Agent and broker websites may soon get a boost from their local multiple listing service thanks to new industry data standards.

MLSs provide data feeds, called Internet Data Exchange (IDX) feeds, that pool all of the listings in an MLS together, allowing agents and brokers to display virtually all of the listings in a market on their individual websites and mobile apps.

Up until now, each of the nation’s more than 600 MLSs has had its own interpretation of what fields to include in the data feeds they provide for the websites of their subscribers. That means if a broker or a website provider wanted to put together listing data from multiple MLSs, they had to spend time and money to “normalize” the data so that they could display the same property information in the same format.

But now the Real Estate Standards Organization, a nonprofit trade group in which industry players come together to approve data standards, has created a core set of fields that MLSs will be required to include in their IDX feeds, which RESO calls the “IDX Payload.” These 219 fields are the minimum that MLSs will have to deliver to brokers and their website providers, though they can always include additional fields for their local market.

David Gumpper

“The common fields like bath, rooms, statuses were not the problem,” David Gumpper, who chairs the RESO Broker Advisory Group, told Inman via email. Gumpper is also head of technology consulting at consulting firm WAV Group.

“[S]ome MLSs don’t provide the Order number for an image or would not provide any or partial OpenHouse data. It makes it difficult when 692 MLSs each have their own definition of what is in an IDX data feed.”

The National Association of Realtors requires all Realtor-affiliated MLSs — which most MLSs are — to comply with RESO standards to keep their NAR-provided liability insurance coverage.

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“In layman terms, the transition to APIs will mean that more real estate agents and brokers will gain access to the most current and accurate data available, thus delivering the right information to their consumers,” RESO said.

Hablan español?

RESO standards are not only used in the U.S., but also in Canada and India as well, according to RESO. And the new Data Dictionary 1.7 standard includes Spanish language fields, which the trade group says will serve Spanish-speaking countries as well as any MLSs in areas with a large or growing Hispanic population. My Florida Regional MLS, for example, debuted a Spanish version of its MLS system last year.

Data Dictionary 1.7 also adds hundreds of new data fields for real estate agent teams, open houses, social media sites, roster information, property history, saved searches, showing events, and hundreds of new selections to choose from related to property, members and offices, RESO said.

The new standard includes new fields for the RESO Organization Unique Identifier (OUID), which gives firms an ID number, and new fields to track web user activity across the Internet, the trade group added.

“The dictionary is a living document and will continue to grow, but … the implementation of this version by MLSs, brokerages, and software technology firms will lead to the improvement of websites, mobile apps, and other technologies, and we believe it will drive more innovation,” said Rob Larson, chair of the RESO Data Dictionary Workgroup and CIO of CRMLS, in a statement.

RESO’s membership stands at about 850 and includes NAR, MLSs, real estate associations, brokerages and real estate technology companies, the trade group said.

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