RESO Monthly, September 2023: Data Safety, RESO San Diego, New Vids Explain RESO Products

MLS Cyberattack: A Wake-Up Call for All Leaders

Brokers and agents around the country felt the effects of an August cyberattack that took down 23 MLSs around the country.

Consumers could not access listings or open house info. Creative MLSs and vendors shifted their tech tactics quickly in order to get back online. This situation served as a wake-up call to the real estate industry to be prepared behind a wall of data standards. | READ MORE

RESO 2023 Fall Conference

The RESO 2023 Fall Conference in San Diego, October 23–26, is fast approaching. | REGISTER TODAY

Please note that our discounted hotel rates at Paradise Point end on September 25, so don’t delay!

                             

Why You Should Go

• Participate in a timely block of sessions on cybersecurity and disaster recovery.
• Learn about different kinds of data shares and which RESO standards elements make them successful.
• Examine a successful implementation of webhooks to get Add/Edit data from a technology vendor into an MLS system. 
• See how a video-creation application acquires listing data and media using RESO Web API and Data Dictionary-compliant information.
• Hear how leaders from proptech startups and MLSs think they can work better together.

Ten More Reasons to Attend

Participate in actionable workgroup meetings, witness real-world case studies of organizations using data standards to improve their businesses, add an important industry pain point to RESO’s goals and objectives, or network with the top tech minds in the real estate industry in a beautiful setting. We have many compelling reasons for you to attend the RESO 2023 Fall Conference in San Diego, October 22–24. | TEN REASONS

Now Accepting Fall Conference Door Prizes

Providing door prizes allows your company an additional low-cost marketing opportunity to show your support for the industry and its brightest stars. If you would like to contribute, please contact meridith@reso.org.

We will release the list of door prize providers in upcoming conference promotions. Get on the list today!

Thanks to our current sponsors!

Welcome New RESO Board Members

We are excited to announce the addition of two new members of RESO’s Board of Directors.

Please welcome Tom Morgan, Chief Data Officer, Bright MLS, and Patrick Pichette, VP, REALTOR.ca, Strategic Business and Innovation, Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA). 

Morgan was appointed to fill the seat and term vacated by the passing of Frank Major, while Pichette was appointed to a vacant seat.

Nominations will be open October 10–31 for available seats on the 2024 RESO Board of Directors.

New Videos Explain RESO Certification and RESO Analytics

Intro to RESO Certification
Go on a nontechnical walk-through of RESO’s certification process and learn how to read certification reports in a casual conversation with RESO CTO Joshua Darnell and John Breault, VP of MLS & Member Services at the Rhode Island Association of REALTORS® and State-Wide MLS, RESO Board of Directors Secretary and the vice-chair of the RESO Research & Development Workgroup. | WATCH VIDEO

The MLS Hour: RESO Analytics
Jason Sanchez, Director of MLS Engagement at the National Association of REALTORS®, hosted John and Josh, as well as DaVina Lara, CEO of bridgeMLS and the Bridge Association of REALTORS®, in an enthusiastic discussion about RESO Analytics.

They cover how it helps with MLS data shares and what’s coming soon related to market, product and consumer alignment reporting. | WATCH VIDEO | DOWNLOAD PRESENTATION

Product Updates

Data Dictionary

• Approved Data Dictionary 2.1 items will be merged into Data Dictionary 2.0, which is still in beta release.
• ShowingServiceName was approved. | FULL DETAILS
• Engineered Hardwood was approved as a lookup under Flooring.
• ClosetType was approved for the PropertyRooms Resource. | FULL DETAILS
• A new set of REALTOR® Safety Fields was approved. Four items will move from ShowingRequirements to a new ShowingConsiderations field that will also contain ten other items.Three items will move from ShowingRequirements to PropertyCondition. The final result of the REALTOR® Safety Fields Proposal is shown below.

New Members

ListAssist
ListAssist creates automated property listing descriptions quickly with the help of AI.

Manufactured Multiple Listing Service
Manufactured Multiple Listing Service is a data collection company specializing in manufactured housing.

MarketWhiffs
MarketWhiffs is an app and service that captures the pulse of the real estate market.

PropStream
PropStream is a provider of real estate data, tools and marketing solutions to help entrepreneurs locate, evaluate and market to highly-motivated buyers and sellers.

Regal Realty International
Regal Realty International is a real estate brokerage in Gainesville, Florida. We love all of our members, but it is especially nice to see more brokerages joining RESO!

Roomvu
Roomvu makes hyperlocal, ready-made videos that are personalized to the brands of agents and brokers.

Welcome to RESO!

RESO@

August Outings
RESO got an early start to the fall conference season by attending Inman Las Vegas, NAR’s Leadership Retreat in Chicago, the ShowingTime+ Executive Forum in Chicago and NAR’s iOi (Innovation. Opportunity. Investment.) Summit in Miami.

RESO will be present as often as possible wherever new companies and fresh ideas are being discussed in the real estate industry.

September Outings
RESO will be at Blueprint in Las Vegas, which touts itself as the largest, most global gathering of real estate industry leaders and innovators leading the charge in changing the built world – from construction to transaction.

We will also be back at the National Association of REALTORS® headquarters in Chicago for the MLS Technology and Emerging Issues Advisory Board meeting, joining a group of association, MLS and broker leaders to discuss the most important topics affecting MLSs today.

Triangle Real Estate Podcast
The podcast from our friends at Triangle MLS had RESO CEO Sam DeBord on as a guest.

Host Matt Fagioli talked to Sam about the hidden powers of RESO products and the initiatives that make the lives of agents, brokers and consumers easier and easier with each passing standard. | WATCH NOW

RESO will be attending PropTech South as Triangle reveals its emerging MLS platform with standards interoperability at its core.

Industry News

iOi Pitch Battle Winners
NAR announced Productive.ai as the winner of the fifth annual “Pitch Battle” competition at the 2023 Innovation, Opportunity & Investment (iOi) Summit in Miami. Productive.ai, a startup based in San Mateo, California, utilizes AI to enhance phone calls. The platform pulls real-time information from phone conversations and provides automatic notes, summaries, tasks, events and CRM logging.

Joseph Wihbey, COO and Head of Product at Productive.ai (seen holding the winning check) did the pitch. Productive.ai will be awarded $15,000 and a booth at NAR’s annual conference in November and will present the next Pitch Battle winner at the 2024 iOi Summit.

The Pitch Battle’s Crowd Favorite, as voted on by the in-person and virtual audience, was awarded to RESO member, ListAssist, an AI-focused business that integrates with brokerage websites and portals to build a deep understanding of every property they have on the market. Co-founder Chris McGoldrick explained that the company’s proprietary software identifies and assigns a match score to the best available properties. | READ MORE

FMLS Brings AI to Agents and Brokers Powered by CoreLogic & Restb.ai
First Multiple Listing Service (FMLS) will soon be providing generative AI tools from Restb.ai to their 57,000+ subscribers, delivered through the CoreLogic suite of MLS solutions. AI will automatically extract data insights from property photos to streamline the listing input process with photo tags, ALT-text technology, generative property descriptions and image-matching capability. | READ MORE

Tom Hurdelbrink from NWMLS to Retire in 2023
Tom Hurdelbrink, President and CEO of Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS), has announced his plan to retire at the end of 2023. Hurdelbrink, a longtime RESO supporter, has led NWMLS since 2008. | READ MORE

Triangle MLS Partners with Earth Advantage to Provide Green Verification Data
RESO members Earth Advantage and Triangle MLS announced a partnership to deliver building performance data from the Green Building Registry (GBR) to Triangle users. The green certification and energy rating data available from GBR will be integrated into Triangle MLS’s tax/public records system, CRS Data, another RESO member. 

CRS Data will also support the auto-population of this data into listings to ensure a consistent and accurate representation of a building’s energy data for prospective buyers or renters. 

RESO standards that allow different organizations to seamlessly work with each other’s data helps to make these endeavors possible. | READ MORE

RentBase and The MLS Announce Partnership
The MLS, based in Beverly Hills, California, has partnered with RentBase to streamline the rental leasing process for The MLS’s 18,000 subscribers. RentBase is a proptech platform that enables agents to automate their rental business and discover sales opportunities within their rentals. Said Annie Ives, CEO of The MLS, “Rentals have become increasingly important in today’s market.”

It is gratifying to see RESO members on both sides of these kinds of announced partnerships, exhibiting the importance of MLSs and vendors supporting the same data standards. | READ MORE

On the RESO Blog

How Standards Accelerate Proptech Startups
RESO standards enable new tech companies to offer more robust and scalable products than they otherwise would have without standards. 

Perchwell CEO Brendan Fairbanks presented evidence of this concept during the RESO 2023 Spring Conference while talking about how proptech startups can use standards to overcome integration and scaling challenges. | READ MORE

Shining a Standards Light on Small Brokers and Broker Vendors
RESO is often seen as an organization that serves MLSs and the technology providers that create products for them. Yet, standards benefit everyone downstream of MLSs, including brokers, agents and consumers.

RESO regularly features brokerage perspectives, as we did at the RESO 2023 Spring Conference in a Q&A with Nikola Dosev, Manager, Product Growth & Innovation at SkySlope, and Chad Nall, Broker/Owner at Suburban Spaces in San Antonio, Texas. | READ MORE

wwRED

RESO’s first foray into real estate designations has been a smashing success. The Working with Real Estate Data (wwRED) course and accompanying RED-B designation have introduced more than 800 new and veteran students to how data moves through the real estate industry.

Organizations can also greatly benefit from incorporating wwRED into their staff and volunteer leadership onboarding strategy to start the year strong. Bulk discounts are available!

Complete the wwRED – Business Module and earn your RED-B designation to take charge of your career in data. | LEARN MORE

Three Questions

The Three Questions interview series introduces you to real estate professionals with a hint of personality and humor. | VISIT THREE QUESTIONS

The series returned with gusto from a summer break. We look forward to sharing more unique industry leaders with you for the rest of the year. Here’s who has been interviewed since the last RESO Monthly:

• Jason Sanchez of NAR
• Meg Garabrant of Earth Advantage
• Bill Lublin of Century 21 Advantage Gold
• Ninve James of REBNY
• Eric Stegemann of TRIBUS
• Turan Tekin of Zillow Group

RESO Workgroup Meetings

Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Subgroup | July 27 and August 24, 2023
The group continued review of the CRE Mapping Spreadsheet and made decisions on whether to keep or omit the remaining open fields, considering further research that was done after the last meeting.

There was particular focus on the Auction category of fields during the July 27 meeting, which was deemed important for commercial property sales.

A new field called YearRenovated was suggested, and further research was identified for the LEED category of fields. BuildingClass was suggested as a new lookup field, with the lookup values needing to be defined.

The focus of the August 24 meeting was on the lookup metadata submissions that have been aligned. | JULY 27 NOTES | AUG 24 NOTES

Interoperability Workgroup | August 8, 2023
The group recapped the RESO Developers Workshop and how it related to the work of the Interoperability Workgroup. Ideas and suggestions for a Getting Started with RESO and Best Practices guides were discussed. The first step will be to create a workflow, linked to resources for a showing provider to bring a product to market. | NOTES

Research & Development Workgroup | August 10, 2023
The meeting included discussion of the Payload Filter on Certification Pages Business Case, the initial payloads to be created, and the resources and subject matter experts that may be leveraged to assist. 

Concerns for the Business Linkage and MLS Data Process Resource proposal were identified; the idea will continue to be vetted, including at the RESO Fall Conference.

The prospect of a Display Rules Resource to contain data display requirements, such as font sizes, disclaimers, logos, etc., was discussed along with the meaning of “feed” and “payload” terminology.

Lastly, the Standard Status Subgroup finished their work and has passed their recommendations to the Data Dictionary Workgroup. | NOTES

Transport Workgroup | August 14, 2023
The group continued to work on the Single Feed proposal. They agreed that the current proposal meets minimum standards and that it should be expanded to accommodate aggregators and portal providers who want to pull each record once from each market rather than multiple times per broker for each market they are operating in.

The RESO Common Format proposal is ready to be approved, once reports are ready in RESO Analytics. The group will work on Deprecated Data Elements and Refresh Tokens next. | NOTES

Fast Track Subgroup | August 15, 2023
The group reviewed variations in the top enumerations from the RESO Analytics data set. RESO staff will work on classifying and grouping top enumerations prior to the next meeting for further review. | NOTES

Data Dictionary Workgroup | August 17, 2023
The meeting included several votes of approval, including merging approved Data Dictionary 2.1 items into the release of 2.0, the Safety Fields Proposal, new fields/lookups for Showing Service Name and BedroomClosetType, and adding Engineered Hardwood as a new Flooring lookup.

The group also identified questions to be answered for the Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) topic and a process for selecting lookups for the new ImageContains field. | NOTES

Universal Property Identifier (UPI) | August 23, 2023
The group had a free-form discussion about improvements that could be made to the UPI specification, based on feedback and pain points from those who have implemented it or use it firsthand. There was a suggestion for a new format that would leave the county formatting and delimiters in place. A post detailing the new proposal will be created prior to the next meeting. | NOTES

Broker Advisory Workgroup | August 24, 2023
The group discussed the recent cyberattack on an industry software vendor and the far-reaching disruptions caused by it. Insurance against cyberattacks, backup plans and other safeguards for organizations to consider to protect themselves in the future were also discussed.

Ideas for the Broker Advisory Workgroup meeting at the upcoming RESO 2023 Fall Conference were shared, including the newly relevant topic of data security best practices. | NOTES

Upcoming RESO Workgroup Meetings

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

• Tuesday, September 19: Fast Track Subgroup
• Wednesday, September 20: Internet Tracking Workgroup
• Thursday, September 21: Data Dictionary Workgroup
• Thursday, September 27: Universal Property Identifier (UPI) Workgroup
• Thursday, September 28: Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Subgroup
• Monday, October 2: Transport Workgroup
• Wednesday, October 5: Research & Development Workgroup

Certification Update

Congratulations to the following organizations for achieving their Data Dictionary 1.7 and/or Web API Core 2.0.0 endorsements. Results are viewable in RESO Analytics.

View the certification status of all MLSs on the RESO Certification Map. Please send any address or subscriber count changes to certification@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.