Creating a web service to intake and re-transmit RETS data

Question

I am trying to read about RETS and have understood little.

I basically need to create RETS SOAP web service to post data to a URL. I am trying to do this with ASP.NET and C#.

I need to receive the data entered by users/brokers and then re-transmit in RETS compliant standard XML. It will be sent to these clients who are RETS 2.0 compliant. The challenge here includes ensuring the entered data is RETS 2.0 compliant.

Can anyone suggest, at a high level, what needs to be done to conform to the RETS 2.0 standard, and how to get started?

Answer 1

First of all, it's not you so much that need to comply with the RETS standard but the server you are connecting to.

See http://www.rets.org/cms/documentation.

You need to use their credential method and also conform to the schema that they provide.

One warning on RETS; it's like the saying goes "the great thing about standards are there are so many to choose from." Servers that says they are RETS do not always comply to the schema. Moreover, they like to use meta-data to store the important fields that you want (like property address).

At a high level you use the RETS connector to connect to their server, authenticate and pull back XML that complies with their standard. However, I am telling you you probably will not find everything you want unless you look in the metadata.