Tracey Kantrud In real estate, media is more than table stakes for buyers and sellers. It’s also a valuable source of data that’s helpful before the listing is created and well after a transaction closes. High-quality visuals like photos, 3D tours, and floor plans are a critical part of how listings are presented and perceived. But they also tell the story of the property with tons of data hiding in plain sight, just waiting to be extracted. And too often, after a listing expires, that media is lost or degraded. Hosted 3D tours vanish and photos are removed, which results in the disappearance of valuable data and context. That’s how it’s always been. But not anymore.
At FBS, we believe media and media-data deserve better. That’s why we’re leading the way by raising the bar on how media and media-data are integrated, shared, and preserved within MLS systems.
Media Matters (And It Shouldn’t Be a Hassle)
First, let’s talk about managing media. For agents, it can be one of the most time-consuming parts of listing a property. Manually downloading files from the photographer, uploading them into the MLS, arranging them, and ensuring everything looks perfect is a process that eats into time better spent with clients. And with today’s technology, that long process is unnecessary.
At FBS, we’re doing a lot to simplify this process and remove the friction, making it faster, easier, and better for agents starting with the Photography Network. The Photography Network allows agents to grant MLS-certified photographers limited access to their listings in order to upload media. This results in faster, easier media uploads, and it streamlines the listing entry process while ensuring compliance with MLS media standards.
To address situations where media is removed once a listing goes off-market, we developed a tool that allows agents to mark photos as “Private While Off-Market.” This feature removes the photos from public view when a listing is no longer active, while still making them accessible to MLS members. It ensures valuable media remains available for CMAs and appraisals, while also protecting homeowner privacy.
The Ultimate Unlock: Streamlined Listing Entry & Supercharged Data
Our focus on media integrations provides more than convenience and simplicity. We’re partnering with the biggest names in real estate media, such as Zillow, Matterport, CubiCasa, and many others, to build direct integrations that simplify and speed up the workflow by expanding on current auto-pop capabilities.
By embedding media integrations directly into the listing process, we’re unlocking a new layer of data that:
- Autofills fields for the agent by pulling data from AI, past listings, public records, and trusted third-party data and media providers (we’re already doing this with Matterport and iGUIDE virtual tours!). This reduces manual data entry and saves valuable time.
- Encourages richer listing content, going beyond the bare minimum required fields.
With FBS media technology, MLSs gain smarter, more complete data while agents spend less time wrestling with listing entry. And the impact of higher-quality listing data going in? Better data coming out, paving the way for enhanced search capabilities, more targeted, effective searches, and future innovation (especially in the age of AI).
The Power of Standards
What truly amplifies the impact of these integrations is our commitment to industry standards.
The RESO Common Format standard plays a key role by giving technology providers a common structure for sharing listing data. Because this standard follows the RESO Data Dictionary, data fields and formatting remain consistent. This allows FBS to auto-pop listing data accurately, even across MLSs with unique systems. In simple terms, it’s a consistent way to package and label real estate data so that systems like MLS platforms and third-party tools can easily understand, exchange, and use it. By aligning our integrations with RESO standards, we create:
- Faster implementation for vendors.
- The ability for more powerful integrations that evolve with the industry.
- Better compatibility across systems, enabling long-term sustainability.
FBS has been a champion of RESO and open standards for years (our CEO has been on the Board of Directors since RESO’s inception). These latest initiatives are a continuation of our belief that open, collaborative innovation moves the entire industry forward.
We work closely with our MLS customers to align their data models with RESO, and many have already completed overhauls to get closer to the standard, with more on the way. The payoffs are real and include more searchable fields for MLSs that data share, as well as easier and tighter integration with third-party software. The more RESO-aligned your MLS data is, the more you can take advantage of automated data population and advanced media handling.
FBS (and Flexmls) Welcomes You to a New Era of Media Innovation
When you combine RESO standards with the most powerful APIs in real estate, you get more than a nice-to-have integration. You get a transformational experience for MLSs, agents, and consumers, as well as a springboard for future innovation with the MLS at the center: The Media Masters. It’s a win-win-win—and at FBS, we’re proud to lead the charge.
We’re just getting started so stay tuned for more as we continue to innovate this space. Reach out to us to learn more!