RESO Monthly – Message From RESO Chair, Rebecca Jensen
Hello, RESO fans. We’re excited by the progress you continue to fuel for us at RESO this year. Real estate markets across the country continue to be fast-paced, and mobility has increased in 2021 compared to 2020.
To that end, I look forward to seeing many of you this month at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort in South Carolina for RESO Retreat. Our in-person conferences are returning for the first time in two full years, and we are excited to expand beyond our Zoom boxes with you!
The conversations in RESO’s real and virtual halls should be engrossing during this conference, covering a vast array of expansion in our standards-based corner of the real estate world.
The Data Dictionary is increasing its offerings into showing services, rentals, commercial real estate and more. You will learn more about each of these developments at RESO Retreat.
The process for RESO certification and reporting is progressing to include self-testing on our open source RESO Commander testing platform. This month, RESO will be releasing the most transparent testing results of MLS systems since RESO was born. You will soon be able to see how many fields exist in each system, the details of individual fields, the actual data availability within those fields and how systems compare to industry averages.
Speaking of certification, the Transport Workgroup has approved the addition of a Payloads endorsement and an IDX endorsement as part of Data Dictionary certification. This means that RESO now tests not just what an MLS advertises is available on its systems, but the actual property records to ensure they conform to our standards. | VIEW PAYLOADS TESTING SPECIFICATION
The Transport Workgroup’s call notes from the September 13 meeting spell out the changes in clear detail for the technicians in your offices. | VIEW NOTES
In closing, RESO Board of Directors elections are just around the corner, and there are nine seats open this year! It’s an exceptional group of leaders, and we would love to see more of you take an important step towards emboldening our industry’s technology standards. The next article in this month’s RESO Monthly supplies more details.
Have a great month and a great autumn. I hope to see many of your faces soon.
Rebecca Jensen
2022 Board of Directors Election
We are now accepting nominations for nine open seats on the 2022 RESO Board of Directors. The Board of Directors is responsible for the governance of RESO and development of the organization’s Strategic Plan.
The open seats that are available in this election are:
- Class B (Technology Companies, Developers, Partners & Consultants): two seats for companies with revenue under $25 million annually.
- Class B (Technology Companies, Developers, Partners & Consultants): two seats for companies with revenue of $25 million and above annually.
- Class C (MLSs and REALTOR® Associations): four seats for companies with over 25,000 subscribers.
- Class F (Other Associations or Groups): one seat for a company with 50,000+ members/$25M+ Revenue/15k licensees.
If you are interested in joining the RESO Board of Directors and lending your expertise and amazing talents to our organization’s goals of development, adoption and implementation of standards, please complete the nomination form below. If you know of someone that you think would be a willing, strong addition to the board, please nominate them as well. All nominations are published on the RESO website as the entries are received.
All nominations, along with a headshot and bio, must be sent to suzannne@reso.org utilizing the Statement of Candidacy Word file or by directly submitting the Google Doc below by no later than October 31, 2021.
STATEMENT OF CANDIDACY GOOGLE DOC | STATEMENT OF CANDIDACY WORD DOC
Note: Board candidates must be a representative of a RESO member organization.
RESO Retreat
The RESO Retreat fall conference is nearly upon us, and we’re glad to welcome you back to in-person collaboration and networking, October 18–21, 2021, at Kiawah Island Golf Resort in South Carolina.
If you would like to send a door prize, there’s still time! This is a great way to support the conference and have your brand announced on stage. Send us an email for details.
The onsite and livestream event brings RESO’s initiatives together for three days of actionable decision-making and planning.
Registration is still open with limited availability at $600 for members & $700 for non-members.
Registered attendees will receive more information in the coming weeks with all the pertinent details for attending.
It’s Time for RESO Membership Renewal Season!
Thank you for your valued membership in RESO. Renew by December 31, 2021.
Ready to renew your membership online now? START HERE
Your support is critical to the development and implementation of data standards that create efficiency throughout the industry, ensuring more accurate, robust and informative data. | MORE INFO
If you have any questions or are having issues logging in, please call 919.504.9898 or email randi@reso.org.
RESO Web API Core 2.0.0
During the September RESO Transport Workgroup meeting, the RESO Web API Core specification’s versioning was updated from 1.0.2 to 2.0.0.
Those of you that are certified as Web API Core 1.0.2 are automatically certified for Web API Core 2.0.0. This change was necessary to separate documentation in the new Core + Endorsements certification model from the older specification of non-Core Web API 1.0.2.
RESO Certification Update
RESO certifies systems for data providers, including many MLS Web API servers. The standards that RESO currently offers for testing are listed below along with due dates for REALTOR®-owned MLSs seeking to comply with NAR policy.
Data Dictionary 1.7 (including Payloads Testing)
NAR compliance date: January 5, 2022 (extended from November 10, 2021)
Web API Core 2.0.0 (formerly known as Core 1.0.2; prior certifications at this level remain equal and current)
NAR compliance date: August 31, 2021
IDX Payload Endorsement
NAR compliance date: August 31, 2022
RESO is now testing all MLS systems for Web API, Data Dictionary and IDX Payload compliance.
Once vendor certification is complete, MLSs can expect to hear directly from their vendors about how to apply for and receive certification. MLSs should not apply for certification without first hearing from their vendors (unless they are serving as their own vendor as an in-house proprietary system). Other technology vendors are welcome to seek certification as well. | LEARN MORE
Policy Requirements for REALTOR® MLSs
NAR policy dictates that MLSs owned and operated by REALTOR® organizations must be in compliance with RESO’s most recently ratified standards within 12 months of RESO ratification. A recent NAR policy update also requires REALTOR® MLSs’ Web API services to include all fields available in their RETS, FTP or other data-access services. These fields must be delivered in conformance with RESO Data Dictionary standards.
RESO at CMLS: Right Changes, Right Time
RESO participated in CMLS2021: The Power of MLS event in Las Vegas from September 20 to 22, and it was wonderful to be among so many of our members again.
Sam DeBord took the stage to talk about RESO’s latest endeavors, spreading the word on the impending switch from RETS to Web API for data transfer, debuting our “Countdown to RETS Extinction” campaign.
In the months ahead, we will be highlighting the organizations that are transitioning their customers completely to the RESO Web API comet due to replace RETS as the data transfer standard of record for real estate.
Sam shared the fact that, going forward, certification will essentially be a self-testing procedure performed by MLS vendors and other technology companies who will work with MLSs and other data providers to achieve certification.
Initial screenshots of RESO’s new certification reporting platform were shared with the CMLS crowd, creating a buzz for a new era of data transparency.
Certification unto itself is a good thing, but the industry will move forward faster when sunlight is shed on the data being made available from providers, how each provider compares to the industry at large and how fast that data can transfer.
Sam also moderated a panel called “Data and Brokers – What Do They Want and Need?” featuring Johnny Mowad from Ebby Halliday REALTORS®, Rich Robledo of Acclaim Real Estate and long-time RESO supporter, Melissa King from Compass.
Brokers are not firing jabs at the MLS community like they were in 2015, but there is still much to be done in the way of transparency, which was a common theme at CMLS2021, from brokers, MLSs and RESO.
Certification Reporting
RESO’s new certification reporting site ties together details about a data provider and its ability to serve up resources, fields and lookups from both the RESO Data Dictionary and local custom data.
Reports will have several measurements indicating how the data provider performed during certification testing, including how many fields are available compared to the industry average, which resources contain the most highly populated fields for that server and more.
Upon launch, we will share a series of walk-throughs and other materials to bring our community up to speed on this exciting new step in RESO’s evolution.
New Members
NOW Software Solutions
NOW Software Solutions provides a one-stop shop for marketing. Whether it is building a marketing system from the ground up or a logo design, they will help you grow your business to its maximum potential.
PRESTA Team
PRESTA is an acronym for Premier Real Estate Solutions and Technology Advisors. It was founded by Chris Bennett and Amy Gorce with the goal of helping MLSs, brokers and proptech companies navigate the rapidly changing landscape of organized real estate.
Propy
Propy brings automation to the closing process for all participants, making closing faster, easier and more secure. Their products help brokers, agents and title companies migrate to a paperless remote closing.
REAI
With the aid of artificial intelligence, REAI is on a mission to enable real estate businesses with a seamless and stress-free process for MLS groups, brokers, agents, general buyers, sellers and service providers.
Realigned
Realigned is leveraging more than 20 years of experience creating sustainable, consumer-focused residential real estate technology solutions for national brands and local professionals.
We’re glad to have all these organizations as RESO members!
Subgroup Spotlight – Commercial Real Estate Subgroup
A group of commercial real estate (CRE) practitioners met with RESO representatives in April 2021 to flesh out ideas about what RESO-enabled CRE standards might look like. The group left that meeting with an agreement to collect listing-related metadata from many of the participating organizations, some of which were new to RESO.
In September, the group met again, with Nathan Graham from RPR at the helm, in a more official RESO capacity to define its mission of creating a standard for exchanging a CRE listing data set and to discuss how terminology from disparate systems has managed to find common ground in the creation of standards.
RESO is still accepting new organizations into the ranks of this groundbreaking new subgroup.
Showing Hackathon 2021!
From October 11 to 14, teams are invited to test the boundaries of innovation and offer feedback on a standard to support showing services via a “hackathon” contest for cash prizes and industry clout.
The hackathon is sponsored by Bright MLS, CRMLS and MRED, which began work in June 2021 on a central “hub” repository model, built upon RESO data standards, to support showing services for the MLS industry.
Entry into Showing Hackathon 2021 consists of a software program using the sponsor’s application (accessed through an API), a written project description and a recorded video presentation.
Entrants may compete individually or on teams of a maximum of six individuals. The contest is open only to legal residents of the U.S who are 18 years of age or older. Sorry, Canadian high schoolers.
- First Prize: $2,500
- Second Prize: $1,000
- Third Prize: $500
- Best Interoperability Prize: $500
VISIT SHOWINGCHOICE.COM FOR MORE INFORMATION
On the RESO Blog
Selling Part of a Property
RESO Data Dictionary Workgroup Chair, Rob Larson, has written a post on his Larson Consulting LLC blog about the concept of home co-ownership. This is a hot topic in real estate right now, with the Pacaso business model of facilitating the sale of a portion of a home to share with other purchasers as an alternative to timeshares and other forms of common interest in desirable properties.
The notion of co-ownership is not new to real estate, nor to RESO’s ever-evolving Data Dictionary. Rob breaks down the difference between many different forms of co-ownership compared to other models. | READ MORE
Jessica Edgerton of LeadingRE Leads Worldwide Broker Embrace of RESO
Jessica Edgerton, EVP of Operations and Corporate Counsel for Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, is bringing RESO standards to 70 different countries represented by 550 member brokerages of LeadingRE.
While Associate Counsel at the National Association of REALTORS®, she discovered how discordant real estate data standards were and “began to understand the monumental nature of what RESO was grappling with,” in her words. She saw that between MLSs and brokers, there was a lot of room for confusion.
“Data is the lifeblood of this industry,” said Edgerton. “We cannot function day to day, week to week or with a business plan for years ahead without this resource.” | READ MORE
RESO Workgroup Meetings
Transport Workgroup | September 13, 2021
The workgroup talked about the migration of specifications to GitHub from Confluence and discussed new processes for RCPs. A request for Add/Edit and Expand implementation documentation was made and recent updates to the RESO Certification process, including Payload testing, were reviewed. The primary topics were the current inconsistent use of Organization Unique Identifiers (OUIDs) and coming up with a standard mechanism for extending standard Data Dictionary entities with local data elements. | VIEW CALL NOTES
Cross-Platform Interoperability | September 14, 2021
The workgroup discussed the items of the Transaction Management Resource and held a vote on advancing it to the Data Dictionary Workgroup. Additionally, pain points, Add/Edit integration and the plan for the 2021 Fall RESO Retreat interoperability session were discussed. | VIEW CALL NOTES
Showing Subgroup | September 15, 2021
The group identified and discussed common fields from the metadata submitted by showing service providers. | VIEW CALL NOTES
Internet Tracking Workgroup | September 15, 2021
REcolorado demonstrated their API to post event data to a server. The endorsement-based certification model was discussed, along with the possibility for an Internet Tracking Endorsement being implemented in the future. Lastly, the chair shared some of the results from the latest National Association of REALTORS® Technology Survey and the latest privacy law update out of China. | VIEW CALL NOTES
Certification Subgroup | September 16, 2021
The group discussed progress on Expand and Add/Edit endorsements, to be released later this year, before exploring the state of advertised vs. available data elements and the seemingly high number of lookups that aren’t currently being advertised and instead just show up in data feeds. Conventions around local extension of the Data Dictionary were next, as not having them is impacting data consumers by causing them to have to write vendor- and market-specific logic, wrapping up with a discussion around Data Dictionary 1.8 and testing for lookups. | VIEW CALL NOTES
Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Subgroup | September 17, 2021
TThe group defined its mission of creating a standard for exchanging a commercial real estate (CRE) listing data set, provided an updated about the ongoing collection of listing-related metadata from participating organizations, discussed how the terminology comparison process has worked when creating other standards and came up with several more companies to invite to the subgroup | VIEW CALL NOTES
Distributed Ledger Workgroup | September 28, 2021
The workgroup discussed their plan for the conference presentation, as well as updates, use cases and marketing strategies for the Resolver proof of concept (POC). The group also decided to skip the October 26th meeting, because it falls one week after the meeting at the conference. | VIEW CALL NOTES
Days on Market Business Descriptions Subgroup | September 29, 2021
The group further discussed and clarified the Days on Market (DOM) formula from the StandardDOM – Business Descriptions Discussion Forum. Additionally, they identified the statuses in which DOM accumulates and discussed ways that DOM is manipulated. Finally, a vote was taken to approve the DOM formula and send it to the Data Dictionary Workgroup. | VIEW CALL NOTES
Unique Licensee Identifier (ULI) Subgroup | October 1, 2021
The ULI Subgroup meeting began with a discussion of the overall goals of the project, followed by a demo of a ULI dashboard and sample queries using the full pilot data set. Additional replication and remediation workflows were reviewed, to be included in the white paper for the pilot project, and the next step is to create a user interface so that those who work with licensee data can experiment with and give feedback on the results. | VIEW CALL NOTES
Board Liaison Committee | October 1, 2021
This meeting is held once per month in order to give workgroup chairs an opportunity to converse about their top agenda items, request help from each other and provide summary reports to the RESO Board of Directors. The reports are collected and shared as part of the meeting’s official call notes. | VIEW CALL NOTES
Transport Workgroup | October 4, 2021
The workgroup moved forward with the renaming of the Web API Core 1.0.2 specification to Web API Core 2.0.0 to avoid confusion with prior versions and reviewed the Web API Core 2.0.0 specification on RESO’s GitHub, into which the Web API Core testing specification has also been incorporated. The remainder of the meeting was spent discussing the local extension of existing Data Dictionary data elements and advertised vs. available resources, fields and lookups, as well as their accompanying testing rules. | VIEW CALL NOTES
Upcoming RESO Workgroup Meetings
Wednesday, October 6: Showing (Subgroup of Data Dictionary)- Thursday, October 7: Research & Development
- Wednesday, October 13: Showing (Subgroup of Data Dictionary) *Tentative*
Wednesday, October 6: Showing (Subgroup of Data Dictionary)Workgroups will meet at RESO Retreat from October 19 to 21 and are only open to attendees. Conference information can be found at reso.org/reso-retreat. Schedule subject to change.
- Tuesday, October 19: Data Dictionary & Payloads (Joint Session)
- Tuesday, October 19: Showings (Subgroup of Data Dictionary)
- Tuesday, October 19: Commercial (Subgroup of Data Dictionary)
- Tuesday, October 19: Rentals (Subgroup of Data Dictionary)
- Tuesday, October 19: Transport & Certification (Joint Session)
- Wednesday, October 20: Broker Advisory
- Wednesday, October 20: Research & Development & ULI (Joint Session)
- Wednesday, October 20: Internet Tracking & Cross-Platform Interoperability (Joint Session)
- Thursday, October 21: Universal Property Identifier (UPI) & Distributed Ledger (Joint Session)
