FW Real Estate – Documentation

The Spark API integration is built and configured per client as part of a setup service. There is nothing to install or enable yourself. This page describes what the integration does so you can judge whether you want it.

What It Is

An automatic feed from Spark API (FlexMLS) into your FW Real Estate site — listings, photos, price changes, and withdrawals, kept in step without anyone re-entering data manually. Spark API is the developer interface to FlexMLS, used by a large number of North American MLSs. If your board runs FlexMLS, this is usually the most direct route to your own listings.

Why It Is a Service

Spark issues credentials per application and per MLS. What those credentials can see depends on your board's rules and your role — a broker's own listings, an office's, or the whole board's IDX set. The integration must be scoped to what you are actually entitled to show, and mapped onto your specific field set. That scoping and mapping is done per client, which is why this is delivered as a service rather than a self-serve tool.

How It Works Once Live

• Runs on a schedule. The site's own scheduled job fetches new and changed listings automatically — nobody has to trigger it manually.
• Feed fields are mapped onto yours. Every feed names things differently. Setup pulls a sample of real records from your feed and maps its fields onto your property fields, including fields contributed by your add-ons, so imported listings look like those you enter by hand.
• Nothing runs until a sample has returned. Until the credentials have actually returned data, a real import cannot be started. A misconfigured feed will import nothing rather than something wrong — that is deliberate.
• Updates and removals follow the feed. A price change at the source becomes a price change on your site; a withdrawn listing stops being published.
• Photos come across with listings and go through your site's own image pipeline, so they are resized — and watermarked, if you use that add-on — exactly like any other property photo.

What the Board Controls

What you may display is set by your board, not by the API. IDX rules differ between MLSs, and the integration is configured to match yours. Spark API enforces whatever your board has authorised — the integration does not change or override those rules.

What We Need From You

• Your own agreement with the data provider. Credentials are issued to you under your licence with the board or platform. We cannot supply them, and a feed cannot be shared between sites.
• A decision about scope. Which offices, property types, and statuses to include — feeds are usually larger than what a site should show.
• Your field priorities. Which feed fields matter most to you, and what should happen where the feed provides no value.

How to Order

Contact us with the platform you are on and the feed you have access to, and we will scope the work. If you do not have access yet, we can advise on what to ask your board or provider for.

Imported Listings Are Ordinary Properties

Once listings are in your site, they behave like any property you entered by hand. They use your design, your search, your add-ons, and your URLs — the fact that they came from a feed is invisible to visitors.