FIABCI, the International Real Estate Federation, will send a delegation led by Secretary-General Narek Arakelyan to the 4th International MLS Forum on November 16-17, 2026, at Raffles Istanbul in Istanbul, Türkiye, where its work with the Global Data Exchange (GDX) will take center stage. World President Lily Chang will speak at the Forum and take part in a signing ceremony bringing several FIABCI association chapters together with GDX. The federation's message, according to Arakelyan, is that its commitment goes beyond visibility: “It’s not just having a logo, having visibility or some virtual endorsements, but really to show how FIABCI is committed to this platform.”
Why this matters to the wider property industry is scale and scope. Since 1951, FIABCI has brought together more than 40 professions across real estate and the built environment, with a presence in more than 80 countries. “They’re part of the same economic value chain,” Arakelyan said of its members, listing architects, developers, investors, brokers, realtors, lawyers, valuers and operators. FIABCI and GDX signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the FIABCI World Congress in Vienna, and the Istanbul ceremony converts that dialogue into a concrete alliance.
Many FIABCI associations already run their own MLSs and portals, and Arakelyan framed the federation's role as convening rather than dictating technology or business models. “Our role is not to provide one technology or one business model, but to help create conditions for better connectivity, greater transparency and more efficient cross-border cooperation,” he said. The MOU aims at a final partnership scope allowing FIABCI “not only to endorse the GDX initiative but also fully support its implementation.”
Three workstreams are planned: encouraging FIABCI associations to join the GDX network; helping associations and practitioners without their own MLS consolidate data on one platform connected to GDX; and a global platform where developers can market projects, including off-plan properties, also expected to connect to GDX. “It creates business for many professions, it creates business for existing associations, it creates business for our principal members and developers,” Arakelyan said. The initiative now sits within FIABCI's strategic plan, Vision 2035, though Arakelyan said implementation is immediate: “The most important thing for us within the next three years is to implement the three platforms technically and to create a positive dynamic, a snowball effect, inside our community.”
GDX is built on RESO data standards, which Arakelyan sees as a common language for real estate data. “If professionals are expected to cooperate internationally, the systems they use need to be able to communicate with each other,” he said, adding that standards must support different markets “without ignoring local legal, regulatory and commercial specificities.” On data control, he stressed that each partner decides with whom it shares data: “FIABCI has no role in imposing anything on anyone.” The Forum, organized by RESO, ADRES and RealtyFeed, brings together MLS executives, brokers and technology providers from a few dozen countries; tickets are available at mlsforum.org. The gathering will also launch a FIABCI task force created by its board to understand what practitioners expect from the federation. Chang said FIABCI is “proud to support the Forum as an Industry Partner for the third consecutive year.” For Arakelyan, attendance is a stake in the outcome: “This is the place to be, because this is where their peers are going to decide what is best for the next couple of years.”
