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How A Property API Helps Agents Establish Trust With Out-of-Town And Foreign Buyers

property API

A Property API is an important tool every agent needs if they truly want to attract the out-of-town buyer by building pages aimed directly at meeting their specific needs.

And out-of-town-buyers could be a hot commodity in your market.

After all, American real estate is still recognized as one of the BEST investments in the world.

Let’s take Florida as an example.

More than 20%, that’s 1 in 5, real estate buyers from 2009 to 2017 in Florida were foreign. Not just from another state, but another country.

Last year, from August 2017 to July 2018, foreigners purchased $8.7 billion worth of property. That’s about double what they spent in 2010.

We also know that foreign buyers are acquiring properties in places like New York, New Jersey. Texas and California.

That certainly should give you a warm and fuzzy feeling about the value of real estate in America. You probably won’t find too many other counties with that level volume of interest in real estate.

That’s just buyers from other countries.

Homebuyers are on the move

What about other states?

Well, as you know, things change. Demographic groups, such as Baby Boomers, get older or change preferences.

In addition, governments make changes. Changes that have huge impacts. Take taxes for example. A flood of residents in places such as New York, California, New Jersey and Illinois are leaving their states to seek places with lower taxes, such as Florida, where the state income tax is $0.

From July 2017 to July 2018, Florida had the biggest gain in population while you guessed it, New York had the largest loss.

Bottom line. There are quite a few people from outside your town who may be looking to buy homes in your town and as an agent, you certainly want to generate leads from this group.

Here are some ideas.

For one, create a page specifically for out-of-town buyers and one for foreign buyers.

One of the MOST IMPORTANT needs of these groups is information. Local residents know about whether the local real estate market is hot for example, or they might know about the schools, transportation hubs, demographics or even the cost to live there.

But for out-of-town buyers and especially out-of-country buyers, just assume they know very little about the town.

So create pages which offer basic information about the neighborhoods your are farming.

The history. Population. Economy. Climate. Transportation. Amenities. Landmarks. Points of Interest, etc.

Provide big, beautiful photos of the downtown, malls, parks, lakes, schools, museums, etc. (If you have a WordPress Real Estate Theme website, this would be very easy to do).

Get them excited about moving to your market.

Property API provides the facts out-of-town buyers crave

Then address their concerns about investing in a property.

That’s where a Property API (Application Programming Interface) can be super valuable.

After all, these people need more than flowery descriptions and nice images of the local botanical gardens.

They want hard facts.

With a Property API, an agent can add a few snippets of code to any page and that API will pull in hyper-local data from national resources such as Home Junction.

The real estate data API can show for example:

Trends in Home Sales – what is the pace of home sales? Are they selling rapidly? Is it time to jump in? Or perhaps, are certain markets becoming too hot.

Trends in Prices – again, where are prices heading? Are they moving upward and if people want to move, they should act now? Or is there a lull in price escalation, another signal that now might be a time to buy while prices are flat.

Boundaries – where is the property located? Within city limits where taxes are higher?

School Boundaries – this is super-important, not just to families, but anybody who owns a home. Where are the attendance zones? These zones do change. They are different for elementary, middle and high schools. What about private schools as well?

Neighborhood Demographics – who lives in these neighborhoods? Perhaps a couple that is retiring wants to live in an area where the residents skew older in age. Very important data.

Cost-of-Living Indices – some places are not only expensive when it comes to real estate, but also for other items such as food, clothing or transportation. Display that information on your website.

Crime Ratings – always a concern for buyers.

And more.

Now, here’s where an agent can really show their worth.

Not only can an agent display real estate data by zip code, but with data aggregators such as Home Junction, they can use a Property API to show data for specific neighborhoods or subdivisions.

So maybe home prices are relatively high in ABC Oaks, but the latest charts reveal that prices are lower in XYZ Acres, which is located right next door.

Place all of these charts on an out-of-town page. Or put links for specific neighborhoods on those pages so out-of-town buyers can review them.

Use data API to generate leads and offer regular market updates

Secondly, create a big, highly visible lead form on that page offering to continually send those prospects updates on the market.

That will keep you at the top of their minds when considering property in that area.

And here’s one, somewhat subliminal benefit, of using a Property API to display all of this data.

Because chances are these out-of-town buyers and especially out-of-country buyers, don’t know you personally. In fact, they probably don’t know any local real estate agents.

By providing these hard facts, not fluff, you are also creating a sense of TRUST with them. Imagine how important that is for someone hundreds of miles or even thousands of miles away.

These non-local buyers don’t know people in the community. They probably don’t have anybody to refer agents to them. For the most part, many of them might be flying blind.

In addition, many out-of-town transactions tend to be made quickly, especially if someone is relocating because of a change in employment.

Or perhaps, the prospect is a seller. One of their parents lived in the home and passed away. They need to sell the home, and probably as soon as possible.

TRUST will be a very, very big factor with all of them. Offering valuable data helps to build relationships.

Now, some of this information can be found by searching general information websites. But the agent who has a Property Data API embedded directly on their own website, will MAKE THE BIGGEST IMPRESSION in the eyes of prospects. That agent can become that point of reference for distant clients.

People trust facts. They trust data. And they will trust the agent who has an accurate and current Property API that provides them with that hyper-local real estate market data.

 

 

 

Real Estate Data API On Broker’s Site Creates Ultra-Valuable Resource For Investors In Rental Properties

real estate data API

Real estate data API information on website.

A real estate data API can be a tremendous tool for brokers and agents who want to attract property investors.

In fact, it could literally be the perfect tool.

That’s mainly because of this one factor – analysis.

As brokers and agents know, when a couple looks to buy a home, emotion plays big part in the decision.

But when property investors look at a home, it’s all about the numbers.

  • Property details
  • Pricing
  • Expenses
  • Taxes
  • Maintenance and repair costs
  • Utilities
  • Insurance
  • Cash Flow/Rental income
  • Tenant Occupancy Rates
  • Return on investment
  • Etc.

Those are a few of the equations investors need to calculate during due diligence to see if it is worthwhile for them to commit to a property.

There’s another critical part of the equation – analyzing local real estate market data.

Brokers and agents who embed a real estate data API from data aggregators such as Home Junction will have an enormous advantage in attracting this category of buyer.

And as you know, some of these investors could be the type that will constantly buy or sell properties over a long period of time.

Real estate API is the doorway to a massive database

Savvy  investors need to dig deep into every detail about a property that they can. Adding multiple properties to a portfolio can be very risky.

They know the importance of combing through public records and gathering every piece of data that they can.

But if a broker has a real estate data API on their website (or a property API as they commonly referred to), they will already have layers upon layers of public real estate data available to display and analyze.

Data aggregators such as Home Junction can supply:

  • Property Details
  • Parcel Details
  • Recent Home Sales Data
  • Trends in Property Prices
  • Tax Assessments
  • Tax Valuations
  • Sales History
  • And much more.

Take boundaries. Boundaries are extremely important for tax assessmentsand for schools. Being located inside a municipal boundary can add an extra layer of taxes, which will affect the return on investment formulas for any property.

There’s more.

As we said, investors look hard at the overall picture of a piece of real estate and other factors that influence the value.

That includes:

  • School Data
  • School District Boundaries – as we said, boundaries have consequences. A highly-rated school definitely has an effect on home values and also occupancy rates.
  • School Attendance Zones – these are also hyper-critical. A property might be located in a great school district, but not located which the zone for a particularly high-rated school.
  • Neighborhood Demographics
  • Crime Statistics
  • Cost of Living Indices

With these feeds from a real estate data API, a broker can go even deeper and feature neighborhood data on their website.

Include a geo-spatial component where you can show the distance of a property compared to popular neighborhood amenities

We know for example, that being located near a park can be a major influence on the price of a house.

(And all of these factors, such as schools, parks and local businesses, can make a property more attractive for renters to keep those occupancy rates high).

Another big chore that investors are engaged in is the process of comparing different properties,

Again, this is where a real estate data API can be a real treasure. Investors can make true apples to apples comparisons with accurate property data that covers several neighborhoods, even different cities or counties.

Use a Property API to show market trends

Trends are also super-valuable.

A smart investor knows not to get excited by national trends in home values that they might read in the press.

As far as they are concerned all business is local – hyper-local.

While property prices might be skyrocketing in That Town Over There, property values might not be doing the same in This Town Here.

Investors will want to review real estate and home sales data by zip code. To be an even better resource, a broker should offer a real estate data API that provides property sales down to the neighborhood and subdivision levels.

There are also real estate market trend tools that can show how a home compares to other homes in the area for certain factors.

Those factors could be:

  • Square footage
  • Prices
  • Price per square foot

Perhaps Mrs. Ivana Invest finds a nice potential rental property that is in the lower 20% for prices per square foot. That’s a very significant piece of information to know. (And, a major shortcut for them because they don’t have to dig up all that data to figure the ratios themselves).

This is the era of big data. A broker or agent can literally add dozens upon dozens of different property layers to their website.

They don’t have to store all that data on their website. They don’t have to go out and update it. They don’t have to worry about pulling that data to display on their website.

A real estate data API does all that work for them.

All a broker or agent has to do is add a few pieces of code to their website. It’s that simple.

And by the way, all of this data makes the broker and their agents the true local resource with local knowledge when dealing with individual home buyers.

Why let prospects go to the mega-real estate portals for this data when a local broker can supply the same thing? (And keep all of those leads).

Want to be an super valuable resource for property investors? Get a real estate data API working for you right away to attract those buyers.

If you want to see a real estate data API on an actual real estate website visit www.roywheeler.com