Please consider development of RETS and IDX Import tools
5 posts by 4 authors in: Forums > CMS Builder
Last Post: February 4, 2011 (RSS)
By MikeF - October 24, 2010
Just wanted to get the Rets and Idx, and lead management thang back on your radar...pretty please [;)]
I think there may be a revenue stream there for you. For example one company doing it is http://www.transparent-realestate.com/transparentrets.html
The application is designed to work with Open Realty. May be you guys could build something to work with your app.
See: http://www.transparent-realestate.com/supported_rets_map.html
and compatiblity to our MLS is here: http://www.transparent-realestate.com/supported_rets/index.php?state=FL
The main reason I have not purchased your application is I really need something that can import mls data and photos and have some lead management features.
Dave Edis and I discussed this back in 2008 and I have been waiting patiently. [;)] Howdy Dave!
There are also now import apps out there that work with Wordpress. See it here: http://www.wpidx.com/wordpress-idx-solution/
and here: http://wprealty.org/
I dont know your business plan...this may be something for you to consider. Hopeful.
There is a market for it. For a prominent player and gold standard in that market see here http://www.realestatewebmasters.com
Also if I may... with the pervasiveness of smartphones and IPads it is critical that real estate web sites are viewable on mobile phones functional and pleasing way.
MikeF
Re: [MikeF] Please consider development of RETS and IDX Import tools
By Chris - October 25, 2010
Have you considered hiring our consulting department to build you these features? If you're interested, we could work through the requirements with you and build you a quote.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Chris
Re: [chris] Please consider development of RETS and IDX Import tools
By MikeF - October 25, 2010
Hi MikeF,
Have you considered hiring our consulting department to build you these features? If you're interested, we could work through the requirements with you and build you a quote.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
MikeF
Re: [MikeF] Please consider development of RETS and IDX Import tools
By Dave - October 28, 2010
We've looked at this a few times, and it's a big big job, so it's not something that's on our radar right now. Plus it looks like there's a number of vendors that already do it.
One solution might be to find a vendor that already provides the service and see if we could get the data as a mysql database dump/export. That would be a lot faster and easier to build and maintain than an RETS/IDX import system.
interactivetools.com
Re: [MikeF] Please consider development of RETS and IDX Import tools
By sidcam - February 4, 2011 - edited: February 4, 2011
I'm just starting this process but I know there are generic RETS solutions that should work just fine.
The RETS software is going to just interact with the MySQL database that sits behind CMS Builder and since Open Realty, Wordpress, etc all use the same MySQL format it shouldn't be an issue.
The best place to start looking for a RETS solution would be the forum at http://rets.org/ and I've also been recommended this solution ([url "http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.interactivetools.com%2Fforum%2Fforum.cgi%3Furl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252Furl%253Fsa%253DD%2526q%253Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fretsconnector.com%252F"]http://retsconnector.com/[/#800080][/url] ) by a techy agent I know (although I haven't started working with it yet).
Regardless of what program you use I'm told there is work involved setting the RETS up. Every MLS's database is unique and the software has to know how to map each and every field into your database. Knowing how protective my MLS is of their data I'm thinking it's probably going to be easier to just hire someone who has already worked with my MLS to set up my RETS feed.
If you choose to use Open Realty, just know that vs 3.0 is no longer open sourced and their code is encrypted (meaning it can't be customized). There's an off shoot of Open Realty's 2.x version that is open-sourced called Orodha but it's not widely used yet (so there's not a lot of plug-ins/add-ons).
Hope this helps
Sid