SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Trulia, a leading online marketplace for home buyers, sellers, renters, and real estate professionals, announced today that it has released Trulia Java RETS Client software on an open source basis through the Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) website. The open source software promotes industry innovation by making it easier and less expensive for developers to build real estate applications using data licensed from Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) and in compliance with MLS licensing standards. By making the software available for download on the Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) web site on an open source basis, Trulia is furthering its mission to deliver innovation as the leading technology partner to the real estate industry.
“Technological barriers increase the complexity and costs of development, hampering innovation using MLS data,” said Alon Chaver, Vice President of Industry Services at Trulia. “We wanted to create open source software that reduces these barriers thereby encouraging developers to collaborate with the MLS industry and use high quality data to build new applications that benefit the entire real estate community.”
The software is based on the Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS), which allows many different real estate systems or MLSs to connect and exchange real estate information such as home listings, so they are accessible online.
“We appreciate companies like Trulia sharing technology that inspires innovation within the MLS community,” said Russ Bergeron, President/CEO of MRED and a RESO Director. “Trulia’s commitment to the real estate industry and sharing of its technical expertise establishes a positive framework with which to collaboratively address technology challenges.”
Using the Trulia Java RETS Client, a developer may easily access data licensed from MLSs that are RETS-enabled. This reduces development costs and time required to set up a RETS feed, and will be an asset for the industry at large. For example, software developers can use it to accelerate development of mobile app prototypes.
As part of the project, Trulia plans to update the software over time so it will continue to work with all MLSs in the United States.
“We want to encourage the development of processes that benefit the entire real estate community,” said Daniele Farnedi, Chief Technology Officer at Trulia. “Trulia’s Java RETS client software makes it easy for developers to license MLS data and allows them to focus on building useful new technology that uses the most accurate data available.”
Trulia has a long history of contributing time and resources to open source communities across many disciplines representing the breadth of engineering expertise at the company, including iOS software development, geospatial technology, and data visualization, among other areas.
Just last month, Alon Chaver was appointed to the RESO Board, the organization that is promoting data standards in the real estate industry. RESO hosts the Trulia Java RETS Client software and many other useful tools that promote high quality real estate data.