Top API Integration For Real Estate
Tech innovations have changed a lot of industries, including real estate. These days, there are a lot of tech-savvy solutions on the market. To create a competitive product in a short time, you need to integrate various APIs and other tools.
In this guide, we’ve collected the top real estate APIs that help speed up the development process and meet deadlines.
Dealing With Data
The real estate apps process a lot of information. Creating a solution, you need to consider the data sources. Any real estate website has various information from floor to district.
For example, a US-based company called Zillow receives data from different sources:
- Listings made by users;
- Listings made by agents.
Also, the top real estate companies can get data from brokers, partners, and third-parties.
There is one more information source — MLS or Multiple Listing Service. It’s utilized by a group of real estate agents to see the listings of available properties. This tool can be integrated into your real estate app or website. However, it’s quite tricky to get access to MLS.
Fortunately, there are various APIs that can assist in solving this issue. However, before discussing these APIs, let’s discuss how to integrate MLS databases into your service.
To integrate an exchange of data between your product and MLS, you should set up the Internet Data Exchange.
There are several ways:
- It’s possible to use the FTP protocol. However, choosing this variant, you need to transfer complete datasets.
- The next way is to use the Real Estate Transaction Standard. The primary purpose of this framework is to facilitate the exchange of MLS data.
The main point here, you should consider a powerful server-side if you want to build a real estate website. Such a solution allows managing the information and guarantees stable work.
Top Real Estate APIs for Software Development
We’ve prepared the list of real estate tools that can solve many tech issues:
- Rets.ly
- SimplyRETS
- RentCast API
- Rets Rabbit
- Zillow
- Data.gov
- Zillow Neighborhood Boundaries
- Walk Score
- Google Maps API
- Yelp Fusion
- Zillow Mortgages API
- DataNerds Property API
Let’s discuss them more precisely. We’ve divided APIs into various categories, so it’s easy to navigate through them.
Real Property Information and Listings
These APIs can help you receive detailed information about available properties. A lot of top real estate companies (Zillow, The Corcoran Group) have integrated these APIs into their solutions.
1. Rets.ly (Bridge API)
Cost: $50 per month
Rets.ly allows the developers to access a bunch of various MLS listing and public records about the available property.
2. SimplyRETS
Cost: $49-199 per month
This API assists in creating applications and websites. SimplyRETS allows using listing and market data from MLS. This tool can be used with various programming languages like Python, PHP, and Node.js.
3. RentCast API
Cost: $0 – $449 per month
The RentCast property data API provides nationwide access to 140+ million property records, owner details, home value and rent estimates, comparable properties, active sale and rental listings, as well as aggregate real estate market data.
It has nationwide coverage for nearly all residential and commercial properties in the US, as well as rental market data coverage for nearly all US zip codes and cities.
4. Rets Rabbit
Cost: $150-699 per month
Rets Rabbit helps import images and listings from ListHub or REST. All collected data is stored on the database. As a result, you can connect your website or real estate app to the REST API and implement all the required data.
5. Zillow
Cost: free
Zillow is one of the top real estate companies that offer a lot of various APIs for developers to use. There are the most popular solutions by Zillow:
- GetDeepSearchResults API allows implementing a flexible search by address.
- GetDeepComps API provides a list of the latest sales.
- GetUpdatedProperlyDetails API returns the edits made by the agents.
6. Data.gov
Cost: free
Data.gov is a portal with different useful tools for developing real estate apps. There are more than 7,000 real-estate-related data, e.g. demographics, crimes, and others.
Neighborhood and Related Data
In this part, you can find APIs that allow you to deliver neighborhood and related information to your real estate app or website.
7. Zillow Neighborhood Boundaries
Cost: free
Zillow Neighborhood Boundaries is a database with over 17,000 neighborhood boundaries of the biggest American cities. Any software engineer can use it during development.
8. Walk Score
Cost: from free to $100+ per month
Walk Score allows implementing such features as local transport details, neighborhoods, and others. This API can be integrated with both real estate apps and websites.
9. Google Maps API
Cost: $200 free monthly credit
It’s a quite useful API from Google that has already been integrated into various apps and websites. Google Maps API provides localization for approximately 50 languages along with geocoding.
10. Yelp Fusion
Cost: free
Yelp Fusion allows software developers using various data from approximately 32 countries. As a result, you can offer customers more detailed data about a certain region.
Mortgage Rates and Property Valuation
One of the most significant parts of the real estate industry is property valuation. Below you can find two APIs that help implement mortgage calculators and other features.
11. Zillow Mortgages APIs
Cost: free
Zillow enterprise also provides APIs for these purposes. There are four various APIs to deal with property valuations and mortgages:
- GetSearchResults API
- GetZestimate API
- GetChart API
- GetComps API
12. DataNerds Property API
Cost: not specified
DataNerds Property is a platform that offers software engineers information of various types. For example, the service offers data like ownership history, sales history, and tax history.
Additionally, DataNerds Property provides such information as demographics and crimes.
As you can see, there are a lot of real estate APIs that can speed up the development process. To stay competitive on the market, you need to create real estate apps or websites using these APIs.
Author Bio:
Vitaly Kuprenko is a technical writer at Cleveroad. It’s a web and mobile app development company in Ukraine. He enjoys telling about tech innovations and digital ways to boost businesses.