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Letter From the Chair
Last year at this time, as change was lurking around every real estate corner, I talked about how Richard Rumelt’s Good Strategy/Bad Strategy resonated with me.
I was particularly moved by the message of maintaining extreme focus in the face of adversity. Being mission driven is the RESO way. The board, staff and workgroup chairs are all aligned toward creating meaningful standards that organizations from all over the world want to use.
In 2025, we are actively:
- Building more educational courses for Canada and the technical community
- Fine-tuning existing standards with data-driven local field analysis
- Attacking pain points expressed in workgroup meetings and at RESO conferences
- Welcoming more technology companies into our fold than ever before
- Providing analytics beyond RESO certification into actionable alignment reports
- Leading and managing the next International MLS Forum in Toronto
RESO’s Alignment Reports save organizations significant time in constructing comparative data frameworks, allowing technical staff, data analysts and business management to focus on the critical details necessary to make their data collaborations work.
MLSs can use the reports to compare their data to industry averages. They also detail how their data aligns across multiple API services and how much data alignment there is between it and other MLSs.
Tech startups can use these reports to see which markets are best equipped to incorporate their product. Smart, actionable business decisions can already be made from these reports, and your investment and involvement in RESO made this happen.
The International MLS Forum is in its third year, and we are ready to move the conversation beyond why into how. What is it going to take to bring the MLS model to international markets, where should we begin and who is going to take this on? In my own Chicagoland market, brokers are excited by the proposition of international MLS expansion.
Chicagoland is already home to some of the largest populations of Polish, Indian and Southeast Asian immigrants in the world. The global community is investing in the U.S., and U.S. citizens are increasingly investing in places like Poland, Vietnam, Thailand, India and many other international destinations.
Daniel Daggers, Founder of DDRE International in London, recently stated that his firm reports a 70% rise in U.S. buyer searches in his home market. If your home-based clients are spending money abroad, how are you positioned to help them with those transactions? RESO is there to assist you in that journey.
We are better when we work together – from all of our points of view – toward a better foundation to build our unique businesses upon.
RESO continues to take huge technological and international strides, because everything that we do comes from strategic thinking and relentless focus driven by data and logic.
Thank you for being a part of it,
Rebecca Jensen
Chair
2025 RESO Board of Directors
RESO 2025 Spring Conference: Standards in the Sonoran
Join us in Tucson, Arizona, April 15–17, at the JW Marriott Tucson Starr Pass Resort & Spa. Prices increase February 28! | EVENT & REGISTRATION INFO
Daily Agenda
- Monday, April 14: Welcome Reception
- Tuesday, April 15: Pain Points, Sessions, Web API Office Hours, Evening Reception
- Wednesday, April 16: Roundtables, Awards, Sessions & Workgroup Meetings
- Thursday, April 17: Transport Workgroup Technical Day, Adjourn at Half-Day!
IMPORTANT: Due to the expected smaller technical sessions on Thursday, hotel rooms in the RESO block are limited on Wednesday night. Please consider this when booking your hotel.
Be Part of the Show!
If you have a compelling biz/tech story about how standards revolutionize real estate, submit a presentation request by February 28. | SUBMIT A SPEAKER REQUEST
Lock in Your Visibility!
Sponsors are showcased for MLS, tech and brokerage leaders from the U.S. and abroad. Contact advertising@reso.org for more info.
Intentionally International
Registration Open for the International MLS Forum in Toronto
Building on the success of Paris and Milan, RESO invites you to the 3rd International MLS Forum in Toronto, September 25–26, 2025. | REGISTER
We are excited that this year’s event dovetails with CMLS2025, which takes place September 23–25. The International MLS Forum will begin with a half-day joint session with CMLS.
As laid out in the Milan keynote by RESO CEO Sam DeBord, transparent marketplaces move inventory. | WATCH VIDEO
Industry News
Donate Now to Help California Wildfire Victims
The California Association of REALTORS® Disaster Relief Fund is still supporting the 200,000+ Los Angeles area residents who have experienced loss due to the recent wildfires. Please help them continue their efforts by making a tax-deductible contribution to the fund. | MORE INFO
The National Association of REALTORS® is covering 100% of administrative expenses through the REALTORS® Relief Foundation to support families impacted by this disaster. | MORE INFO
Product Updates
Data Dictionary
- Proposals for “Primary” Replacing “Master”
- Add “Primary” lookups (e.g., Primary Bedroom, Primary Bathroom) to all fields that contain “Master”
- Deprecate lookups that use “Master”
- FrontageLength Numeric Fields
- Approved FrontageLengthNumeric field
- Approved FrontageLengthNumericUnit field
- Deprecate FrontageLength String field
- New ParkingFeatures Lookups
- Add Attached Garage
- Add Detached Garage
- Will be consistent with Attached Carport and Detached Carport
Certification Update
The following organizations achieved Data Dictionary 2.0 certification over the past month:
- CBRAR Property Services
- East Alabama Board of REALTORS®
- South Texas MLS (Corpus Christi Association of REALTORS®)
- Virginia MLS CoOp
Data Dictionary 2.0 and Web API Core 2.0.0 are the latest RESO standards. RESO Common Format (RCF), Add/Edit, EntityEvent/Webhooks and Validation Expressions are additional certifiable endorsements. All results are viewable in RESO Analytics.
View the certification status of all MLSs on the RESO Certification & MLS Map. Send address or subscriber count changes to membership@reso.org.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.
New Member
okood
Investment tools and insights, offering analysis, real-time alerts on environmental and legislative changes, and portfolio management are all services that okood provides. The okood Strategy Index (OSI) tailors property scores to align with investment strategies, whether for short-term rentals, long-term holdings or flipping ventures. The company fosters a community of experts and fellow investors, ensuring collaborative support throughout the investment journey.
Welcome to RESO!
RED
RESO’s Working with Real Estate Data – Business (RED-B) course is the best primer for understanding how data flows through the industry. The course is popular for onboarding new employees and volunteer leaders. It is designed for both nontechnical and technical professionals and offers graduates a RED-B designation upon completion of the self-paced online course.
MORE INFO | SEE THE COMPLETE LIST OF RED-B DESIGNEES
Three Questions
The Three Questions interview series introduces you to real estate professionals with a hint of personality and humor. Watch for new entries every other Friday.
VISIT THE THREE QUESTIONS ARCHIVE
Recent entry:
RESO Workgroup Meetings
Research & Development Workgroup | January 9, 2025
The group reviewed the newly submitted Data Consistency and Integrity Business Case, which proposes that standards be created for testing data for errors and inconsistencies prior to the data filtering downstream to data providers and public portals. | NOTES
Interoperability Workgroup | January 14, 2025
The group discussed the use cases in the Best Practices Guide (Blueprint) – RESO Common Format post. RESO staff will include this in a Best Practices Guide. Potential new tasks for the workgroup may include tagging for a new payload (e.g., Appraisal), items from other workgroups (e.g., Transport and R&D) and standards for listing content generated by AI. Additional implementations are being sought for the Client Contracts proposal. | NOTES
Data Dictionary Workgroup | January 16, 2025
The group discussed the Duplication/Versioning Subgroup and its tasks. FrontageLengthNumeric and FrontageLengthNumericUnit fields were approved with the deprecation of the FrontageLength field. ParkingFeatures, Attached Garage and Detached Garage looksups were approved. Lookups that use the term “Primary” were approved to be added to all locations where “Master” is used and to deprecate all lookups that use “Master.” The type of deprecation is TBD. | NOTES
Fast Track Subgroup | January 21, 2025
Roof lookups were approved from the [Fast Track 2025] Suggested Mappings sheet, along with suggestions for new lookups and a field to be passed to the Data Dictionary Workgroup. Suggestions for Land under PropertyType were approved to be added to non-commercial land lookups that were originally given only a suggestion of Unimproved Land (PropertySubType). | NOTES
Upcoming RESO Workgroup Meetings and Key Topics
Here is a list of meetings on the slate for the next month, including the major topics for discussion. Join a workgroup to be part of the conversation! Members can review workgroup agendas in the RESO Workgroup Collaboration System.
Feb 6: Research & Development – Data Consistency and Integrity Business Case and call for new business cases to review
Feb 11: RESO Duplication and Versioning – Focusing on tasks outlined in Data Dictionary section of RESO Duplication and Versioning Tasks document
Feb 11: Interoperability – Tagging for a new payload (e.g., Appraisal), items from other workgroups, standards for AI-generated listing content, discuss any new implementations for the Client Contracts proposal
Feb 18: Fast Track – Mapping suggestions for a new set of fields
Feb 20: Data Dictionary – Potential deprecation for “Master” terminology, Municipality vs. Township, BedroomsAboveGrade and BedroomsBelowGrade, Legacy and Deprecated Data Elements (RCP-45) Proposal
Feb 20: Certification – Data Dictionary testing rules
