March 04 2016
The key to the success for the future of all real estate brokerages will be data standards. This is not hyperbole, it is a fact, and let me explain why.
Today real estate brokerages struggle with profitability. Shrinking margins have become the business norm. To keep up, brokerages and franchises have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in new technology for their businesses. Yet research has shown that one of the biggest pain points that brokerages and franchises face is that overall the technology they use doesn’t “talk” to each other. This is inefficiency at its best.
Brokerages often struggle to incorporate MLS data into their back office solutions, websites and other software tools and apps. It's a heady challenge for their tech teams and their technology partners. For brokerages and franchises serving multiple markets, their external technology challenges are compounded, because until the RESO Data Dictionary is used industry wide, each MLS offers slightly different property fields and information on their IDX, VOW, and broker back office data feeds. Brokerages therefore have to spend significant resources in both labor and funding to not only ingest this information but also normalize it throughout the various technologies they use internally. At times, the cost to do so is prohibitive to the point that brokers don’t have normalized data through their various technology products and services.
So here’s the rub: All of the time and money by brokerages and franchises that is going towards these data efforts are taking time and money away from their efforts to recruit, retain, train and support their agents and provide innovative solutions to increase the number of transactions and overall profitability. There is nothing more vital to a brokerage than recruiting and retaining their agents, yet, unnecessarily, dollars are being sucked away because of the lack of technology standards within a brokerage.
It's time for real estate brokerages and franchises to step up and grab a seat at the table in RESO. The best way that they can help fix some of their biggest technology problems – and shore up their bottom line and improve their margins – is by taking an active role in the future of real estate through helping to shape new standards.
Here are four ways that standards will shape your future and why as a brokerage or franchise, you need to join and get involved with RESO and integrate those standards in your own platforms:
Real estate brokerages will play a pivotal role in shaping the standards that will shape the future of real estate. Standards will help create disparate technology that works seamlessly together, fuel innovation that delivers technology that delivers on its promises, and help brokerages and their agents deliver a better real estate experience for their clients while decreasing financial overhead and working towards increasing profits and the bottom line.
The future success for broker industry initiatives clearly rests on the utilization of RESO standards within those initiatives. That’s why data standards really are they key to future successes for all real estate brokerages. It’s also why brokers need to reach out to their MLSs and technology vendors to make sure they are involved with RESO and the latest industry standards.
Finally, if you are a real estate brokerage or franchise and need to learn more about RESO, what’s in it for brokerages and how to join, click here.