Real Estate Data

What Is Real Estate Data?

Real estate data consists of property, lender, lessee, and even climatic data. Whatever impacts property value or building quality makes up the larger category of data.

Where Does Real Estate Data Come From?

This data comes from many sources. First are official property records like square footage, municipal zones, and permits for updates and additions.

Other sources include neighborhood demographics, school ratings, local climate and weather, and geospatial data. Naturally, geospatial data is especially important to this category. Property location and relation to neighboring points of interest directly drives foot traffic data and buyer interest.

Finally, there are online sources like review websites, forums, and blog posts.

What Types of Columns/Attributes Should I Expect When Working with This Data?

While they often provide maps, data analysts typically create datasets in spreadsheet form that can be easily converted to graphs.

Attributes of the data vary by the real estate aspect you are researching but they invariably include location, usually down to the precise address of a property or cardinal location of windows.

Data analysts also commonly include time periods. These may be years, quarters, or some other period in relation to an event. For example, you may have columns listed as “median household sale price pre-economic recession of 2008.”

What Is This Data Used For?

A range of people—individuals and corporations—use this data for a number of reasons. Individuals use it to find properties to buy or rent while real estate agencies use it to advertise to buyers and renters.

Real estate agencies and developers use it to determine if they should upgrade properties to keep up with neighborhood trends.

Investors and insurers use this data to appraise properties and predict trends. Lenders use the data to predict whether a loan applicant can reasonably pay back a loan or mortgage.

Finally, government planners use this data to assess local market health and determine whether to make changes to city infrastructure or to add features like parks or schools to a neighborhood.

How Should I Test the Quality of Real Estate Data?

There is an array of possible sources of real estate data that you can enrich your dataset with, so it can be difficult to know what or how much to include. However, if you always keep your goal in mind, you can begin crafting a complete and insightful dataset.

Beyond this, test real estate data in the same way as any other: make sure the sources are accurate and complete and that the dataset you compile with them is frequently updated and kept clean.

Interesting Case Studies and Blogs to Look Into

McKinsey: The potential in real estate analytics
ATTOM Data: Use of ATTOM’s Boundaries Data in Government Analytics and Planning

Tangible Examples of Impact

Shrinking budgets in the face of decreased demand for retail space, a national shift to online work models and tenants’ potential inability to pay rent are all weighing heavily on CRE (commercial real estate) professionals, spurring them to look for platforms with the highest value. Brokers must be strategic with their budgets and invest in technologies that account for this new set of needs. Exploring new CRE platforms, comparing their merits and tools, and evaluating what works best for their business is more important than ever.

Forbes: The Changing Landscape of Commercial Real Estate Data and Marketing