Forget about IDX....use RETS [Archive]

View Full Version : Forget about IDX....use RETS

tonynoriega

07-12-2007, 01:03 PM

So much easier. Automated. Simple.

I have a site that i use RETS on.

If you want to check it out or want the address, post back or PM me.

We strictly market New Homes in Boise.

I think RETS is great.

Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS)

ColoradoHomeHelper

07-14-2007, 05:37 PM

I would be interested in seeing your site, I have heard just the opposite, that REITS is a pain in the ***!

La Jolla Real Estate

07-19-2007, 09:02 AM

I'm sorry, I guess I have been living under a rock..but what is an RETS?

agentstealth.com

07-30-2007, 03:57 PM

Could you please post an example?

tonynoriega

07-30-2007, 04:06 PM

cmeesoon

09-06-2007, 08:54 PM

RETS is what I prefer ....BUT... its not always the best or easiest to work with.....it really all depends on who is providing the RETS feed and their server settings etc. The output looks absolutely no different from any other MLS solution as long as they IDX feed is dumping the same data the displayed information is identical.

MarriedToRealEstate

10-23-2007, 07:50 PM

What does the IDX markup look like? Is it XML or is it a web service?

KeystoneBroker

01-01-2008, 09:08 AM

RETS is the new standard and we are being forced by our local association of realtors to switch for idx or datalink to rets. So if you are planning on paying anyone any money, choose rets. All providers must switch to rets as mandated by the NAR.

Greg

01-02-2008, 06:14 AM

While it looks pretty enough, where are the lead capture systems. No search tool is effective without multiple lead capture abilities.

DMike

01-06-2008, 03:18 AM

RETS stands for real estate transaction standard. If you'd have to imagine it just by it's name, you would probabily say it's a standard which most people use. But it's not. The idea was good, but it didn't had clear specification how to implement it, so every administrator which had to work with it implemented as he though it would be better, easier, quicklier.
What's RETS? It's a way to connect with an user and a password to a server and download the informations you need. What would be the differences between RETS and FTP? There are two major ones as i see them : with RETS, as soon as some information is changed, you can download it again, so you'll have the latest information as soon as the change is made(you can download the informations with RETS how many times you want/day). With FTP, the download files are generated once/day, so if a change in information is done today, you'll have it just on the next update, which means tommorow.
The second big difference i see is that you can download just parts of informtions. You don't have to download all commercial homes, you just download a part of them which you don't have, which you want to update, ... On FTP you have to download the file with commercial listings.
But those advantages are only "as an ideea", because even if they are good ideas, usually RETS works very very slowly. It's work very slow, that slow that downloading just a part of information on RETS takes longer than downloading the the file with FTP. Also, it seems that getting your questions answered on RETS from the provider usually takes much longer than the ftp ones

Mert

01-07-2008, 02:16 PM

Forgive me if I am wrong but are not RETS feeds used to build an IDX/VOW solution. Chicago has an RETS feed and I built my IDX search based on that feed. And yes it is a pain.

DMike

01-07-2008, 04:15 PM

As i see it, you use RETS to get a feed. I mean with RETS you connect to the server and get the informations you want. So you use RETS to get a feed. After that you use that feed to import the listings in the database

Floridadeals

01-09-2008, 09:08 PM

Sorry to all who have been reading this post... i didnt put my site becuase Google has been indexing everything under the sun...

including technical posts i had about my site on other forums...which i didnt need the public to see...

anyway...my site is: www [dot] newhomemarketplace [dot] com

i guess i cant be too hasty is my comments considering i have used IDX recently, but all of my associates are shifting over to RETS....quickly...

with the change of one selection menu in my RETS configuration screen, i adjusted my listings from 50 to 1800 just by changing my criteria...

simple as that...

You probably already figured this one out but if you don't want google or any other search engine to index a page(s) on your site you need a robots.txt file. Look up in google to find out how to make one. Its pretty easy and important to prevent exactly what happened to you.

flatfeemls

03-22-2008, 12:57 AM

Thanks for the info about RETS.

riverviewrichie

03-22-2008, 09:42 PM

How do you access rets?

Dallas Broker

03-23-2008, 11:09 PM

would be interested to know which local providers have already implemented this change. seems like RETS would enable end user better opportunity to stay informed on current pricing/availability on properties, at least those offered through MLS

portland real estate

03-24-2008, 09:30 PM

This site has the info for the RETS standard:

http://www.rets.org/

However, you are probably better off getting in touch with an IDX/VOW/RETS website developer in your area and asking them what works best for what you want to do.

itrends

04-17-2008, 02:43 PM

I have personally developed over 100 web sites with IDX integration and RETS is complete garbage in my opinion. The technology is slow, buggy at best and it's a real pain to work with. There's NO way everyone is going to be pushed into RETS. That would mean thousands and thousands of site and IDX providers would be out of commission. RETS is something they tried to push a long time ago, but the technology just wasn't there.

They also charge ridiculous fees (fees per search?!?!) and is not worth it at all. Having your 'own' web site with your own database is much better in my opinion and is certainly much faster as far we web site speeds.

allnightit

06-23-2008, 02:45 AM

IDX is better - like the old beer commercials. "LIGHT" is better? Wasn't that it?

ANyway, I have 5 cities with IDX feeds, none with RETS.

The feed comes in a databse text file, sorted by tabs, that can easily be imported with a perl or bash script into your system.

Map a few databse fields and you're off to the races.

Images come zipped up, usually a set of "daily" and "weekly" files will come for each MLS.

Some IDX's let you remotely login and download whatever you need, images, data, etc. and others FTP it right to a folder on your server that you can later extract, ingest, and publish. Don't prefer that method as I like to be in control of the automatic processes, and this one comes without notification.

RETS will be soon completely replaced by the standardized IDX feed.

At least that's what's goin on down south.