The RESO Revolution: Brokers Win Big with Data-compliant Vendors

The real estate industry is on the verge of revolutionary technological innovation—and achieving optimal benefits rests largely on the motivation of brokers and agents. By now, about 90 percent of all MLSs are compliant with the data standards set out by the Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO), which, in the words of WAV Group Founding Partner and RESO consulting member Victor Lund, is "one of the most collaborative industry-wide efforts we have ever seen" to reduce redundancy and replication of real estate information sharing.

The resulting increase in efficiency will benefit brokers and agents directly through their technology vendors. Indeed, brokers and agents need their vendors need to be compatible with RESO data standards in order to be competitive now and in the future.

For an industry driven by information, the continued adoption of RESO data standards will deliver brokers and agents more up-to-date and secure content from their MLS. In a nutshell, the standardization of fields for information that is transferred from the MLS to the applications that industry professionals use every day will mean that all the technology tools 'speak' the same language, without errors, redundancy, and complications caused by breaks in old-school data mapping. For broker and agents, access to the best information available can be at your fingertips—but only if your vendors get on board with the technological tide.

By engaging vendors that are RESO certified, brokers and agents will also be positioned to reduce costs associated with their technology solutions. The most popular RESO-compliant way of data transport to vendors is the Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS), or "mirrors" of data based on a common dictionary of terms. In effect, it enables synchronized data for easy digital transfer to vendor products used by real estate professionals.