HOUSINGNEWS REPORT
SPLITTING THE ATTOM
even true among companies operating in the same space. For example, one insurance company might be more focused on flood risk while another is more focused on earthquake risk, depending on their geographic footprint. Just a few years ago we might have been able to get away with the standard response to such clients: “To get all the data elements you want you’ll need to license the data in bulk.” And 10 years ago there would have been good reasons for that response. The technology to deliver highly customizable property data via API in large volumes was simply not available. increasingly avoid. The technology is now available to deliver highly customizable property data via API in large volumes (more on that in a minute). Furthermore it’s not in the customer’s best interest, nor is it in our best interest as a data provider to always default to delivering data in bulk files. There will always be some clients who want the data in bulk. Those clients want the full dataset, and they want to retain the ability to fully control, analyze and manage that dataset — something the just-in-time transactional nature of APIs does not accommodate well. But many clients do want the data on a just-in-time transactional basis — even if that means millions of transactions in an hour. Additionally, many of those clients Setting the API Bar Higher But that’s a response we want to
There are more than 1,000 potential data elements available for each of the 150 million residential and commercial U.S. properties housed in the ATTOM Data Warehouse.”
While somewhat absurd on many levels, this musical metaphor illustrates the archaic delivery methods still used for public record property data despite quickly evolving technology and client expectations. The Brostep of Property Data There are more than 1,000 potential data elements available for each of the 150 million residential and commercial U.S. properties housed in the ATTOM Data Warehouse. The common ones include elements such as property value, sale price, square footage, beds, baths and owner name. There are existing APIs already built to deliver these commonly used data elements as building blocks for applications.
Not so mainstream — even in the world of public record property data — include traditional public record data elements such as deed type, distressed description and partial interest type, along with non-traditional elements that have been correlated to traditional property data via what we call “ATTOMization.” These correlated elements include flood zone/ risk, wildfire risk and environmental hazard risk. Our increasingly diverse customers and prospects are telling us that they want to integrate many of these lesser-known data elements into their software and applications. Of course, not surprisingly, each client or prospect needs a slightly different combination of data elements. That’s
JUNE 2017
ATTOM DATA SOLUTIONS • P19
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