HOUSINGNEWS REPORT
A PROPERTY DATA REFORMATION
compare the data across different U.S. geographies.
“Just like the Protestant Reformation needed both theological and technological innovation, a true property data reformation requires more than just philosophical innovation; it also requires innovation in the platforms used to deliver the data.” for many businesses consuming property data, it is not a good fit for a substantial set of use cases. Primarily these use cases revolve around using the data to create targeted lists of homeowners for marketing products and services that those homeowners are likely to need in the near future. Enterprise customers who have the financial and database management wherewithal to ingest the massive nationwide or even regional bulk tax, deed and mortgage files can then leverage that asset to create targeted marketing lists (in addition to other applications they create to leverage the data). But that misses a large swath of small businesses and entrepreneurial customers who may not have the capacity to ingest the full bulk file.
it also requires innovation in the platforms used to deliver the data.
ATTOM Data has been managing the reality of messy public record property data since RealtyTrac first began posting foreclosure notices over 20 years ago. The challenges ratcheted to a whole new level about five years ago when we began collecting and licensing the broader tax, deed and mortgage file. Since then we’ve been working hard to harmonize the discordant data from the multitude of sources in a process we call “fusion”. This fused data represents the cleanest and most digestible public record property data available in the marketplace. Data Delivery Innovation Just like the Protestant Reformation needed both theological and technological innovation, a true property data reformation requires more than just philosophical innovation;
For the last three decades, it would have been more accurate to use the word platform rather than platforms – at least when it comes to bulk consumption of the data. Any enterprise customer (i.e. a Zillow or Trulia, Redfin or RealtyTrac) wanting to provide the data to individual consumers was forced to ingest the data via a massive, flat database file delivered via FTP. In more recent years, some API delivery of the public record property data has become available, and ATTOM is leading the charge in that respect (see “Streaming Your Own Property Data List” in the June issue of the Housing News Report).
While the API delivery platform is a welcome and long-overdue innovation
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DECEMBER 2017 | ATTOM DATA SOLUTIONS
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