What is RETS? At first glance it sounds like something you may want to avoid, but for the professional Realtor and their web developer it's like gold. It helps Realtors update property information on the MLS server, saving time and keeping listings current. It can all be done through PHP and a good database.

In this new article from DevShed, they go over how to use this powerful system - putting the power of this tool in a few simple scripts. Of course, you have to have a login to use the system, but once that's in place, you can quickly and easily create scripts to gather the information that you need.

As usual, they provide the code you'll need to get things started, as well as an explaination of how the authentication works (with MD5 hashes). Once you have a good understanding of how the connection happens and what format things need to be in, the skys the limit on the information you can look up...