IDX vs RETS vs MLS vs RESO

The real estate industry is, like any other, filled with its share of terminologies and acronyms. In this article, we are going to take a look at 4 such terminologies – IDX, RETS, MLS & RESO – and go into brief detail about each one.

This is an information exchange system that provides realtors a platform for showing MLS property listings on their websites. There is an IDX data feed that links to your website, displaying an option for users to search for properties listed on various MLSs.

IDX is also known as Broker Reciprocity. It is a great way to generate leads and also enables realtors to help each other by putting up listings of other agents’ MLS.

These standards are a means of facilitating real estate data transfer easily and safely. There are a large number of organizations that want to share real estate information with others. FTP protocol was used to transfer the data, which was inefficient because it did not allow query generation but complete dataset transfer.

RETS helped solve that by allowing computer networks to fetch MLS data listings from servers and other real estate systems that have the RETS framework in use.

In a nutshell, MLS is basically a large database of property listings. But the actual meaning of the term is deeper than that. Originally, in the early 90s, real estate agents would regularly get together to share knowledge and information about properties up for sale, thus helping each other out with potential leads.

Today it is a database of more than 700 regional databases with properties listed on them. Only licensed agents and realtors can post or remove listings from MLS.

Founded in 2011, this non-profit organization aims to develop, adopt, and implement universal standards for real estate transactions all across the United States. One of the major contributions of RESO is the Web API that it has developed.

The RESO Web API is targeted at conquering the problem of data fragmentation. Ideally, all real estate properties should be managed by one major body. However, the US currently has more than 700 MLS (Multiple Listings Services) Hence, if anyone wants to access data of a particular region, they might need to go through multiple MLS, which is tedious and time-consuming. And not to forget that each MLS has its own regional rules and regulations as well. This is what the API wants to target by bringing about a common platform for all real estate listings.