REBNY adds another listings program to its platform

The Real Estate Board of New York has agreed to plug another third-party data system into the association’s existing platform, known as RLS. The program, marketed by Nestio, was designed with an option to notify members of exclusive listings available to be co-brokered.

While the go-ahead for Nestio marks the sixth vendor to receive the OK from REBNY to feed listings into the board’s platform, Nestio’s software is the first program the association has approved since relaunching its RLS in September. That upgrade saw the REBNY program finally come into compliance with the Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS), a common language for systems that process property information.

Industry watchers note that the New York City real estate industry has been relatively slow to roll out RETS-compliant property systems, particularly when compared to some other major markets in the U.S. The standard, which makes it easier for software developers to design products for real estate information systems, boosts competition among vendors, thus providing more choices for customers, according to the Real Estate Standards Organization, which developed and implements RETS.

Indeed, the addition of Nestio’s tool to RLS is a direct result of the real estate board’s adoption of the standard, says Steven Goldschmidt, REBNY’s RLS co-chair and senior vice president at Warburg Realty. He added that REBNY looks forward to increasing the number of technologies available to members who use RLS.

“This is the first of what we hope are many vendors, service companies and products that can benefit the consumer and the industry,” Goldschmidt told The Real Deal.

Goldschmidt confirmed that REBNY has fielded inquiries from a number of companies interested in integrating their technology with RLS now that the system is RETS compliant.

“We’re talking to a number of service firms that are now suddenly realizing that the New York real estate market now speaks their language,” said Goldschmidt.

The integration with RLS dovetails with Nestio’s launch today of the new listings management product for brokers and agents. The dashboard draws on data that also power the company’s back-end system designed for landlords and management companies, which launched last year. The tool displays new listings in real time and is optimized for rental agents.

Caren Maio, CEO and co-founder of Nestio, said giving users the ability to transmit exclusive listings to RLS within its client management tool advances the company’s goal of becoming a single source for rental brokers and agents.

“What RLS enables us to do is open up a whole other group of listings through REBNY,” Maio told The Real Deal.

Nestio also announced today that it has grown its listings to cover 600,000 managed rental units in New York City. The company claims that number represents 67 percent of the city’s total free market rental units.