratified. The remaining discussion was primarily focused on supporting multiple locales in the RESO Web API. | NOTES

Interoperability Workgroup | January 17, 2023
The group discussed potential use cases for the Industry Map and other RESO tools from the perspectives of brokerages, vendors and MLSs. Metadata is continuing to be collected for the Offer Management Shape with alignment of the fields to high-level categories or “buckets” planned for the next meeting. | NOTES

Internet Tracking Workgroup | January 18, 2023
The group discussed making potential changes to the visualization used to explain the Internet Tracking specification and adding entities to the four stakeholders currently identified in the tracking mix: MLS, broker, agent and consumer. Data tracking-related news about Google Analytics and data privacy legislation were also discussed. | NOTES

Data Dictionary Workgroup | January 19, 2023
Discussion continued on defining field usage in a single feed, and the group was asked to document their single-feed use case scenarios on the post in Confluence. Options for streamlining the lookups of FrontageType and WaterfrontFeatures were shown and are available for review. A subgroup will be formed for the Bulk Sales topic and a PowerStorage Resource containing four new fields (PowerStorageType, NameplateCapacity, DateOfInstallation and InformationSource) were passed. | NOTES

Certification Subgroup | January 19, 2023
The Certification Subgroup reviewed testing rules for the RESO Common Format proposal as well as the Field Resource, including adding fields to describe capabilities like data types (see Transport Discussion forum) and being queryable. | NOTES

Universal Property Identifier (UPI) Workgroup | January 25, 2023
The meeting covered scenarios in which duplicate UPIs may be created and possible solutions to avoiding this duplication, including using additional identifiers and a Uniform Resource Name (URN) approach. Additionally, it was proposed that a county metadata document be created to explain how edge-case UPIs were created where use of the standard APN was not sufficient. | NOTES

Rental Subgroup | January 26, 2023
The group discussed Rent Price and Pets from the Rental Subgroup Topics list. The Rent Price discussion favored adding a field to indicate the frequency that rent is collected with rent price being indicated by the ListPrice field. The group also discussed adding lookups to the PetsAllowed field to better describe residential lease properties. No items were voted on during this meeting. | NOTES

Research & Development Workgroup | February 2, 2023
The simplified business case form discussed at the previous meeting was presented to the group. Business case proposals (submitted on the new form) for the NAR Safety Field and Agent/Office Bio cases were presented and discussed. A subgroup will be formed to potentially refine the definitions of the Standard Status lookups (Active, Active Under Contract, etc.). A new proposal regarding the Smart Home Standards business case was presented. | NOTES

Upcoming RESO Workgroup Meetings

If you want to participate in any of the following recurring workgroup or subgroup meetings, you can write to support@reso.org to get started.

Tuesday, February 14: Interoperability Workgroup
Wednesday, February 15: Internet Tracking Workgroup
Thursday, February 16: Data Dictionary Workgroup
Thursday, February 16: Certification Subgroup
Tuesday, February 21: Universal Property Identifier (UPI) Workgroup
Thursday, February 23: Broker Advisory Workgroup
Tuesday, February 28: Distributed Ledger Workgroup