Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Listing Bits Episode 66: How Standards Streamline PropTech – with Sam DeBord of RESO

Policy may not be sexy, but without standards around how we format real estate data and build technology systems, we simply can’t share data or integrate the tools we need to do our jobs well.

Sam DeBord serves as CEO of the Real Estate Standards Organization, the trade group responsible for developing the open standards that drive efficiency and streamline technology for the industry. His resume includes a wide range of leadership positions in the real estate space, including President’s Liaison for MLS and Data Management at NAR and VP of Government Affairs with Washington Realtors. Sam is also the VP of Strategic Growth for Coldwell Banker Danforth in Seattle and writes for REALTOR Magazine, Inman News and the Swanepoel Trends Report.

On this episode of Listing Bits, Sam describes RESO’s role in the real estate industry, explaining how the standards set by his organization provide certainty for developers and support data shares and tech integrations. He shares the progress RESO has made in the last year, discussing what they have done to streamline compliance certifications and initiate the proposed Listing Exchange Access Policy. Listen in for Sam’s insight on the constraints of the current market (and the new tech that’s emerged as a result) and find out how he thinks about the kerfuffle surrounding the most recent mergers and acquisitions in the real estate space.

What’s Discussed:  

What RESO does to create efficiencies and streamline tech for the real estate industry

RESO’s evolution to an independent trade organization and how it relies on thousands of volunteer SMEs to build its Workgroups

RESO’s recent work to streamline its compliance certifications and create a new development guide for vendors

How RESO standards provide certainty for developers and support data shares and integrations

Why Sam is a proponent of creating a single policy for how data is used and displayed (and how that would help brokers)

RESO’s work with the broker community and CMLS to draft the proposed Listing Exchange Access Policy

The progress RESO has made in just the last year to align industry trade organizations, brokers and MLSs around common goals

How RESO standards helped facilitate the NorCal MLS Alliance

Sam’s take on how the artificial constraints of the current market impact agents and the tech facilitating the trend to buy homes sight unseen 

How Sam thinks about the most recent mergers and acquisitions in the real estate space

Why proptech companies need to recognize our cultural preference to work with an agent

The potential problems associated with a broker-member of an MLS being paid by that MLS for a technology service

Connect with Sam:

Real Estate Standards Organization

Email sam[at]reso[dot]org

Sam on Twitter

Resources:

RESO Workgroups

RESO Web API Tools & Software

RESO’s Broker Advisory Workgroup

RESO Certification

2020 RESO Certification Updates

Andy Woolley

CMLS

NAR

NAR’s MLS Technology & Emerging Issues Advisory Board

Summary of NAR’s 2021 MLS Policy Changes

CMLS’s Participant Data Access Policy

LeadingRE

The Realty Alliance

CMLS’s CCP Implementation Guide

RESO Compliance Guide

NorCal MLS Alliance

Zillow Economist Jeff Tucker on Industry Relations EP059

CoStar

Zillow’s Acquisition of ShowingTime

Greg on Twitter

RESO’s Unique Organizational Identifier (UOI)

Victor Lund at WAV Group

RESO Remix

RESO’s 2021 Fall Conference

Our Sponsor:

Cloud CMA

RESO announces 2021 Officers and Directors

Meet the 2021 RESO Board of Directors!

2021 RESO Executive Board:
Chair: Rebecca Jensen, President and CEO, Midwest Real Estate Data, LLC (MRED) – re-elected
Vice-Chair: Michael Wurzer, President and CEO, FBS, Creators of Flexmls – re-elected
Secretary: Katie Smithson, Director of Enterprise Services, W+R Studios, a Lone Wolf Company – elected
Treasurer: Richard Renton, CEO, Triad MLS – re-elected

Representing Technology Companies, Developers, Partners & Consultants with Revenue Over $25 Million:
Scott Woodard, CEO, ShowingTime – elected
Lucie Fortier, Executive Leader, Product Management, CoreLogic – appointed
Turan Tekin, Director, MLS and Industry Development, Zillow Group – appointed

Representing Multiple Listing Services and REALTOR® Associations with Less Than 50,000 Subscribers:
John Breault, Vice President of MLS and Member Services, Rhode Island Association of REALTORS® & State-Wide MLS, Inc. – elected
Chris Carrillo, CEO, Metro MLS (Incumbent) – elected

Representing Class D, Real Estate Brokerages, Brokers, Agents & Appraisers:
Bill Fowler, Senior Director of Industry Relations, Compass – elected
Dan Troup, Director of Data Strategy & Operations, RE/MAX & Seventy3, LLC (Incumbent) – elected

RESO Board Advisors:
Bob Evans – VP Industry Relations, Move.com 
Liz Tewksbury – Director of MLS Operations, Homesnap

Congratulations Katie Smithson and the rest of the RESO officers and directors. ????

RESO Remote Recap

RESO Remote: Encore Recap

The Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) held its second digital conference last week, RESO Remote Encore: The Standards Collection. With a +20% percent jump in attendance over the previous conference (which had +30% growth over its prior conference), RESO Remote Encore was a smash hit.

The week was as much a celebration as a conference, as the culmination of some major industry initiatives were highlighted. RESO released its entirely rebuilt, automated certification stack. The newly published Working With Real Estate Data course was revealed. 

Great way to get a recap on the RESO Remote sessions and what’s happening in the RESO community. I loved the theme of this year’s conference and how Sam and crew keep the thread flowing through the whole event. I’m still in awe of how they got Snopp Dogg to intro the conference.

“Bow wow wow, yippee yo, yippee yay”!

RESO REMOTE

I’m loving RESO’s album cover campaign. Great to see all this creativity. Don’t forget to register!

UtahRealEstate.com gaining traction in data distribution using RESO standards

UtahRealEstate.com is Leading the MLS Industry in Data Distribution Technology

“In late 2019, URE’s API was finalized by its technical team and the entire MLS database became fully distributable to any vendor or broker that meets URE’s licensing agreement terms. In July of 2020, URE notified all of its vendors (from small local website companies to the largest national vendors) that January of 2021 would be the sunset of all data distribution methods, except for the new API. After that notification, more than 30% of URE’s vendors have converted to the new API, and feeds of every type and kind are flowing through the new technology. Using easy to follow documentation and standardized technology configuration, any licensed vendor can now enter the Utah real estate market and receive a feed of MLS data that is easy to work with, allowing for accelerated innovation in real estate services and tools.”

Sunsetting old data distribution methods is an aggressive move but necessary if they want to see any traction. I’ll quote what I said in the release.

“The path toward adopting new standards is never easy, but we’re happy to partner with UtahRealEstate.com to move the needle forward.”

Great leadership from Brad and his team at UtahRealEstate.com.

RESO Spring Summit going digital

2020 Digital Spring Technology Summit

“Your safety is our top priority. New Orleans is under a state of emergency and Louisiana has banned large meetings through mid-April. We can’t ensure that our 2020 Spring Summit will be allowed to take place, or that it would be safe for our members to travel to it.

Instead of an in-person event, we will deliver the RESO Spring Summit as a digital event. While the RESO team and I are disappointed that we won’t see you in person, we will take this opportunity to reach a broader audience with the industry-leading work that you do.”

Sam DeBoard, CEO RESO

What a bummer, I was really looking forward to this one. But its the right move. I’m sure this won’t be the first or last event that is going “digital” this year.

All I want for Christmas is for NAR to fund RESO a million dollars next year

Now more than ever I feel that RESO has a lot of momentum of helping the industry crack the problem of standards. Many people have led to this stage. I credit Jeremy Crawford for really transforming RESO from a small group of dedicated members to a large industry powerhouse made of people from all roles of organized real estate to help push standards further.

I’ll also give credit to Art Carter and Rebecca Jensen. Both prodded (shamed?) a lot of us to be more involved.   Art was also key in the hiring of Sam DeBord. Sam brings a business acumen to the RESO leadership that I believe is a crucial step in helping make standards a reality.

At the time of his hiring, I wrote  the industry needs to “step up and give Sam and RESO our full support.”

That time is now. I’ve heard that NAR budget for RESO is less than $300K a year. That is shocking. When I think of the millions of dollars spent on RPR, AMP, and Upstream it boggles my mind. Less than $300K?

The arguments for standards in real estate data don’t need to be re-stated here, but to keep this momentum going, RESO needs proper funding. Membership dues and events can only do so much.

In the most recent episode of my podcast, Industry Relations, I recapped the biggest new events of the decade. One of them was the accession of Bob Goldberg to the role of CEO for the National Association of REALTORS. Bob has stated and has delivered on the promise of being more inclusive, wanting to be a partner to new technology companies, and therefore keep NAR members in the mix. I can’t help but think the role of standards fits perfectly into this message.

So on Christmas Eve and the second day of Hanukkah, all I want is for NAR to bring RESO funding to a level where they can do the work needed to bring standards to life.

Vote for Katie!

Voting for the 2020 RESO Board of Directors starts Monday, November 18th. I have to say it’s an outstanding group to choose from. It’s great to see so many people step up and want to help our industry move forward.

Included in this stellar roster of candidates is Katie Smithson. Of course, I’m very biased but I sincerely hope you consider voting for Katie as a 2020 director of RESO. Since the day Katie joined W+R Studios she has always been civic-minded. It’s one of her best traits. She has seen first hand, by working with MLS providers, MLS vendors, and developers, the need and benefit of standards. Katie is more than qualified to help RESO with its goals.

EXp is the first RESO certified brokerage

EXp Realty becomes first RESO-certified brokerage

““More and more companies are realizing that RESO standards are not just for MLSs,” RESO CEO Sam DeBord said, in a statement. “EXp Realty is showing great leadership as a brokerage pushing interoperability and technology innovation for the entire industry.”
DeBord also used the occasion of the newly announced certification to push other brokerages toward the same goal.”

Well done Glenn and the entire eXp team. I agree with Sam, this is an extraordinary show of leadership.

I attended the first couple days of the recent RESO Fall Conference in St. Louis and have more thoughts on RESO, but I’m saving for a longer post next week.

Hello RESO Web API

Cloud Agent Suite Says Goodbye to RETS, Hello to RESO Web API

“When Greg Robertson talks, people listen. If you’ve heard the co-founder of W+R Studios speak at a real estate conference, you know he can be blunt. His frank and pragmatic nature has made him a successful, respected, and much-loved industry leader.
Robertson’s company’s latest bold announcement is lighting the path for others to follow. In June, W+R Studios, creator of Cloud Agent Suite, announced that it would no longer accept RETS (Real Estate Transaction Standard) feeds for new MLS integrations. Cloud CMA and all other products in the Cloud Agent Suite are now only accepting new feeds via the industry’s modernized data sharing standard: the RESO Web API.”

Somewhat older news, but what a great first sentence. ????

Sponsored By MLS Reset