The Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) approved real estate property standard names for MLS's to use as a roadmap how they should structure their data. This new standard simplies real estate data sharing on multiple listing services (MLS's). The standard names were introduced by the MLS Cooperative Venture (COVE) in March during RESO’s General Assembly conference.

RESO oversees RETS, the National Association of Realtors® (NAR's) Transaction Standard, which defined an approach for exchanging listings with multiple listing services.

The upcoming release of version 1.8 of RETS will include the approved standard names, which will benefit Realtors® and the clients they serve, MLS operators, and the vendors who supply MLS technology. Standard names simplify the installation and operation of data feeds, a crucial part of conducting business for both brokers and agents. MLS technology vendors will also now be able to use a common vocabulary with the addition of standard names.

Definitions

NAR: National Association of Realtors. The collective group of Realtors® across the nation.

MLS: Multiple Listing Service. The private local web site real estate agents use. Around here in South Florida, it's Regional MLS (Greater Palm Beach County), Martin MLS (Martin County), Palm Beach MLS (Palm Beach only, darling), Fort Lauderdale MLS and Sunshine MLS (Naples).

COVE: Cooperative Venture. An unofficial group of local MLS's joined together. What happens when a company needs to connect to more than one MLS? Problems because each MLS connects in a different way. This group of MLS's sit at the "same table" and have friendly conversation.

RESO: Real Estate Standard Organization. The official organization that that determines what is what. They oversee RETS. They try to get everyone on the same page across the nation.

RETS: Real Estate Transaction Standard. The actual standard by which third parties connect to the MLS. For example, items like passwords needing six digits long and all the other stuff we hate as users but is so important.

First American CoreLogic has filed a federal lawsuit against eight rivals, including the real estate Web site Zillow.com and mortgage service provider Lender Processing Services. Santa Ana, California-based CoreLogic says it has a 1994 patent on the automated valuation model (AVM) the companies are using to assess property values for clients.

Florida is ranked second in the 2009 top ten list of states where people are moving to, according to report published by U-Haul International Inc. It's easy to see why. With great weather, a strong economy and an incredible cost of living, Florida continues to grow.

The report, titled "2009 Top 10 U.S. Growth States," indicates that for states with more than 20,000 families moving, Florida had the second highest percentage of growth, with 3.79 percent more families moving into the state than out.

The 2009 Top 10 U.S. Growth States Report was compiled from more than 1 million U-Haul one-way truck transactions occurring during a recent 12 month period.

1. Kentucky
2. Florida
3. Georgia
4. Oklahoma
5. Illinois
6. Alabama
7. Washington, D.C.
8. Louisiana
9. South Carolina
10. Arizona

Source: U-Haul

A newly formed association comprised of fifteen MLS's across the country is trying to pass a Top Level Domain (TLD) of ".mls".

A TLD is the group of letters after the DOT in a domain name or web site name. So in www.regionalidx.com the TLD is ".com" whereas the TLD of www.daknetworks.net the TLD is ".net".

The association claims that having a ".mls" will assist in real estate activities by having a dedicated location for MLS's and their authorized partners.

“The Association looks forward to inviting all MLSs to join,” said Brian Larson, President of Larson/Sobotka Business Advisors, a consulting firm engaged by the founding MLSs to create the business plan for the Association and to guide it through its early operations. “For the next few weeks,” he said, “the current leaders will be working on policies relating to membership, domain registration, and dispute resolution that the Association needs to sort out before opening the doors wide.”

A TLD of ".xxx" was tried a few years ago from locally based ICM Registy of Jupiter, Florida headed up by British dot com entrepreneur Stuart Lawley. The idea was to force all x-rated material to the ".xxx" suffix but it was squashed by opponents for various reasons.

Lawley put his Jupiter house up for auction in 2008 and sold for $4.65 million through Illustrated Properties due to a divorce. He originally purchased in 2001 for $5.9 million.

There were an instance at the beginning of this week where a duplicate MLS numbers was coming through the Regional MLS system of West Palm Beach, FL. On the surface, this doesn't seem too big of an issue but it can cause havoc on web sites that run on Regional IDX.

MLS numbers are unique numbers identifying properties from one another. Obviously, if there are two numbers exactly the same, this is going to cause an issue. Regional IDX corrected the issue on all hosted web sites and notified Regional MLS personnel of the issue.

It doesn't happen very often, just a few times a year, but it does happen. No suprise that it's happening at the beginning of the new year since most technology companies implement changes during this time.

All is well now!

Regional MLS, who serves the greater Palm Beach County, has added recently released 1 public fields to IDX for web sites. It is as follows:

The Regional MLS (and other MLS's across the country) have a terrible habit of changing items without notifying their constituents. This causes issues with web sites that use IDX, or direct feeds from the MLS. These changes caught us off-guard and caused a few hiccups with our IDX web sites.

Since there is no forewarning of changes happening, the issue becomes that we don't know there is a change until it actually happens. In our experience, Regional MLS usually has issues implementing these changes causing a disconnect between MLS and the IDX. The Regional MLS RETS server becomes unavailable for various reasons. It usually takes Regional MLS a few days to hammer out these types of additions.

In this case, the there was no downtime.

Regional MLS, who serves the greater Palm Beach County, has added recently released 5 public fields to IDX for web sites. They are as follows:

In addition, the TOTAL BATHS field was added. Before it was just FULL BATHS & HALF BATHS.

The Regional MLS (and other MLS's across the country) have a terrible habit of changing items without notifying their constituents. This causes issues with web sites that use IDX, or direct feeds from the MLS. These changes caught us off-guard and caused a few hiccups with our IDX web sites.

Since there is no forewarning of changes happening, the issue becomes that we don't know there is a change until it actually happens. In our experience, Regional MLS usually has issues implementing these changes causing a disconnect between MLS and the IDX. The Regional MLS RETS server becomes unavailable for various reasons. It usually takes Regional MLS a few days to hammer out these types of additions.

In this case, the there was no downtime.

There were a few instances at the end of last week where duplicate MLS numbers were coming through the Regional MLS system of West Palm Beach, FL. On the surface, this doesn't seem too big of an issue but it can cause havoc on web sites that run on Regional IDX.

MLS numbers are unique numbers identifying properties from one another. Obviously, if there are two numbers, this is going to cause an issue. Regional IDX corrected the issue on all hosted web sites and notified Regional MLS personnel of the issue.

Regional IDX, a Dak Networks Company, obtains an official license from the Regional MLS. The official license is a step forward towards the future of real estate technology in the greater Palm Beach County area. The official license grants Regional IDX the authorization to distribute IDX information to any Regional MLS member, whether that member is an agent or a broker.

The official license signals the end to an era spanning nearly two years of questioning by lawyers, real estate veterans and officials who have been frustrated by misleading information. Regional IDX can actively inform Regional MLS members about IDX information and how it will help their business goals. Regional IDX plans to be an active part in official Regional MLS sponsorship opportunities including trade shows and other meetings.

Regional IDX leads the way in IDX information from the Regional MLS building template-based, semi-custom and full customized web sites. Regional IDX shows your listings on your web site.

Regional MLS, who serves the greater Palm Beach county area, recently removed 2 public fields from the IDX for web sites.

The Regional MLS (and other MLS's across the country) have a terrible habit of changing items without notifying their constituents. This causes issues with web sites that use IDX, or direct feeds from the MLS. These changes caught us off-guard and caused a few hiccups with our IDX web sites.

Since there is no prewarning of changes happening, the issue becomes that we don't know there is a change until it actually happens. In our experience, Regional MLS usually has issues implementing these changes causing a disconnect between MLS and the IDX.

In this case, as far as we know, the Regional MLS RETS server had no issues during the removal of these fields.

However, at one point the LIST DATE was removed. Then it was later re-added. List Date = used to allow to show when the property has been put on the market. This could also be used to show the days on market.

Regional MLS, who serves the greater Palm Beach county, has added recently added 3 public fields to IDX for web sites. They are as follows:

The Regional MLS (and other MLS's across the country) have a terrible habit of changing items without notifying their constituents. This causes issues with web sites that use IDX, or direct feeds from the MLS. These changes caught us off-guard and caused a few hiccups with our IDX web sites.

Since there is no forewarning of changes happening, the issue becomes that we don't know there is a change until it actually happens. In our experience, Regional MLS usually has issues implementing these changes causing a disconnect between MLS and the IDX. The Regional MLS RETS server becomes unavailable for various reasons. It usually takes Regional MLS a few days to hammer out these types of additions.

In this case, the IDX went offline sometime on Wednesday, June 10 at night/early morning due to incorrect metadata (there was an error in the XML file). The RETS server came back online Friday, June 12 around noon.

The Regional MLS has served Regional IDX a notice to cease and desist use of RMLSFL content through one of their security teams named, Privacy Solutions, Inc. We fell the notice is in error and Regional IDX is working with the proper individuals to settle the issue as quickly as possible.

With new changes, Regional IDX improves data accuracy to strengthen and allow the support team to provide faster issue resolution when they arise.

All the listing data on client sites should be correct. We were made aware of data inaccuracy late last week and implemented some changes over the weekend to resolve them, at the same time, improve ongoing data accuracy for Regional IDX clients.

There are more than 50,000 listings in the Regional IDX. We work hard to maintain automatic data accuracy with current public Regional MLS info. It is our business to keep the info accurate and up-to-date by at least 24 hours. The accurate data, the outstanding web site designs and the customized IDX solutions are the reason real estate agents flock to us from other companies who fail them. Despite this, problems do occur as changes and other dynamics outside of our control take place.

We ask all of our customers to notify their sales rep as soon as they see any type of listing inaccuracy so we can correct it as soon as possible. Our global team of designers and developers are committed to take fast action when an issue is reported to make Regional IDX one of the leading sources of IDX information for the Regional MLS of West Palm Beach, Florida.

Thanks,
Regional IDX Team

On January 16th, Regional MLS is ending support for the Supra DisplayKEY. All electronic lockboxes from Supra must be upgraded to either:

• the new ActiveKEY
• or the eKey

The eKey can be added to the PALM or to the BLACKBERRY. Support for the IPHONE is not available.

National Association of Realtors (NAR) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) finally settled, ending a four-year argument about NAR's policy regarding the display of listings from the MLS on brokers' web sites.

Regional MLS rules require action by no later than February 15, 2009. The actions by Regional MLS are required by the settlement of U.S. v. NAR, the case brought by the DOJ challenging NAR’s previous VOW policy including the IDX policy.

Here's a reprint of the Judgment against NAR.

We won't sugar-coat it, our servers were offline for a 48 hour period recently, which was a first in our five years in service. Like all disasters, it wasn't one item in particular but a many factors that lead to the outage.

Regional IDX is committed to providing the best service in real estate web sites and real estate web hosting. We thank you for your patience and understanding while we worked to get this resolved.

Recently, according to Regional MLS, rmlsfl.com states:

    Beginning Monday, December 15th, 2008, the following new rules are in effect for photos:

       1. Photos must be added to a listing within five (5) days of entry into MLXchange.
       2. At least one photo must be of the front exterior of the property.
       3. Rental listings are now required to have a photo and follow all the photo rules.

 This is great because it adds strength to the Regional MLS of greater West Palm Beach. Currently, there are many available properties for sale in the Regional MLS without photos.

 Listings without photos weaken the Regional MLS and consequently, Regional IDX. When, according to NAR, more than 80% use the internet to buy their home, it's imperative that they find the information they seek.

Remember that any photo added to Regional MLS automatically shows on your web site within 24 hours, if you're a Regional IDX member. That's right, your web site is working even when you're sleeping.

Agents will eventually be able to combine both their blue key FOB & their Supra LockBox keys into Blackberry devices.

According to gesecurity.com, "By the end of 2008, Supra eKEY software will be available for the BlackBerry Pearl, BlackBerry Curve, BlackBerry Pearl Flip, BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry 8800 series smartphones. BlackBerry devotees will soon join thousands of real estate professionals already enjoying the timesaving benefits of eKEY service on their Palm and Windows."

Eventually, this gives real estate agents in the Regional MLS area (covering greater West Palm Beach, FL) more options when it comes to handling the blue key FOB and the Supra LockBox key.

It has yet to be determined if and when Regional MLS will allow this ability.

Brokers & agents of REGIONAL MLS (West Palm Beach, FL) used to be able to download data from the FLORIDA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS, also known as FAR.

A recent notice sent out by REGIONAL MLS data department states that  "... As of Tuesday November 11th the FAR feed will no longer be available.  If you have made the appropriate change, thank you and please disregard this email."

This leaves many agents out in the cold when it comes to listing information for their web sites.

FAR is only one source to receive the information.