The tools brokers and agents use every day, from search portals and market reports to AI-driven applications, rely on one fundamental that is often unseen: accurate, timely data. Behind the scenes, the infrastructure that powers this critical data flow is managed by platforms built for reliability and scale.
Cotality’s Trestle product serves as the core backbone for nearly 100 MLS organizations and the brokers and technology vendors they support.
The foundation of trust
Residential real estate is a data-driven business where reliability isn’t optional, it’s the foundation of one of the largest asset classes in North America. If the flow of listing data falters or is incomplete, the disruption impacts everything from home valuations to consumer confidence.
Trestle’s job is to deliver clean, timely, and complete data at scale, direct from the MLS. Jason Romig, senior director of Product Management for Real Estate Solutions at Cotality, underscores this point, stating, “If that flow of data falters, the ripple effect would be felt everywhere, eroding agent and consumer confidence and disrupting the market.”
MLSs face constant pressure to keep pace with evolving data and technical standards set by the Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO). Trestle helps MLSs achieve the latest RESO certification and deliver reliable data at scale. It delivers significantly more listing data than competitors and supports the industry’s widest range of formats. This flexibility is vital for developers and brokerage platforms aiming to rapidly innovate and deploy new tools.
Simplifying operations across markets
A critical challenge for national brokers and technology partners is dealing with data pulled from numerous MLSs, creating operational inefficiencies that slow down product development. Trestle addresses this complexity directly. By offering Trestle as a platform of choice, MLSs enable brokers and tech companies to consolidate multiple data feeds into fewer connections. Simplified contracts and negotiations, coupled with compliant standard data, lead to dramatically reduced operating costs and friction for data teams.
Protecting data through governance
Confidence in MLS data is confidence in the market itself. To maintain that integrity, Trestle gives MLSs clear control over access and use. This is crucial for protecting the data that underpins the entire real estate ecosystem.
Trestle provides MLSs with the tools to manage and distribute listing data to broker systems and technology partners efficiently while safeguarding it. This includes built-in protections to evaluate new data licensees, flag expired connections, and monitor suspicious activity, ensuring data moves securely and compliantly.
Furthermore, features like Trestle Share enable neighboring markets to easily share clean, consistent data. This cooperation breaks down barriers between MLSs, eliminating the overlapping market disorder for brokers operating across different MLS areas.
More than listings
Homebuying decisions require local context. Trestle combines listings with location insights, solving a major gap in most real estate websites where neighborhood data is missing due to costly acquisition. Without these insights, clients bounce between portals—and brokers lose control of the lead.
The path forward: Next steps for the industry
The resilience and efficiency of the real estate market fundamentally relies on the sophistication of its data infrastructure. As the industry looks ahead, the path is clear for those managing and consuming the foundational listing data.
For the MLS: Cotality says the question is no longer if you should offer comprehensive data distribution, but why would you add friction to the process. Offer Trestle as a platform of choice at no cost to your organization. You do not need to be a Matrix market to use Trestle, and within weeks of implementation, it can begin generating non-dues revenue for you.
For the tech partner/broker: The advice is straightforward: Assess your data access. Use Trestle to connect with the MLSs already using the platform. For those MLSs not yet integrated, contact them directly to advocate for its addition, cementing a commitment to simplified data feeds that work for your organization.
For more information, visit cotality.com/trestle.
