The Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) has driven the most important data solution for real estate brokers over the past year. With support from the National Association of REALTORS®, all NAR® affiliated MLSs (think association-owned) are required to adopt the RESO standard for MLS data. This change compelled CoreLogic®, the nation’s largest MLS provider to make the changes to the MLS data feeds. Zillow Group also jumped into the mix with the acquisition of Bridge Interactive to complement RETSLY. But firms went further, and it‘s good for brokers.
Prior to the NAR mandate to adopt RESO data dictionary, every MLS in the nation spoke a different data language. In parlance, everyone had different data fields and rules in those fields. For example, some would structure the number of baths as a whole number that added up all of the bathrooms, like 3.75. Others would structure the data to say 3 full baths, 1 half bath, and one quarter bath. Now, almost every MLS has adopted the same structure for data distribution through the RESO Data Dictionary. The way that any given MLS made choices about data structure was up to the MLS. Now it’s a standard across them all.
