HOUSING NEWS REPORT
ATTOM DATA
companies like ATTOM, a relative new- comer to the space that is willing to think outside of the box when it comes to how it collects, curates and delivers the data. For example, instead of depending on just one source for the tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure and neighborhood data, we multi-source that data from various national and regional vendors — including our own extensive network of local data abstractors. This multi-sourced approach presents a bit of a challenge for us on the data management side but ulti- mately is good for our customers because it allows us to deliver the most accurate and complete data picture of a property and its neighborhood. We also assign a unique, persistent ID for each of the 155 million U.S. prop- erties in our database, allowing us to efficiently link all transactional records (sales, mortgages, foreclosures) asso- ciated with a property across multiple
sources. This ATTOM ID also helps our data licensing clients more easily manage the data — keep in mind some clients receive daily updates to the data as new transactions and assessor records are added — and blend it with other datasets. DEMOCRATIZING BIG DATA Along with increased competition in the property data industry, advances in technology such exponential leaps in database storage capacity and democ- ratized big data and analytic tools are also facilitating broader access to public record real estate data. One example is in the realm of prop- erty data APIs (Application Program- ming Interfaces), which are evolving from static and limited in terms of vol- ume of calls to highly customizable and virtually unlimited when it comes to
the volume and speed of calls. ATTOM is proud to be on the forefront of this evolution, with an end goal of allowing our clients to stream their own custom property data playlist with our APIs. RESPONSIBLE DATA GOVERNANCE Greater access to public record property data is all very exciting for the industry and our clients, but with that greater access comes greater responsi- bility — particularly for those of us in the industry collecting, curating and licensing the data. As the data becomes more widely available to virtually anyone with an Internet connection, it’s more important than ever that the data is easily under- standable, accurate and current. Here are some examples of how we’re imple- menting data governance best practices
With Greater DataAccess Comes Greater Responsibility "SPLITTING THE ATTOM" ARTICLE FROM ATTOM DATA SOLUTIONS.
by Nelda Green
here has never been greater access to public record property data. More widely accessible public record property data advances two worthy objectives — increased transparency in the real estate market and a strength- ened legal property system, which famed economist Hernando de Soto argued in The Mystery of Capital is the T
I come face-to-face with this reality on a regular basis.
key to capitalism succeeding in Western countries and failing elsewhere. The increasing access to public record property data is clear to me in the con- text of my 25 years operating in various roles and various companies involved in the world of real estate information. In my current role as director of data governance at ATTOM Data Solutions,
COMPETITION-BRED INNOVATION
The first trend driving wider access to public record real estate data is increased competition in the marketplace from
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