“The Future Ain’t What it Used To Be”: Real Estate’s Infrastructure Problem

Last week our Chief Strategy Officer, John Heithaus, presented at the RESO conference on the subject of real estate’s “plumbing” problem. Real estate moves fast, but the systems haven’t kept pace with today’s needs. The platforms MLSs are still operating on were built nearly thirty years ago and the ‘leaks’ are beginning to show. Whether it is inconsistent fields, compliance errors that aren’t caught until a listing goes live, or all the obstacles for vendor integrations to update their product, the infrastructure that underpins our industry has become an operational weakness as well as a liability risk. 

As John put it, running modern tools on today’s infrastructure is like putting a Lamborghini on a road built for a Ford Pinto. It will move, but it’s not going to get you where you need to go. What the industry needs isn’t another product built on top of broken pipes, it needs an infrastructure layer underneath.

That’s the Problem Ocusell was Built to Solve

Ocusell sits at that infrastructure layer — the rails that bridge connections between MLSs while allowing each one to maintain its independence. Brokers and agents subscribed to multiple MLSs can seamlessly publish listings to all of them from a single form, without duplicating efforts. Listing data is entered once, regardless of the vendor platform and photos, video, floor plans, and open house tools all feed from one centralized engine and update in real time. A few years ago that kind of one-to-many publishing was unheard of, but today it’s the foundation of Ocusell’s technology. 

Compliance issues are on the cusp of becoming a huge wake up call for our industry. We’ve just come through years of litigation and billions in fines over commission lawsuits, let’s make sure we don’t have a repeat of this for listing violations that could be prevented. Every Ocusell implementation includes an in-depth audit of the MLS’s business rules and compliance requirements. In most cases we find significant discrepancies that represent real liability waiting to happen. Ocusell’s Proactive Compliance model catches many listing errors before they go live, preventing thousands of dollars in fines and safeguarding real estate’s reputation. 

As John shared in his presentation, the famous Yogi Berra once said, “the future ain’t what it used to be.” MLSs are still the cornerstone to a safe and fair housing market for all, but we need to ensure they can withstand the changes in the industry without having to spend millions to replace what we use now. With Ocusell, everything moves more smoothly, brokers can have more control over their data, liability risk is reduced across the board and clients are happier. Better plumbing means a better industry for all.