Simplifying the MLS Challenge: How Ocusell is Tackling Real Estate's Biggest Data Problem

Written by:

Steve Marcinuk

Date:

06 Feb 2025

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• The real estate industry faces a significant challenge with property listings requiring manual entry across multiple MLS systems (approximately 532 independent organizations), creating inefficiencies and potential errors in data entry.

• Ocusell has developed a unique solution by working directly with MLSs to understand and codify their business rules, discovering that about 20% of existing rules are inconsistent with current policies.

• The company’s platform, featuring List™ for agents/brokers and Assurance™ for MLS organizations, automatically pulls data from over 40 databases to create more complete listings with 10-15% more enriched information than traditional MLS entries.

• Through their patent-pending rules engine, Ocusell streamlines the listing process while ensuring compliance across different MLS territories, addressing the growing need for standardized data management as DOJ scrutiny increases.

• The company is positioned for expansion in early 2025, offering a technological solution to a historically fragmented system that has relied on manual processes.

Despite technological advancements simplifying everything from ordering groceries to managing global supply chains, real estate professionals still face a surprisingly analog problem: entering property listings across multiple MLS systems. For an industry that handles millions of transactions annually, this legacy challenge creates significant friction in what should be a streamlined process.

Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) have been the backbone of real estate transactions since the late 1800s when real estate brokers first began sharing information about their listings to facilitate cooperation and increase sales. Today, this network has evolved into approximately 532 independent MLS organizations across the United States, each maintaining its own database of property listings and operating under its own set of rules and standards.

Fragmentation isn’t just a matter of geography. Each MLS operates as an independent entity, owned either by local realtor associations, regional multi-association conglomerates, or independent cooperatives of real estate brokerages. While organizations like the Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) work to promote data standardization, the reality remains complex: brokerages often need to interface with multiple MLS systems, each with its own data structures, rules, and policies.

This complexity creates a significant burden for real estate professionals. “You’re keying in all the data manually. It’s a very cumbersome process that can be riddled with errors when you’re transcribing it for someone, or you’re doing the data entry yourself and sitting there, copy, paste, copy paste,” explains Tyler Loosier, Chief Revenue Officer at Ocusell. “It’s very time-consuming, and can have a lot of gaps where errors can come in.”

For the average brokerage operating across three or four different MLS territories, this means navigating different data structures, complying with varying rules, and maintaining consistency across multiple platforms. The challenge is compounded by the fact that MLSs serve as the primary source of property data for countless downstream applications, from public-facing real estate websites to valuation tools and market analysis platforms. Any errors or inconsistencies at the point of entry can ripple through the entire real estate ecosystem.

But a rising proptech company believes it has cracked the code with a novel approach to this persistent industry pain point. Ocusell’s solution comes at a crucial time, as the Department of Justice’s increased scrutiny of real estate industry practices has put a spotlight on the need for more standardized and transparent data management systems.

A Fresh Approach to an Old Problem

What makes Ocusell’s approach different is their focus on working directly with MLSs to understand and codify their business rules. “When I first met [Ocusell’s founder and CEO Hayden Rieveschl], he told me the idea,” Loosier recalls. “I was like, ‘great idea, good luck’ – these other initiatives like that have come and gone.”

But when Loosier encountered the company again two years later, their strategy had evolved. “We actually work hand in hand with the MLS. We audit their current business rules,” he explains. This deep dive into the mechanics of each MLS system revealed something surprising: “Unfortunately, about 20% of the time, these rules are inconsistent with current policies.”

This discovery led to the development of Ocusell’s patent-pending rules engine, which forms the backbone of their two-pronged solution: A list for agents and brokers, and Assurance for MLS organizations.

Beyond Simple Data Entry

The company’s platform goes beyond basic data entry. When agents create a new listing, Ocusell scours over 40 databases to auto-fill as much information as possible. This not only saves time but actually results in more complete listings.

“We’re actually filling out some of those optional fields with that auto-fill data,” Loosier notes. “About 10% to 15% more enriched than entering it the old way through the MLS system.”

This enrichment has real implications for property visibility. As Loosier points out, “We all sit there and say, ‘Okay, I need to have this, this and this in my house.’ That’s what you put into your search. That’s all that’s going to show up are the ones that have that filled in.”

Innovation Through Customer Feedback

The company continues to evolve its platform based on user feedback. One recent example: using AI to automatically order listing photos. “One of our brokerage partners asked, ‘Well, do you think you could use AI to help reorder the photos?'” Loosier shares. “Couple weeks later, we already had the prototype.”

Market Reception and Future Growth

As the real estate industry enters what Loosier calls “a compliance era,” partly driven by increased DOJ scrutiny, solutions like Ocusell are gaining more attention. The company is expanding into new markets in early 2025, with several announcements expected in Q1.

“It’s a really exciting time,” Loosier reflects, “because we’re really starting to see some awesome tech companies come about that are solving these problems that people have always kind of known are there, but haven’t really seen that kind of like shining light of ‘okay, this can solve that for us.'”

For an industry long plagued by fragmentation and manual processes, that light couldn’t come soon enough.