by G. Sax, Head of Communications, RESO
Welcome to “Three Questions,” an interview series that introduces you to real estate industry professionals, their businesses and how they interact with real estate standards. The goal of the series is to humanize the tech side of the industry, fun included.
This week’s interview is with Eileen Romito, VP of Sales & Operations at Zenlist. We talked about the serendipity of creating standards, business disruption in the transport sector and college sports. Enjoy!
Q1: The MLS Data Process/Display Rules Template found great support at RESO and was shared with the Council of Multiple Listing Services (CMLS) for consideration in future best practices documentation. Though the concept of managing MLS data feeds is not new, you took initiative and brought your specific pain points to RESO’s Research & Development Workgroup, and they ran with it.
What can you say about the process of moving a potential standard through to completion?
Eileen: What’s awesome about this organization is that everyone has the same end goal in mind. We all face the same problems in this line of work, and RESO allows for an openness and contextual understanding for solving these problems.
To be honest, this came about from being on the Proptech Pioneers podcast. RESO CEO Sam DeBord heard me talking about the complexities of getting MLS feeds and adhering to display rules, got in touch with me and let me know that this is a problem that other vendors have all the time.
RESO is one of the best organizations to be in. I know that you want me to say that, but it’s just true, I’m sorry. It’s such a tight-knit group. You get to know every single person in the org, especially at the meetings, and you can have relevant conversations with people that will definitely help your business move forward.
As a relative newcomer, I already feel like an insider.
Q2: For a few years, you worked for Zipcar, a car-sharing company. As with bike share, scooter rental or even Airbnb, Zipcar seems to make sense, but these services don’t always catch on with the general public. Worse, sometimes they upset managers of the status quo.
It’s past tense for you now, but do you have some thoughts on the future of car sharing based on what you’ve observed?
Eileen: It changed drastically with Uber/Lyft and rideshare. That’s the most important thing that has affected car sharing.
There’s the problem of the “last mile” which involves any human or good that needs to get from point A to point C. You take a flight from Chicago to Birmingham, Alabama, but then how do you get to your final destination?
You can usually bridge the gap with something that is already readily available. For a long time, that was a taxi, and in some cities, it still is. Public transit is a viable option in larger cities. Zipcar became available in the early 2000s to solve some of this problem. But with the advent of Uber and Lyft, hiring a car to cover the last mile got a lot cheaper and more convenient.
Zipcar helped with the last mile problem for a while, but Uber/Lyft has maximized their response to that need in a way that renting a car, let alone using a car-share program, is often not the most economical.
There’s still a use case for Zipcar. It makes sense for those who don’t own a vehicle, have stuff to take somewhere and need that vehicle at their next destination. But the last mile problem was greatly improved with the advent of ride sharing, which cannibalized some of Zipcar’s business.
Automobiles are an asset-heavy business. You are dealing with wrecked, stolen and vandalized vehicles more than you can imagine. The worst things that you can imagine happening in a car can and do happen with borrowed vehicles, and pretty much everything is an operational problem. You are constrained by a physical asset.
It’s a tough business to be in.
Q3: You went to the University of Iowa. A certain Iowa basketball player by the name of Caitlin Clark took the world by storm during her collegiate career. Did you ever attend a women’s basketball game or any other sports event when you were at Iowa. If so, who is your greatest rival?
Eileen: Hey, fun question! I actually went back there this year for a visit but did not go to a sporting event. I’m not a huge sports fan myself, but I would go to various games when I was a student.
Iowa City is a really big football town. The entire social fabric of students during the fall semester is built upon football games. They don’t have an NFL team, so when there is a college football game, the entire state descends upon Iowa City on Saturdays during the fall. Tailgating is an important part of the local culture.
Our greatest rival has to be Iowa State, even though we are not in the same conference. Geographically, it’s just too close for it not to be, and everyone in Iowa takes a side. After that, any Big Ten game is huge.
It’s true that Caitlin Clark is part of a long line of women that has changed the way that people view women’s team sports, and that’s really exciting. I’m proud that she went to the same school as me.
