Overview

The Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS) is a widely used technology standard that comes up with instructions on how to transfer data in the real estate industry. RETS is quite beneficial in this pretty decentralized industrial sector, since it provides a kind of uniformity across  various business processes. A great number of vendors, data users, website developers, brokers and agents have been consistently implementing RETS solutions to improve volume and quality of services, and attain faster and cleaner system implementation.

No competitive real estate agency can go without integration with RETS nowadays, especially if its priority is to be ahead of the pack on the market and drive new customers. That’s an open secret that real estate data is very volatile, meaning all the information about households for sale or hire is ever-changing. Thanks to huge RETS potential, it’s become viable for companies to provide their brokers and agents with real-time updates by utilizing RETS servers. Which is actually very important, in light of the fact that more buyers find their new property on the Internet as you can see in the picture below.

Nuts and bolts of RETS

To fully realize the value of RETS you should remember it is more than just another software. In fact, this is a technology standard to be extensively utilized by programmers developing cloud-based services and applications. Simply put, the RETS-based apps get traditionally connected with RETS servers and RETS clients. The client typically enquires the server about some specific data.

The server usually is based on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) system and the client software resides on a computer that initiates the information query and obtains data from the RETS server. Servers that implement the standard from various vendors can connect and talk with clients, which also utilize RETS.

Before getting started: A focus on your CRM

With all that said, you should keep in mind that a CRM system you are going to choose for your company, has to be well integrated  with RETS protocol. As the stats indicate, 91% of businesses nowadays employ various CRM software solutions. For now, 46 percent of sales teams acknowledge they are using CRM systems, and the real estate sector being no exception.

The benefits you can gain from getting RETS integrated with your CRM are really great. Due to smooth integration of your CRM system with RETS datasets, you can always enjoy

• The freshest listings of real estate data uploaded via MLS servers without any additional authorization
• Automated RETS-CRM synchronization of massive datasets that enables you to drastically cut down the costs on manual workforce.
• Timely and verified information on every single property at your sales team’s disposal
• Improved interaction between your departments, as no siloed data is possible anymore
• Smooth interoperability between office facilities and your real estate agents in the field, who always have their apps with data updated with the latest listings
• Enhanced customer experience due to providing quick and relevant real estate data.

So, in a nutshell, the robust utilization of a well-developed and integrated real estate CRM system keeps your business constantly evolving and drives customer acquisition.

One more things that’s worth mentioning here is mobile centricity of your integrated platform. As today’s businesses strive to be mobile friendly, it would be beneficiary for you to implement mobile CRM since 65% of sales managers accomplish their sales quotas thanks to this tool.

Overall, CRM solutions offer you a number of benefits, particularly bigger conversion rates, increase in revenue per salesperson, enhancement of customer retention, reduction of sales cycles, etc.

RETS and CRM integration: Some hidden traps you should know about

As long as you are done with choosing the right CRM for your real estate platform, it‘s high time to RETS integration matters. Software developers find this solution effective and convenient as it has a wide range of open-source tools that support different languages. Still, it may have some hidden pitfalls you should be aware of before implementing RETS into your business workflow.

• A considerable part of RETS products goes without any out-of-the-box CRM software. This can pose a serious problem for companies on the modern real estate market that is predominantly customer-oriented.
• The same goes for integration of RETS apps with the rest of the software products already installed on your website, since it requires great skills and hands-on expertise from the development specialists involved.
• Since enhancing operational efficiencies is your priority,  to fine-tune RETS with an eye on personalization of app features to your individual business needs can take unskilled teams pretty much time and effort.

However, all these issues are very few and can be easily solved, providing some old hands are hired to get things done. Moreover, they certainly do not come into comparison with those competitive advantages you can get when implementing the transaction standard. As of now, RETS has already become a platform for many companies enabling robust interoperability of big real estate datasets.

Capitalizing on the holistic RETS-CRM-website ecosystem

So, here is a list of some key benefits you can enjoy while opting for RETS in your business workflows and get your CRM and the website integrated with it:

• Cost-efficiency. No more spending on continuous on-demand inquiries to MLS servers while trying to refresh the RETS listings.
• Automation. No manual interference in data exchange processes that takes overly much time and effort, and involves human-made mistakes.
• Overall optimization. Streamlined organization of your real estate datasets leads to the entire workflow improvement.
• Improved interoperability. No siloed data between your team, departments and remote real estate brokers.
• Enhanced agents’ performance. Your agents in the field can always leverage the latest data at hand to timely offer their customers a wider range of property for sale or hire.
• Greater customer experience. The property buyers on your real estate website will definitely value the most accurate and reliable information you provide them with.

A team of ByteAnt professionals is downright ready to create a perfect integration of RETS, CRM and website so you will sell more, earn more and bring the life of your business to a new level. Feel free to drop us a line so we can share our expertise with you.