FTP, RETS or Smart Frame property search?
Delta Media Group can incorporate an FTP or RETS feed for your real estate website, or Smart Frame a property search. If you're not familiar with the differences between these feeds, please see below.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
An FTP feed provides data a broker can control on their own real estate website. Since the listing data is on the brokerage or agent website, it allows the website to track the leads and statistics, and generate reports based on that data. Delta Media Group s real estate website and lead management systems automatically track several stats and reports for your real estate brokerage and agents.

FTP is a pre-determined set of fields that an MLS provides to its IDX users. It is the older of two data feed methods commonly made available by MLS boards across the nation (the other being RETS). Different MLS boards syndicate FTP data differently. Depending on your MLS, your FTP feed could update multiple times each week, or as many as four times per day.

RETS (Real Estate Transaction Specification)
RETS is the best data feed option available for your IDX real estate website because, depending on MLS rules, RETS should allow your website to be updated with IDX data more frequently versus with an FTP feed. In addition, RETS generally allows more flexibility with the listing data that is made available. Unlike with FTP, RETS is not limited to a specific data set which is predetermined by the board as being acceptable for all brokers.

Smart Frame
"Framing" is the act of displaying an existing Internet page framed within the parameters of your website. A Smart Frame property search is a page on your real estate website that shows an existing property search from your MLS board's website. Smart Framing is often free, whereas some MLS boards charge to have an FTP or RETS feed.

Smart-framing allows your website to display all real estate listings, but does not track statistics or generate reports of the consumers viewing those listings directly from your real estate website. In a smart frame, the listing data resides on the MLS server, thereby preventing your real estate website from tracking listing statistics.

For more information, or to see which data feed it available to you, click here to contact Delta Media Group.

To view a list of MLS boards Delta Media Group currently works with, click here.