With the changing macroeconomic climate, understanding the current state of the market is top of mind for real estate investors.

Join Jude Rasmus, Head of Real Estate at the Rasmus Real Estate Group and Chris Fellows, CEO of Bold Street in this Market Insights Webinar. They will cover the ATLANTA market  – one that all SFR investors have their eyes on.

Jude has over 35 years of experience in the industry. She is responsible for the acquisition and disposition of over 20,000 residential assets in the Southeast and Atlanta MSA, totaling over $2 billion in transactions.

You don\’t want to miss the insights she has to share! It will be 45 minutes very well spent with a top expert sharing her experience. In this webinar you will learn about:

• Major trends in the largest, fastest growing SFR market
• Hyper local micro insights, and what to look out for when investing
• Tips to build a successful SFR portfolio in a competitive market

 

Hope to see you there!

Sign Up For the Webinar

A Brief History of Real Estate Standards

The FTP Protocol

Back in the 1990s, before the Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS), the exchange of real estate data was done using the FTP protocol.

The Cons of the FTP protocol

FTP did not allow for queries, such as “new real estate listings since last week”. FTP required transferring entire datasets and compared each download with the previous transfer.

RETS

One of the underlying issues with real estate data is that there is no nationwide MLS. There are over 600 individual MLSs each responsible for defining data their own way. RETS created in 1999 was a new standard born out of the idea to unify data between all of these MLSs. RETS was a vast improvement on simple FTP transfer and created a new technology framework.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) referred to RETS as a common language within the real estate industry. NAR strongly encouraged all MLSs to adopt RETS as their data standard. Most MLS data exchange service providers in the US and Canada started using the RETS protocol over the course of the 2000s. For over a decade RETS was considered the gold standard.

RETS protocol has served the real estate industry for 20 years, however it still has a number of pain points. One pain point is field names, such as Days On Market or HOA Name, that are still quite different between markets.

The age and pain points lead to an inevitable call for a new standard to emerge.

RESO Web API

Similar to RETS, RESO is also a technology framework created in 2018. RESO’s main mission is to provide software to certify compliance with those standards for the real estate technology industry. The RESO standard’s goal is to facilitate software innovation, ensure application and data portability, eliminate redundancies, and obtain maximum efficiencies for all parties in the real estate industry.

The Reason for RESO

During the FTP to RETS era, many of the real estate companies and MLSs switched from paper-based MLS books to custom online software systems to serve their local markets. Due to inefficiencies of FTP and RETS many industry and MLS software applications could easily integrate and transfer data. This failure resulted in duplication of property listing databases across the web.

NAR saw the need for a web-based API to solve these common issues.

The goal of the RESO standard is to ensure that every software application can talk to each other by following a common standard. RESO defines real estate data in a structured way, specifying what fields should be used in what scenarios and values those fields can have.

The Benefits of RESO

The RESO standard allows developers to build software systems that are flexible, scalable and integrate with each other. RESO also believes that the new Web API makes integration easier with a streamlined process.

RESO Adoption

Even though the RESO standard only arrived in 2018, even before its arrival NAR started putting pressure on close to 100 MLS Providers to comply with the RESO standard within 60 days. The pressure from NAR significantly sped up the implementation of the RESO standard.

RESO Adoption at the time of writing this article (12/01/2022):

• 30 MLSs have adopted the RESO standard 85-100%
• 28 MLSs have adopted the RESO standard 50-80%
• 36 MLSs have adopted the RESO standard 1-49%
• an additional 23 MLSs are committed to the RESO adoption

All MLSs share one goal in common: they are all committed to fully comply with the new RESO Web API standard by 12/31/2023.

What’s even more compelling is that 90% of MLSs in the industry have RESO certified Web API services. However, many of the MLS’ customers still need to be converted from RETS to the RESO Web API.

Additionally, the RESO organization shared some details that confirm the acceleration of the RESO Web API adoption: “Over the past year, MLS participant brokers and their subscriber agents have increased their usage of Web API data feeds from less than 5% of the industry to nearly 25%. This transition will continue to pick up speed as the MLS industry dialogue has clearly shifted from ‘if’ an MLS will fully convert to ‘when’. MLSs are setting deadlines and communications plans to move their customers forward with Web API.”

What issues remain after the RESO Web API adoption?

Even after complete RESO standard adoption, some critical issues remain. One issue is that even though the standard sets certain criteria in stone, RESO still allows different MLSs to implement the fields differently.

A striking example of differing fields is the Sewer field. RESO sets the datatype and includes standard possible values for the field. However, an MLS may have their own custom values that do not match the RESO default values. This disparity can lead to further complications.

Another example is the “Days on Market” field. While this is a single field, there are three possible start dates from when the MLS can start counting a property being on the market. MLSs do in fact choose to implement this field based on any of the 3 different start dates.

Solving for RESO Pain Points

RESO has brought real estate a long way from the FTP days. However, there are still clear issues for SFR investors who operate across many MLS markets. Bold Street MLS Listings solves for all protocols (FTP, RETS, RESO) and data differences to provide a single unified and standardized data set and API.

For the “Days on Market“ example, Bold Street passes the DaysOnMarket data from the different MLSs as they present data. Bold Street though solves for unified data by supplying an additional custom field Bold_DaysOnMarket based on a single date field.

Bold Street partners and customers can work with one standard MLS data and integration standard.

SFR Funds are turning over every rock to find deals in this new market condition. One factor working against the industry is a suppressed supply of new homes. 95% of homeowners have a home mortgage at or below 5%. With interest rates much higher now, homeowners are disincentivized to sell and buy new as their purchasing power would be significantly less. This condition means that homeowners will sit in their homes until either home prices or interest rates drop substantially. Since interest rates are not predicted to drop any time soon and the suppressed supply is effectively propping up home prices, the industry is in a stalemate and waiting game.

Since demand from SFR Funds is still high, can new development be the answer to unplugging the supply block?

There are 3 types of new development:

1. Build for Rent (BFR) – in this model, an SFR Fund specializes in building new units to rent. The SFR will hold these properties so this will not be a source of new deals.
2. Community Developers for Residential Buyers – in this model, a developer builds a whole community of houses with the intent to sell the units to homeowners. Mostly, the developer would not want to sell any units to investors as renters can pull overall home prices down which negatively affects the developer\’s bottom line.
3. Community Developers for Residential and Investor Buyers – Some Community Developers do section off 10-20% of the units for SFR investors and its important to have local connections to these developers to turn these opportunities into deals.

The short of it is, most new development will not lead to more supply and deals for the majority of SFR Funds. However, there are deals to be done. SFR Funds should have a local connection to find those developers willing to sell some of their units to an investor.

If you are an SFR Fund that wants more opportunistic deals, reach out to us about our hyper-local agents trained in institutional buying.

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This will be IMN\’s 10th annual Single Family Rental Forum. The conference will be held in Scottsdale, AZ this year – from December 5 to  December 7.

This year, you can find us in the Exhibit Hall. We’ll be sharing new information on:

• How you can access MLS data across any market with access to 600+ data fields with contract management and white-glove MLS onboarding
• Underwriting platform with property and market level reports
• Agent Network with trained local agents with institutional buyer experience
• Bold Labs professional services to build out seamless back office integrations

If you are attending – we’d love to meet you there and learn how we can help you reach your goals this year! Click here to schedule a 15-minute call at the conference.

If you can’t make it but are interested in learning more about Bold Street AI – we’d be happy to schedule a call to discuss how we can help improve your investments in the next year. Click here to schedule a 15-minute exploratory call.

You can find more information on how Bold Street empowers investors to make better real estate decisions in our free datasheet.

Amanda Blackmon of Invitation Homes and Daniel Ray of Preferred Floor and Tile organized the launch event for the newly established North Carolina Rental Home Council (NCRHC), a chapter of the National Rental Home Council. The NCRHC is a trade organization for the SFR industry representing owners, owner-operators, builders, vendors, and service providers of the Single Family Rental industry.

The event was a follow-up to the exploratory event back in March of this year. The event drew exceptional attendance from many of the major SFRs including Invitation Homes, Tricon, First Key, and Avenue One. The collegial attitude that marks the SFR industry permeated the event as past colleagues met, shared stories of the impact of the interest rate changes, and caught up.

The keynote talk was a panel of CEOs from Invitation Homes, Tricon, and First Key who spoke in general of the economy, the impacts of the interest rate change, and how they are approaching the market. Dallas Tanner of Invitation Homes remarked that 95% of homeowners have a mortgage of under 5%, driving suppressed supply of homes.

 

 

BluePrint Conference 2022 was held this year in Las Vegas 9/12 to 9/14 and was alive with excitement. The event had nearly 1,500 attendees, double last year\’s event. This year the exhibitors were strong, representing the full spectrum of PropTech from multi-family to SFR to commercial and included IOT, AI/ML, data platforms, realty software and more. This year had a strong focus on Venture Capital including a round table session with major PropTech VCs.

In a session about raising during a downturn, an audience member asked the speakers panel if overall funding is less available. Travis Connors, General Partner of Building Ventures, responded that certainly Series B and later is seeing a marked decline in funding but that Seed funding is still quite available since the timetable on expected returns is so much later and beyond the short term impact of the current economic climate.

 

What’s the best MLS feed for SFR Investor Funds, backoffice or IDX?

Accurate and complete Real Estate listing data is critical for real estate investors and brokers concerned with underwriting Single Family Rentals (SFR). MLS provides listing data through several different “feeds” (otherwise known as API Feeds).

• There are 4 different feeds:
• IDX, VOW, Broker Only and Backoffice
• There are fundamental differences and benefits to leveraging a Backoffice Feed vs an IDX or VOW feed
• The differences in feeds include who can view the information, where they can see it, and what information is made available.

A Brief History of MLS

• According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), a Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is a private offer of cooperation and compensation by licensed “listing” or “seller” brokers to other real estate brokers on behalf of “buyers”.
• Historically, real estate brokers would meet and share information regarding properties they were trying to sell. The goal was to receive help in selling their properties.
• If the selling broker received any assistance, they would compensate the other broker as part of the sale.
• This was the beginning of the first MLS. The MLS enabled competing brokers to also cooperate with each other to ensure a sale. 
• MLS systems, which started as MLS books or index cards, enabled that cooperation.

What is an MLS and how does it work?

• Modern MLSs are basically private databases of real estate listings. Each MLS database is governed and run by a collective of brokers and agents. 
  • The collective is formed by Realtors associations or directly by groups of brokers.
  • Each MLS establishes rules for cooperation in sharing and selling its listings.
  • Each MLS set some of the local rules, while Realtor owned MLS are partially governed by the National Association of Realtors (NAR)
• Each MLS will provide their own real estate data, specifically real estate listings and other relevant information to MLS members.
  • Brokers in an MLS are called participants, while agents in an MLS are called subscribers. An agent can only join an MLS if their broker has joined.
  • Brokerages that cross over multiple marketplaces can join multiple MLSs as long as they are licensed in the state of that MLS
• It’s important to note that there isn’t a national MLS – each MLS database covers a specific region. There are 13 NAR regions and over 600 MLS on the market today.

How are listings added to and accessed in an MLS?

• MLS listings are added to each database by the listing agent. The data is available to any broker or member of that MLS.
• Sellers can work with their real estate broker or agent to add and remove their properties from an MLS.
• Buyers work with a broker or agent to view listings contained in the MLS
• Each MLS typically provides a web MLS portal to view and add listings

How do MLS feeds work?

• In addition to the MLS portal, MLSs provide different feeds for brokers and agents to view listings
• The most common use case for a feed is where an agent wants to display their listings on their website. Website feeds are most commonly used through an IDX feed
• Other use cases include analytics and market analysis that a broker or agent may want to perform on behalf of their clients

The 4 Types of MLS Feeds 

IDX

• According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), Internet Data Exchange (IDX) is a policy that gives MLS members the ability to authorize other participants to electronically display their listings.
• This agreement was born from the need of  real estate professionals  to display listing information on their websites.

• Realtors and brokers who have access to an MLS, can use IDX to display MLS property listings on their websites. 
• IDX functions like a search engine for buyers on your website. Some examples of IDX usage include Zillow and Trulia.

 

How IDX works and its benefits for your website

• Agents and brokers often add IDX on their real estate websites in order to market homes, attract buyers, and close more sales.
• IDX can be implemented in different ways.
  • Real Estate Sites can set up an iframe to display listing data on an agent’s website.
  • A Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS), created by The Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO), can be used as well.
  • Popular content management systems, such as wordpress will have native plugins that can be added
• The main drawback of using an IDX is that it contains only active listings. You won’t be able to access historical data.

VOW

• Virtual Office Websites (VOW) feeds are also offered by an MLS. They are similar to IDX feeds, but contain additional information such as historical listings, expired listings, and other additional data points. They are still limited in the scope of data available.

Broker Only

• This type of MLS feed offers data exclusively to brokers. It typically contains the listings that an individual licensed broker has contributed to a given MLS. 

Backoffice Feed

• This is the newest MLS feed that has the most comprehensive data. It includes all fields and data points for any listing as well as historical listings. This feed is not allowed to be posted publicly, and is typically shared for search and valuation purposes.

Selecting the Right MLS Feed

• IDX and VOW feeds are generally the best for real estate agents looking to build stronger relationships with their buyers by displaying listings on their websites. Both feeds offer listing data that most individuals and buyers would need to conduct their home search.
• Backoffice feed – this feed is the most appropriate for individuals or institutions conducting research and need access to comprehensive data.
• The Backoffice feed is the best option for the SFR Fund and brokers serving SFR Funds
• SFR Funds use the backoffice feed for deeper market analysis to build comparables and valuations
• The backoffice feed contains more than 600 fields on listings, property, member and office data
• The backoffice feed also gives access to historical data which is necessary for building accurate comparables

The Benefits of Bold Street Backoffice MLS Feed

Comprehensive Backoffice MLS Data Feed 

• Bold Street AI provides Backoffice MLS Feeds directly to your systems
• It contains the full set of MLS data in key SFR markets across the US and includes over 600 fields on listing, rooms, members, etc. 
• It also contains historical data, which is particularly useful for market analysis. 

Near Real-Time Data Updates

• Bold Street AI has additional features such as near-real-time updates, optimizing the system to each individual MLS and their specific technology platform to gather listings at the fastest rate possible. This ensures that you’re never receiving stale data

Data Correctness

• Bold Street’s direct partnerships with MLSs enables data audits to ensure MLS data is accurate and correct.
• Bold Street also uses industry accepted best practices for exposing data, RESO, which improves the data clarity, ease of use, and streamlines integration into back office systems. 
• Bold Street further provides data mapping from each MLS to present a unified and standardized view of the data across all MLSs. It protects users from MLSs that vary widely.

Intelligence

• Bold Street provides contextual search on various fields to provide the power of a “Google Search” on the MLS

To learn more about how Bold Street’s Data and Underwriting platform can help you access comprehensive MLS backoffice data with near real-time updates to provide the most accurate listings – speak with an expert.