MLS Aligned committed to standardizing showing data in the industry

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – MLS Aligned, LLC, a group of forward-thinking Multiple Listing Services focused on building industry-leading technology for its over 100,000 MLS subscribers, has acquired the technology assets of RE Agent Solutions, LLC, the owner of the Agent Inbox technology.

With this acquisition, MLS Aligned will build upon the Agent Inbox tools to bring messaging and showings together in a straightforward place for agents and brokers. The system will bring tremendous benefits to consumers due to the platform’s speed and enhanced showing system capabilities.

To better facilitate the showing process, MLS Aligned will integrate the showings and messaging systems within the platforms of their members to provide for seamless agent-to-agent and agent-to-client communications.

MLS Aligned is committed to being the leading force for standardizing showing data for the industry. It will utilize the talents of its programming and product staffs to formulate the best practices needed for MLSs around the country. After seeing significant changes in real estate software and the various company acquisitions over the last year, the need to standardize and modernize this data on their own showing platforms became evident.

Brad Bjelke, CEO of UtahRealEstate.com, and one of the founders of MLS Aligned, said, “We wanted to show the MLS industry that MLSs can innovate together and bring the products our members are asking for to life. The Agent Inbox software, combined with our future plans for the product, will revolutionize how showings are handled by brokerages and agents.”

MLS Aligned is owned by and develops products for MLSs. Metro MLS in Wisconsin, ARMLS in Arizona, UtahRealEstate.com in Utah, RMLS in Oregon, and MLSListings in Silicon Valley are partnering to own and operate this new showing service.

“We’re stronger together than apart. Working through MLS Aligned to bring this system to subscribers is one way MLSs can team up to provide elevated experiences and services,” said Matt Consalvo, CEO of ARMLS.

“The purchase and development of a showing service allows us to provide our members with a quality product that we control moving forward. Owning our showing service eliminates future acquisition anxiety and allows us to meet the needs of our members in the best way possible. We are excited to work with our MLS Aligned partners to develop a product that will positively impact our members and the MLS industry,” Metro MLS CEO Chris Carrillo said.

Kurt von Wasmuth, CEO of Regional Multiple Listing Services (RMLS), said, “With Agent Inbox’s ability to seamlessly integrate into our existing MLS, the communication and showing features will provide an enticing enhancement to our current list of features.”

Agent Inbox co-founder and CEO, Tyler Gordon, sees the deal as transformative, “The acquisition of Agent Inbox by MLS Aligned transforms the landscape and future of how independent MLSs serve their members. Leveraging Agent Inbox’s leading platform, MLS Aligned will control and further innovate on the most critical workflows of the real estate transaction.”

MLS Aligned will be making this software available to organizations that are not MLS Aligned members in the near future.

About MLS Aligned
MLS Aligned, LLC, was founded by five forward thinking multiple listing service organizations with the intent to collaborate and solve pain points in the real estate industry. Those organizations include ARMLS (serving Arizona), Metro MLS (serving Wisconsin), MLSListings (serving Silicon Valley and coastal California), Regional MLS (serving Oregon and Southwest Washington), and UtahRealEstate.com (serving Utah and Southern Idaho). MLS Aligned offers an API driven data distribution tool that can distribute large amounts of data without the antiquated process of data replication. The organization also partners with its members on product offerings and services to better serve their more than 100,000 real estate professionals.

About Agent Inbox
Agent Inbox is a showings and messaging system that allows for simple, transparent, and efficient communication and scheduling between agents and brokerages. Built out of a need for better communication between agents and their clients, Agent Inbox modernizes and simplifies the scheduling process for showings to help create a seamless experience for both home sellers and buyers and their agents.

About UtahRealEstate.com
Founded in 1994, UtahRealEstate.com is the leading provider of real estate technology in Utah and one of the largest Multiple Listing Services in the United States. The company provides one of the top-ranked real estate websites in the state and serves over 18,500 real estate professionals (approximately 94% of all REALTORS® in the state of Utah) and over 7 million consumers each year.

About RMLS
Regional Multiple Listing Service (RMLS) is the Northwest’s largest REALTORS®-owned multiple listing service, serving a network of approximately 15,000 REALTORS® from more than 2,900 offices in Oregon and Southern Washington. RMLS exists to provide its subscribers with accurate and timely information on listings, the means to analyze the market, and state-of-the art professional tools.

About Metro MLS®
Multiple Listing Service Inc. (Metro MLS®) is the largest MLS in Wisconsin, serving more than 9,000 members and 10 REALTOR® associations. Established in 1962, Metro MLS delivers efficient and impactful services to its members, offering the most timely and robust real estate information in Wisconsin and the bordering areas. Metro MLS provides accurate real estate data, industry-leading services, and cost-effective resources to enhance fair housing and help REALTORS® succeed in the industry.

About MLSListings
MLSListings is where real estate property listings originate, as the authorized trading platform for real estate professionals. Our customers are REALTORS®, brokers and agents throughout northern California. We specialize in the counties of Monterey, San Benito, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz. Approximately 16,000 real estate professionals in over 6,000 firms representing 28,000 square miles conduct business utilizing our MLS platform. Because their listings originate with us, our real estate data is the most up-to-date, refreshes every five minutes, and is the most accurate information available to buyers, sellers and those seeking real estate information.

About ARMLS®
Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service (ARMLS®) is the largest MLS in Arizona, providing MLS and other core services for MLS subscribers. ARMLS started in 1982 as the first regional MLS in the country. Now nearly 40 years later, ARMLS provides training, support, and technology solutions for 40,000 real estate agents. ARMLS contracts with MLS search vendors and engages other key service providers for mapping, lockbox services, remote MLS access through mobile devices, listing syndication, and statistical data analysis.

In an article produced by the Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO), UtahRealEstate.com is recognized for its leading role in ushering in new real estate technology for its in-house technology system for Web API and Data Dictionary.

UtahRealEstate.com is among first few real estate companies to have adopted the newly unified standards in the Data Dictionary 1.7. The goal with these new standards are for structuring information in a common language and Web API Core 1.0.2 to set a consistent set of rules for better data sharing.

“Our organization is committed to adapting the latest RESO standards,” said Ryan Kirkham, Chair of UtahRealEstate.com, “in order to promote technology innovation in real estate that benefits our broker and agent communities.”

In late 2019, UtahRealEstate.com’s API was finalized by its technical team and the entire MLS database became fully distributable to any vendor or broker that meets URE’s licensing agreement terms.

In July of 2020, URE notified all of its vendors (from small local website companies to the largest national vendors) that January of 2021 would be the sunset of all data distribution methods, except for the new API. After that notification, more than 30% of URE’s vendors have converted to the new API, and feeds of every type and kind are flowing through the new technology.

Using easy to follow documentation and standardized technology configuration, any licensed vendor can now enter the Utah real estate market and receive a feed of MLS data that is easy to work with, allowing for accelerated innovation in real estate services and tools.

Brad Bjelke, CEO of UtahRealEstate.com comments, “By requiring all of our data licensees to use our RESO-compliant API, we believe that we are revolutionizing the data distribution process with a keen focus on efficiency, security and data accuracy.”

Move, Inc, Black Knight, Inc. Perchwell, and Hawaii Information Service (MLS Hawaii), all named in RESO’s article, have all made similar steps with their own systems to upgrade to a new Web API and be consistent with the Data Dictionary.

About RESO

RESO is a real estate organization with a vision of streamlining the real estate technology industry, providing standard that real estate technology companies can adopt to foster better communication and data transfer in the industry.

Of the 556 Multiple Listing Services in the nation, UtahRealEstate.com has been ranked as the 21^st largest in 2020 by T3 Sixty in its Organized Real Estate 200 (ORE200).

Categorized as a “Mega MLS,” UtahRealEstate.com currently has over 18,000 members and is one of the few MLSs in the United States that provides listing data for nearly the entire state of Utah, currently servicing about 96% of all real estate professionals in that area.

Over 50,000 homes are sold each year on UtahRealEstate.com, which not only offers data to real estate agents to share with their clients, but also has one of the top real estate public-facing websites in the country, offering the most up-to-date property listings that are actively for sale.

“We are proud of the company’s growth over the last several years,” said Brad Bjelke, CEO of UtahRealEstate.com. “We have expanded to the boundaries of our state and have now pushed into both Idaho and Nevada with our service offerings.”

About T360

T3 Sixty is a company of real estate industry strategists, mentors and consultants that actively analyze the industry and provide powerful insights to brokerages, association and multiple listing services.

The Organized Real Estate 200 (ORE200) is part of T3 Sixty’s Real Estate Almanac, a list of all U.S. state and local MLSs and REALTOR® associations ranked by their membership size. The figures and counts in this report are as of December 31, 2020.