How the RESO Universal Property Identification Benefits the Real Estate Industry

Mark Bessett, Chair of the RESO Universal Property Identification Workgroup, is Senior Enterprise Architect at California Regional Multiple Listing Service (CRMLS). He has vast experience solving complex problems as a software architect and engineer and is applying his career experience from NASA, Lockheed Martin and Honeywell to help solve standards challenges in the real estate industry as a RESO volunteer.

In this video, Bessett explains the efforts of the RESO Universal Property Identification Workgroup, formerly the Property Unique ID Workgroup, and its benefits. By using the RESO Unique Property Identifier, or UPI, you can bring together data from many different sources and have it all sync up in one place. "UPI is kind of the glue" that holds everything together, he explains.

One example Bessett describes is how agents frequently encounter duplicate data. That's often a result of multiple listings for a single property. By implementing the UPI, duplicate data is eliminated. "A listing is really an attribute of a property," says Bessett, explaining that UPI can be used to "connect all the things that are associated with a property together."

Bessett details other benefits, including a variety of potential uses of the UPI, from property tax records research to title and insurance information. Bessett notes that with the growing hunger for data, the RESO UPI now helps solve an increasing need in the industry.

As for consumers, the benefits are clear. Bessett says, as a "customer just wants to see one listing" so he or she "can identify everything across the board."

Bessett sees a big future for the UPI, even "expanding what we have to other countries." He's also excited for the upcoming in-person Workgroup meeting at the RESO Spring Technology Summit in Boise on Wednesday's Breakfast Breakout session on May 1.

If you can't make the Boise in-person meeting, more information on the RESO UPI Workgroup and how to participate is located on the RESO website here.