Making Sense of RETS: Part 4
RETS, the Real Estate Transaction Standard, is our solution.
This standard allows the MLS's to meet you halfway. Maybe they won't give you direct access to their database but you can have live access to their database through a protected system interface.
Now we're talking.
As you can probably tell by the name, RETS is the standard used to move real estate information back and forth. The idea is that RETS defines:
Maybe you would normally download the once-daily file from an FTP server somewhere. 1 MLS you work with provides it in the /IDX/download/daily directory with a filename like "listings-residential.tar.gz" and another MLS provides it in the /NEW_IDX directory with a filename like "PropResi-5_11_2007-06_27_01-full.zip". With RETS, you connect and communicate in a common way so you don't have to deal with unique situations like this. RETS replaces the need for an FTP server with a completely separate authentication system. In addition, because your client RETS program logs into a server RETS program, the server can apply business-specific rules and restrictions on you which might give you more access to more data than someone else might have.
Like we mentioned before, the data you normally get could be in any format with any number of fields with any kind of data type (text, numbers, etc.). With RETS, the format of the data is available in a live, technically accessible format so you know exactly what you're going to get. If the MLS adds some new fields to the feed, information about those fields is available so you can make the necessary changes on your end (hopefully using a program that does it automatically).
If this wasn't enough, RETS also defines common names for fields called StandardNames. This allows more standardization among all of the MLSs that support RETS. Normally, one MLS might provide you with a field called MLS_Number and another might give you MLNUM. These are the same fields but they have different labels. With RETS using StandardNames, you can know and expect that ListingID will be the MLS# for that property. This allows for much greater interoperability so you can use the same RETS client with any RETS server and have the same results. Try that with your FTP downloader!
(continued in Part 5)
This standard allows the MLS's to meet you halfway. Maybe they won't give you direct access to their database but you can have live access to their database through a protected system interface.
Now we're talking.
As you can probably tell by the name, RETS is the standard used to move real estate information back and forth. The idea is that RETS defines:
- how the 2 systems (client-server) connect and communicate back and forth
- the format of the information being passed back and forth
Maybe you would normally download the once-daily file from an FTP server somewhere. 1 MLS you work with provides it in the /IDX/download/daily directory with a filename like "listings-residential.tar.gz" and another MLS provides it in the /NEW_IDX directory with a filename like "PropResi-5_11_2007-06_27_01-full.zip". With RETS, you connect and communicate in a common way so you don't have to deal with unique situations like this. RETS replaces the need for an FTP server with a completely separate authentication system. In addition, because your client RETS program logs into a server RETS program, the server can apply business-specific rules and restrictions on you which might give you more access to more data than someone else might have.
Like we mentioned before, the data you normally get could be in any format with any number of fields with any kind of data type (text, numbers, etc.). With RETS, the format of the data is available in a live, technically accessible format so you know exactly what you're going to get. If the MLS adds some new fields to the feed, information about those fields is available so you can make the necessary changes on your end (hopefully using a program that does it automatically).
If this wasn't enough, RETS also defines common names for fields called StandardNames. This allows more standardization among all of the MLSs that support RETS. Normally, one MLS might provide you with a field called MLS_Number and another might give you MLNUM. These are the same fields but they have different labels. With RETS using StandardNames, you can know and expect that ListingID will be the MLS# for that property. This allows for much greater interoperability so you can use the same RETS client with any RETS server and have the same results. Try that with your FTP downloader!
(continued in Part 5)
Categories
RETS0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Making Sense of RETS: Part 4.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://blog.troydavisson.com/mt-tb.cgi/6
Leave a comment