Eligibility for MLSImport has nothing to do with the size of your business. It comes down to one question: does your MLS give you RESO Web API access, and are you allowed to use it on the website you are building?
This page covers who qualifies, who does not, and how the answer changes when you are building the site for somebody else.
Who qualifies
- An individual agent. Most MLSs grant Web API access to agents, and many require your broker’s written authorisation on top of your own membership. Ask your MLS which applies to you.
- A team. Access is issued to a member, not to a team, so one member’s credentials carry the feed and the import tasks filter down to the team’s listings.
- A brokerage or office. The broker holds the access, and office level filters keep the site to the brokerage’s own inventory.
- An MLS area site. If your access permits displaying other members’ listings, you can import beyond your own office, subject to your MLS’s display rules.
Who does not qualify
- Anyone without MLS membership. Investors, lenders, portals, and marketing agencies cannot obtain a feed on their own account. There is no version of MLSImport that supplies data without member credentials.
- Members of an MLS that offers no RESO Web API. Membership alone is not enough. The MLS has to publish a RESO Web API feed and be willing to give you access to it.
- National aggregators. One install connects to one MLS account, so a site pulling many MLSs into one national search is outside what MLSImport does.
Narrowing the feed to the listings that are yours to show
Whatever your role, an import task can restrict listings by the identifiers your MLS publishes for people and offices.
- Listing agent, by agent key or by agent MLS ID.
- Buyer agent, by agent MLS ID, which is how sold listings you represented on the buy side are captured.
- Listing office, by office key or by office MLS ID.
- Excluded offices, by office key or office MLS ID, for the case where you want a market view with certain offices left out.
An agent site is usually one task filtered to your agent ID. A brokerage site is usually one or more tasks filtered to the office ID. A team site is a task per member.
Get your agent MLS ID and office MLS ID from your MLS before you build the tasks, and confirm which field their feed populates. Agent key and agent MLS ID are different values, and filtering on the wrong one returns nothing without reporting an error.
Building the site for a client
If you are a developer or an agency, the credentials belong to your client, because the MLS issues them to the member. The practical arrangement is that your client requests API access in their own name, and you enter those credentials into the plugin on their site.
The MLSImport subscription can be paid by either of you. The MLS access cannot: that relationship is between your client and their MLS, and it is their data licence agreement that governs what the finished site is allowed to display.
Read your client’s data licence agreement before you design the site. Required attribution, required disclaimers, and rules about which statuses may remain visible are cheap to satisfy in a mockup and expensive to retrofit into a finished template.
Frequently asked questions
I am a developer with no MLS membership. Can I set this up for a client?
Yes. The plugin does not care who installs it. The credentials have to come from your client, in their name, from their MLS. You enter them into the plugin on their site and everything else works normally.
Can several agents in the same brokerage share one website?
Yes, as long as they are all in the same MLS. One install carries one MLS connection, and you can create an import task per agent so each one’s listings arrive with their own filter. Agents in different MLSs need separate sites.
My MLS says I need broker authorisation. Does MLSImport handle that?
No. Authorisation is between you, your broker, and your MLS, and it happens before any credentials exist. MLSImport only comes into it once the MLS has issued you the connection details.
Can I display listings from agents outside my own office?
That depends on your MLS agreement, not on the plugin. The filters can pull the whole feed your access allows. What you may publish is decided by the IDX or Web API terms you signed, so check them before importing beyond your own listings.
Related
- Requirements before you buy
- What MLSImport is and how it works
- How many listings can you import
- Building a Zillow or Redfin style site: what is realistic
Tell us your MLS name and your role in it through a support ticket and we will confirm what access you need to ask for.