Have you ever been involved in the process of setting technical standards? The pace of progress is glacial at times. The Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS) is no different. Months go by with very little action.
This month has been different for RETS though. In preparation for the next meeting , the mailing list traffic (especially rets-dev) and committee conference calls have been more active than at any time in recent memory. So what is driving this? In my opinion it is the enthusiasm for RETS 2.0, an industry effort to fix some deficiencies in RETS 1.X. Most of the traffic over the last week has been focused on the query language that will be used in RETS 2.0. I encourage you to read the mailing list traffic and develop informed opinions. My feeling are that the language should be as familiar as possible so that queries is easier to write.
RETS support by the MLS is now over somewhere near 50%. The RETS Standards group published a survey last fall that showed the numbers at 46%. Our own survey (to be published later this month) shows the number to be marginally higher than that. Now that RETS is available, the next trend should be for Members to begin using RETS enabled tools. I would like to qualify these numbers a bit though because they are a pessimistic way to look at the situation. Most regional MLS support RETS so the percentage of listings available in the format are actually higher.
A logical question to ask is "Why aren’t people using RETS then?". This is a fair question. I believe in its current form, it is too hard to implement and to use.
I’m sure many of you are aware of those in the community who throw "bombs" at RETS. In many cases I agree with their criticisms. This is why I contribute to the RETS effort. I want to improve the situation for all. On the other hand, the same people offering criticism are not part of the process to improve RETS. The best thing you can do for the industry is to get involved.
