FNRES to Introduce ‘reInsight’ Data and Its Data-Sharing Program

RISMEDIA, Nov. 5, 2008-Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions (FNRES), a division of Fidelity National Financial, Inc., a Fortune 500 provider of products, services and technology solutions to the financial and real estate industries, is now offering its MLS customers reInsight^TM Data, a new “open architecture” data sharing solution.The product, which will be formally unveiled at the 2008 REALTORS® Conference and Expo, is part of a suite of products that includes reInsight^TM Tax (for more comprehensive neighborhood and public record data) and reInsight^TM Mobile (to enhance Internet searching by the latest generation of hand-held devices).

Developed by Fidelity National MLS Systems and Solutions, reInsight Data is the first release by a major Multiple Listings Service vendor to promote the agnostic philosophy of open architecture. According to the company, for more than a year, Fidelity National has been preparing for the introduction of the reInsight suite, advocating a new business paradigm in which MLS vendors put the interests of the real estate professional ahead of market share.

“The reInsight products reflect our commitment to sacrifice proprietary vendor control over our platforms in order to better serve the agents and the brokers in the field,” said Beverly Faull, SVP and general manager of Fidelity National MLS Systems and Solutions. “Also, it has been designed to do more than simply provide information. Its broader application is to provide insight into how best to use and interpret that information.”

According to Faull, the database systems that power the MLS features need to move toward an open database architecture that is powered by RETS (Real Estate Technology Standard). That will allow agents and brokers to utilize the productivity tools of their choosing, and more efficiently move data in and out of MLS databases.

Previously, she says, “that has been difficult at best.”

reInsight Data

According to the company, Fidelity National MLS’ reInsight Data is an extremely scalable, high-performance system capable of handling large numbers of listings, photos and concurrent users and transactions. It is powerful enough to support the aggregation of a number of large MLS organizations and at the same time flexible enough to allow smaller organizations to implement and utilize it, too.

Previously, for members of an MLS organization to access data in MLSs that border or share a logical geographical area, they had to be a member of each MLS. They did separate searches in each system and, if appropriate, ran CMAs for the comps in each system.

Now, a Realtor® can use the single reInsight Data aggregation system to search all of the properties in a combination of MLSs based on geographical area, irrespective of which MLS posted it or any “jurisdictional” boundaries. They can execute a search, find the listing and look at all the detailed information available on that property.

Furthermore, reInsight Data employs a robust security model that employs single sign-on technology (SSO) to insure granular control of access to the system. MLS members are able to log in from their home MLS system and link directly to the data share without having to log in again.

“The data will be mapped to a single normalized data schema to which all data is converted,” said Rob Overman, CTO and vice president of MLS Technologies for Fidelity MLS Systems & Solutions. “That uniform data language will be understood by all systems so that agents in any connected organization can immediately use it. In other words, bedrooms are always called bedrooms, exterior features are exterior features, and so on. In this way we have anticipated and established the means to smooth out differences between its customer MLS organizations.”

“The environment is right for a product like reInsight^TM Data,” said Faull. “We feel that we have the solution that is best suited to the way the market is growing right now, as well as how it will evolve over the next few years.”

For more information, contact Bob Morse, VP of Sales at bob.morse@fnres.com or 650-259-0287.