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Public Real Estate Data A Neccesity To Overcome Seller Concerns About Negative Perceptions

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public real estate dataPublic real estate data can be a major selling point when it comes to talking to listing prospects about perceptions on “good” and “bad” neighborhoods.

Here’s an amusing story that illustrates the point.

One writer talked about how the city he lived in appeared on one of those lists as “Worst Places to Live in the US.” The reseseach said unemployment was high. There were quite a few crimes. Lots of abandoned stores and office buildings.

But then, one day, the writer came across another list of “Best Places to Live in the US.” Guess what? His city appeared at the top of the list. That’s because the methodology used in the study was based on highest median income per household and fastest increase in property values.

Funny story right?

But when an agent approaches a potential seller who lives in an area that might not have the greatest reputation, it’s not very funny.

That home seller is concerned. Worried about losing value on their home. Perhaps they need to relocate quickly because of a new job and might be dreading the idea of their home languishing on the market for months.

This is where public real estate data, on your website, can be a major, selling point and a major way to alleviate that seller’s fears.

With today “big data” capabilities, aggregators of public real estate data such as Home Junction, gather an incredible amount of hyper-local statistics.

Recent property sales, market trends, school data, cost of living indices, crime statistics, and much more.

In fact, Home Junction has more than 1,000 data points that they aggregate.

Public real estate data can change perceptions

Here’s the big advantage for real estate agents.

Using Home Junction’s proprietary “Slipstream” real estate data API (Application Programming Interface), an agent can add a widget on their website to tap into this giant warehouse of data.

Now comes the best part. That agent display that data down to the micro-level – not just the county or city level, but right down to the neighborhood or subdivision level.

When it comes to providing public real estate data, you can’t get any more hyper-local than that.

Here’s a potential strategy.

An agent can approach a homeowner and show them the public real estate data resources they provide on their website.

They can tell the homeowner: “You know Mr. and Mrs. Seller, according to my real estate market data, I can paint a very appealing picture to potential buyers for your property. (Oh, and by the way, I’m the only agent in this area with this wealth of public real estate data).”

For example, according to the data on my site:

  • School data – you live in a very appealing school district. From the school data on my website, I can show how there are top-ranked schools in your neighborhood. That information can include student/teacher ratios, number of students, student demographics and much more.

With my geospatial data, I can also point out the latest school attendance zones to illustrate how this property falls within the boundaries for these particular schools, including top-notch private schools and charter schools.

  • Rising Property Sales – here’s another key point. Sure, there might be some parts of the county that are depressed and not doing so well. But, in researching the public real estate data on my website, I will feature charts next to your listing showing how the number of home sales in your neighborhood is actually increasing.

I can point out to any potential buyers that not only is your home in a desirable neighborhood, but they better act fast if they want to grab a home here.

  • Home Value Estimator Tool – here’s more data the Seller will appreciate. An agent can add a Home Value Estimator Tool (AVM) on their website that will give a reliable estimate of what a particular property is worth. Included with that data, is a chart that compares a property to the market in general. The comparison will be based on Size of the Property, Price, Price per Square Foot and Age.

So, for example, the results might show that this particular home is in the upper percentile for square footage and age of the home, indicating this is a fairly new house and very large house compared to others in the area. That’s certainly a big plus as well.

  • Real estate maps – Mr. and Mrs. Seller not only will I provide a great array of positive data about your property, I can illustrate some of the key neighborhood amenities on a map in relation to the location of your home.

Take that Whole Foods store by the way. According to the map alongside your listing, it’s only 1.5 miles away. So is that great magnet school for the arts. There’s also a famous sushi restaurant over here and a very popular pilates studio right down the street.

And, let’s not forget that huge public park that is just 2 miles away.

How about access to roadways? According to the maps provided, this property is just two blocks away from the interstate. That’s huge when it comes to making a home appealing to commuters.

Paint a picture with real estate market data

Like an artist, with Home Junction’s public real estate data and geospatial technology, an agent can pull up a number of different data points to paint a very pretty picture of a home for sale.

That picture will be a huge relief to a homeowner.

It will also be a convincing argument to choose that agent – the agent who walks the talk and backs up their marketing with solid, reliable information that answers every concern a buyer might have.

After all, geography matters. So does reality.

We can see from the story above how perceptions can be twisted the wrong way.

Don’t let a misleading rap for an entire area cause problems for a specific property.

Provide this resource of accurate public real estate data to show owners how that information will help overcome any negative perceptions about their home and their neighborhood.

How To Use Neighborhood Data, Uber and Open Table To Show Off Local Amenities

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neighborhood data and amenities

Use amenities in the community and neighborhood data to add impact to your presentations.

Neighborhood data and the attractiveness of a community can sometimes be the main catalysts to a deal on a home.

Are you familiar with the latest strategies to best promote community amenities?

Because some real estate agents are getting very creative when it comes to selling a neighborhood.

Here’s one idea that’s floating around.

When prospects come to an area, how about booking an Uber or Lyft ride for them to show them around? You can do that remotely with you ride app.

Oftentimes, many homebuyers never get a chance to really visit an area where they might be moving. There are time constraints, deadlines, etc.

Then there’s the other issue of unfamiliarity. People moving into a neighborhood might not know the best places to go. Or they might miss that one crucial area, say a park or other amenity, that could really be the impetus to make a move.

If the agent can’t give them a tour themselves, then book them a ride on Uber or Lyft. These car services can pick people up wherever you want and take them wherever you want them to go.

Have an Uber drop them off in a cute downtown area. Give them time to explore the trendy restaurants, coffee shops and retail stores. Soak in the location.

Then arrange for them to be picked up again.

Or, if the regional mall is the place to be, send them there.

Perhaps the local golf course has an incredible clubhouse with long views overlooking the 18th hole. Don’t want to miss that if the prospect is a golfer.

Lots of towns now provide very exciting water parks. They are massive. Some are indoors for use during the winter. Many are practically mini-Disneylands.

Why not arrange for an Uber to transport a family there?

The smiling faces on the children might just be the touchpoint that gets this couple to say “We want to make an offer.”

To really impress the prospects, you could spend a few extra dollars and order UberLUX – where the car that pulls up to pick up your customers is a Mercedes or something similar. Talk about pulling on the emotional levers.

Book a reservation for prospects at a top restaurant

There are other tech tools agents are using to sell a neighborhood.

For example, say a husband looking to relocate is coming back to town with his wife to view a property.

Using web apps like Open Table, you can book them a reservation at a top restaurant in town.

Frankly, many people might not want to have dinner with an agent, or any salesperson for that matter. Don’t take offense.

If you pick the right restaurant in the right area, you don’t need to be there. All the amenities will make your case for you.

Imagine that couple enjoying a succulent meal with a few glasses of fine wine. Then going for a stroll outside in the downtown area where the trees are lit with beautiful lights, the sounds of soothing music pours from a few clubs and beautiful old buildings portray a town with an interesting history.

That couple might just knock on your door later that night and ask, “Where do we sign?”

Neighborhood data is the other critical high-tech app

There’s another new technology out there that every real estate broker and agent should be using to facilitate how neighborhoods can be a key selling feature.

That tool for real estate agents is neighborhood data.

In the past few years, there have been incredible advances made in “big data” technology. Data aggregators such as Home Junction have the ability to gather and store an incredible amount of real estate market data of all types.

Tapping into various sources – county records, business listings, school databases, etc., Home Junction basically does all the legwork Their techies gather a massive amount of information that is important to home buyers – including neighborhood data.

The big advancement in technology is that a local broker or agent doesn’t have to have a gigantic IBM server in the back of their office to store all this stuff.

All they need to do is embed a few lines of code from a real estate data API into their website.

After that, they have access to a gigantic warehouse of data.

Slice and dice that data for each area you are farming, either by zip code, city or even down to the subdivision level.

Post that data on your website where you want it.

That neighborhood data could be:
• Market trend data
• Recent property sales
• School databases – this is obviously critical – school rankings, enrollment numbers, student/teacher ratios, contact information, etc.
• School attendance boundaries – again, very important to families
• Business listings in proximity to a property
• Boundaries – county and municipal, which means taxes and other governmental impacts, such as zoning restrictions etc.
• Demographics
• Crime statistics
• Cost of Living data

Now picture this ideal scenario.

An Uber driver pulls up to the curb. He’s driving a shiny new Cadillac Escalade.

Your prospects get in the SUV and he whisks them off to a popular, Zagat-rated Italian restaurant nearby. One where there’s a month-long waiting list to get in.

A dinner reservation is already arranged for the lucky husband and wife.

They enjoy a fantastic meal.

While they dine, they look over the MLS information you provided to them about the property they are considering.

In that packet, are several printouts of neighborhood data extolling the benefits of the community.

That data can also be tailored to match the particular needs of that couple.

If they have children, then check out all this information gathered from your school data API about the local schools.

Not just public school data.

But information about private schools, religious schools. All schools.

There’s also information about charter schools and magnet schools.

And that’s current data. Not stale or outdated.

Say the couple is older. Well, perhaps your Demographic data shows that the property they are considering is in an area where many of the people are over 35. Perhaps a large number of college graduates, just like them.

They’ll like that picture.

Here’s the icing on the cake. The data desert if you will.

Home Junction also offers geospatial integration of this neighborhood data. For example, you can show all the businesses that are located within a certain distance of a property in question.

Perhaps the wife loves yoga. Well, here’s a very popular yoga studio located just one mile away from the property.

A broker or agent can also integrate all of this key data onto a map. So they can pull the property from the MLS listing and then show the schools, businesses, boundaries in question, and illustrate this data on a map.

Print out those maps and put them in the brochure.

Very strong visual impact.

After digesting that fine dining and all that key information, the couple feels great.

The town looks great. The food at this restaurant tastes great. The neighborhood data is great.

As an agent, you are basically letting the neighborhood sell itself.

Be the agent using these new high tech resources, such as Uber and Open Table, combined with a massive amount of neighborhood data from Home Junction, to make an impressive, 21st Century presentation about community amenities.

Why Add A Real Estate Data API To Your Technology Budget

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real estate data api

When brokers and agents figure their budgets for technology, are they dedicating anything to one of the most important tools they can use – a real estate data API.

“A what?” some agents might ask.

Let’s face it. This is the technological age. Yet, according to a survey conducted by the National Association of Realtors in 2012 on what people spend on technology, the investment seems relatively minor.

The survey found on average, agents spent $848 in the last 12 months on technology. Sounds somewhat impressive. But that doesn’t even cover the cost of the new iPhone.

Brokers spent $1,410. Not much more. That’s maybe two laptops.

Again, this is the tech age. A time of incredible advances in how agents can reach out to consumers – smartphones, tablets, websites, email, social media.

Used to be an agent made a point every few years to spend money on a nice car to drive prospects around.

Now it’s a smartphone or a tablet.

And, unfortunately, a person needs to keep those devices up-to-date.

Every year, new gizmos and gadgets are introduced with faster web access, better screen resolution, incredible photographic capabilities and a new slew of bells and whistles.

All the features you believe make you a better real estate agent. (And come on. Admit it. Most of the time your current device is operating just fine. But you just have to have that new Google Pixel with the cool portrait mode like they show on TV).

Include real estate data API on tech wish list

These new inventions are wonderful.

But every broker and agent should be asking themselves this question as well: What about the content you are displaying and promoting on these devices?

What are you investing in that?

How are you using the latest technology to upgrade information on your website?

What are you doing, tech-wise, to improve the way you appear as a resource to home buyers and sellers?

Because the other amazing technology that’s related to the real estate business is the aggregation of hyper-local information.

Remember the days when it took five IBM computers to hold one gigabyte of data?

With advances in big data technology, a single agent is now able to tap into a gigantic warehouse of terabytes of hyper-local data about their market area.

And display this incredible wealth of information on their website with a simple real estate data API (Applied Programming Interface).

The great thing is, companies such as Home Junction, do the coding to develop a real estate market API. Not the brokers or agents.

All they have to do is to integrate this coding into their website.

And then the magic begins.

A huge database of relevant info for home buyers

That single agent can offer:

  • School information such as student/teacher ratios and demographics of the student body
  • Recent property sales data – including trend charts
  • Boundary information – showing school attendance zones, city and county borders (which is critical for taxes) etc.
  • Local business information – integrated with geo-spatial data showing the distance of these businesses from certain properties
  • Demographics – age, education, income
  • Crime statistics
  • and more.

That data can be parsed by counties, cities, zip codes and even down to the neighborhood or subdivision level.

So, with your new devices, you can send out a quick note on Twitter from your Samsung Galaxy 9. Or add a post on Facebook while sitting on your couch with your iPad.

But according to the same survey, 9 out of 10 real estate agents are also doing the same thing.

The big question is, what unique and informative item are you posting on social media?

Again, investing in information, like a real estate market API, has a huge payoff.

Think of the power of sending out a post announcing the latest data on property sales in the county. Or in a neighborhood you happen to be farming.

Think of the power of sending out a link with a chart on local home pricing trends.

Same goes with email.

Brokers and agents go through a lot if trouble enticing consumers to sign up for email, knowing some of them will eventually turn into buyers or sellers.

But what are you going to send them via email to catch their attention?

With a real estate market data API, you have a wealth of ideas to draw upon for social media posts and email blasts.

What you don’t want to do, is point out valuable real estate market data that sends a prospect to somebody’s else’s website, even if it is not an agent.

Put that information on your own website with your own real estate data API.

Sure, investing in the latest shiny new device is practical, and frankly, exciting.

But be sure to set aside a budget to upgrade your position as a resource for real estate market data.

Because in that same survey, brokers and agents noted they “Value tools that make them look technologically savvy to their clients.”

Consumers don’t care about how you reach them. They care about what you are providing for them.

When a mother seeks information about the latest schools her children will attend, she doesn’t give a hoot if you provide that data from an iPad or an Android. She just wants the data.

So what’s your investment in big data technology?

Now is the point in time to add a real estate market API to your technology budget.