[Rets-dev] Recommended Free or Low Cost RETS Clients

[Keith T. Garner]

Spencer Tabbert wrote:
> I am looking for recommendations on Free or Low Cost RETS Clients that
> are simple in nature.  Currently the client that I do work for belongs
> to several MLS's in California and will be joining several more. 
> Several MLSs are RETS only or soon will be.  To date I have used the
> RETSExcelPlugin to get data from the SouthBay MLS in CA but it is really
> kind of a kludge.  In addition I am not sure this MLS is fully RETS
> compliant either that or the software is broken as things do not
> function as expected. What are other people out there using? 
>  
> My needs are rather basic I feel and are:
>  
> - Ability to download property listings to a CSV or some other delimited
> file format.  This will be used to keep in sync our local copy of
> property information.
> - Ability to download images

On the "open-source tools from CRT" front, you can use libRETS to build what
you want to do in C++, Ruby, Python, or the .NET languages on Linux, OS X,
or Windows.  http://www.crt.realtors.org/projects/rets/librets

You might also want to look at the ezRETS ODBC driver, built on top of
libRETS.  It will also do what you want.  Getting images is a bit funky as
ezRETS fakes out a table with a blob, but other than that...
http://www.crt.realtors.org/projects/rets/ezrets

I know that the California association is using ezRETS to gather listing
statistics from many MLS's in CA using ezRETS.

CRT also has some other RETS clients, but I think using one of those two
would be your best bet.

Keith

-- 
  Keith T. Garner - Managing Director - Center for REALTOR® Technology
   kgarner at realtors.org - 312-329-3294 - http://blog.realtors.org/crt