March 27th, 2009

8 Crucial Factors for Home Buyers

By Scott Petronis, Senior Director of Product Management

I know what drove my last two home buying decisions.  And I’ve asked everyone I’ve met for the past few months about what’s driving their decisions. But I wanted to get a broader perspective. So I went out and ordered the National Association of Realtors® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers 2008.  It was well worth the price.  I have to say, NAR has some great researchers!  I’d highly recommend getting a copy of this if you want to understand who’s buying and what motivates them.

I’d like to share some excerpts from the research and give some examples of how Onboard Informatics’ Lifestyle Listings Engine can be put into action.

I’m going to pause one more time to note that this research was conducted by the National Association of Realtors Research Division.  I’ve tried not to misrepresent the information, misconstrue the results or take credit in any way for their fine work.

Facts and Findings

According to the report, 62% of all home buyers indicated that “quality of the neighborhood” was an important factor in their purchase decision.  There are obviously many factors that influence “quality” including both physical characteristics and overall reputation.  I’d like to dig a bit deeper into people’s heads to turn up how they define “quality.”  I imagine it means a lot of things to a lot of people.  But I am pretty certain that there are lots of variables involved in coming up with the quality judgement.

Sure enough, the NAR research team do drill into many angles and show that criteria vary by age group (young, first-time buyer vs. older, repeat buyer), location type (suburban vs. rural vs. urban), household composition (married couple vs. single female vs. unmarried couple) and other characteristics.  We all know that one “size” does not fit all but this report shows the extent to which that statement is true.

Included here are a swath of factors that influence the purchase decision, in rank order.  I haven’t included all of them in here, just the one that our Lifestyle Listings Engine helps to address (currently).  But trust me when I say that this report goes into MUCH greater detail.

Survey says…

1. “Convenient to job” was ranked as important by just over half of respondents overall, and nearly 2/3 in urban areas. With Lifestyle Listings Engine, a search can be conducted based on an address (i.e., work address) and a distance (i.e., 30 miles). Coming in the next release will be the ability to enter a desired commute time (i.e. 45 minutes or less) or drive distance (i.e., <30 miles).  When gas prices hit $5+ per gallon again, we’ll see just HOW important this one is.  Oh, and sorry to all my friends around the world who already pay nearly double that
2. “Convenient to family and friends” was ranked important by over 1/3 of overall respondents and two in five in small towns.  Similar to above, an address or set of addresses may be entered to determine nearby properties.  I also know from personally talking to many retirees that this one ranks very high on their list.
3. “Convenient to shopping” is important to just over 1/4 of respondents while this inches a bit higher in urban areas. So one of the new capabilities we’ve put into the Lifestyle Listings Engine is the ability to search for listings based on the distance to shopping.  For example, I only want places within 5 miles of a supermarket or pharmacy.
4. “Quality of the school district” is, no surprise, a crucial factor for over 1/4 of buyers and nearly 1/3 for those looking in the suburbs.  This is directly in line with the fact that roughly 38% of all home buyers have 1 or more child under the age of 18 in the household according to NAR.  So we’ve introduced the ability to search based on school performance using ratings from GreatSchools.  “Find me homes where there’s a GreatSchools rating of 7 or better.”
5. “Convenient to schools” was important to just over 20% of home buyers.  So just like convenient to shopping, a search can be conducted to find listings within a desired distance to a school.
6. “Convenient to entertainment/leisure activities” and “convenient to parks/recreational facilities” rank high. Nearly 1/5 of buyers overall want entertainment nearby while this number jumps to 29% in urban areas and over 1/3 in resort areas.  While nearly 1/5 care about parks, especially in urban and resort areas.  So we’ve made it possible to search for listings based on such items as golf courses, swimming pools, parks & playgrounds, cafes, bookstores and libraries.  And we’ll continue to add more amenities.
7. “Convenient to health facilities” ranks quite a bit lower overall but is important to 2/5 of those looking in resort areas.  So we’ve enabled search based on distance to hospitals as well.
8. “Convenient to airport” is important to just under 10%, especially in urban areas.  So we’ve also made it possible to find listings within a desired distance to an airport.  For the rest, they can make sure they’re far way from an airport so there’s a double benefit.

There are a number of other crucial factors that go into the search and decision process that we’re working out solutions for.  But I’ll hold off talking about those until the next release.

If you’re interested in the mean time, details about the first two releases of Lifestyle Listings Engine and other posts regarding lifestyle search can be found out Lifestyle Listings Engine and property Search - Related Posts.

We’ve also been doing some of our own research that we’ll begin sharing very soon.  I will say that our direct focus groups mirror what NAR’s research already confirms–there are many factors that influence the home buying decision that have nothing to do with the home itself.  But we’re also taking it a but further to understand how people go about searching.  We got some very interesting insights into how frustrating it is to conduct a home search.  And we can’t wait to share those insights and come up with solutions where we can.

As always, I appreciate your feedback, comments, criticisms and ideas.  Feel free to email me me at spetronis@onboardinformatics.com.

Tags: data, IDX, Lifestyle, Lifestyle Listings Engine, LLE, MLS, NAR Profile of Home Buyers and sellers 2008, Onboard Informatics, property search, Real Estate.

March 25th, 2009

Lifestyle Listings Engine Web Service - New Property Search Version 0.9 Delivered

By Megan Murphy, Marketing Manager

 Onboard Informatics launched the second version of Lifestyle Listings Engine - Version 0.9 today.

Lifestyle Listings Engine, the first ever enterprise-class property search based on consumer lifestyle, was first announced earlier this year at Inman News Real Estate Connect in New York.  Since then we have been working diligently to launch the  Listings Web Service enabling consumers to search for a home based on school system ratings, amenities, neighborhoods, commute time, and more all at the same time.

The first Listings Web Service delivery in mid February, Version 0.8, focused on two primary search mechanisms - geographic and parametric. Scott Petronis, our Sr. Dri. Product Management, goes into the specific details of Geographic Search, and Lookup capabilities in the Listings Web Service, in his previous post, Lifestyle Listings Engine Web Serivce - New Property Search Version 0.8 Delivered.

In this release, Version 0.9,  there are three new keycapabilities :

1) Search based on school performance:

One of the most significant search criteria for one of the largest home buyer segments is school performance. To this end, we’re enabling search based on proximity to GreatSchools rated schools of a specific value. For example, “I want to find listings that have 3+ beds and 2+ baths for no more than $500,000 that are near a highly rated school.”

2) Search based on distance to amenities:

The next set of crucial criterion are the local amenities such as parks, restaurants, supermarkets and hospitals. We’re enabling search based on a pretty long list of amenities so a user can ask for “Homes within 5 miles of a golf course,” for example.

3) “Get content”:

Once a search is conducted, the next logical step is for the searcher to want to know more. So we’re introducing new calls to pull back specific content based on a specific listing or the geographic container the listing falls within. The first such call allows a developer to pull back all the amenity details associated to a listing so they may present this, for example, on a listing detail page.

Scott goes into much greater detail regarding Version 0.9 in his post from last week.

A few cool new things we’re just completing put the “lifestyle” in lifestyle search. And believe me, this is just the start. To start we’ve focused on exposing some key new search criteria and also added a new content retrieval concept into the Listings Web Service. The concept is simple: there are criteria people will use to “drive” their search and then there’s additional content one wishes to see to help better educate herself/himself on the area surrounding the listing. So we’re exposing easily understood and highly relevant criteria in the search web service. Then we’re exposing more detailed content that may be pulled for presentation on the listing detail page.

What’s Next?

Lifestyle Listings Version 0.9.1 & Version 0.10 — Currently in development and testing. Targeted for release early/mid-April

• Get School District Content:  This will allow the developer to pull back all the school district content associated with a specific listing. Using this, the developer can fill out additional content pages to go along with the listing details.
• Search by commute time / distance: This will allow a user to input a starting address, such as their work address, and a desired time (i.e., 45 minutes) or distance (i.e., 30 miles). The search will then determine the listings that fall within the drivable area. We’re already looking at ways to get public transit as well as to determine neighborhoods and other geos that fall within the commute time / distance.

Lifestyle Listings Engine  Version 0.11 &  Version 0.12 — Currently in planning and design.

• Lead profiling: We’ll be capturing the various search criteria used in order to enable presentation of search preferences for lead forms, analytics reports, CRM applications or other uses.
• Search by community demographics: We’re working on a set of key demographics including age focus, socioeconomic status and household status.
• Criteria weighting and ranking: Providing the ability to weight the importance of individual criteria in each search to ensure the most appropriate results are returned.
• Additional Get Content calls: Enabling the retrieval of additional content to help provide greater details and insight into the community surrounding a listing.

Lifestyle Listinges Engine Software Development Kit — Currently in planning and design.

• We’ll be providing a set of UI widgets, helper code and documentation to enable developers to more quickly integrate our search into their sites and to do so with much more confidence than writing code from scratch. Our goal is to help developers get these capabilities up and running in days or weeks vs. months.

Please contact our sales support team at 646.747.4273 or info@onboardinformatics.com with any enquires regarding Lifestyle Listings Engine.

Also, don’t forget to subscribe to Onblog to get the latest news and deliveries regarding Lifestyle Listings Engine and Onboard’s other products.

Tags: amenities, data, home sale records, IDX, inman, Inman Connect, Lifestyle, Lifestyle Listings Engine, lifestyle search, listings, LLE, MLS, neighborhoods, Onboard Informatics, Products, property search, Real Estate, schools, SEO.

March 16th, 2009

Lifestyle Listings Engine…Another Step

By Scott Petronis, Senior Director of Product Management

In my last post I described the current capabilities in the Lifestyle Listing Engine Web Service and also mentioned some of the new things in the works. Well, we’ve been diligently at work and I’m happy to report we have some new stuff nearly ready for debut. In about a week we’ll have our next release ready for review. So I’m going to concentrate this post on what’s new and talk a bit more about what’s on the way.

A few cool new things we’re just completing put the “lifestyle” in lifestyle search. And believe me, this is just the start. To start we’ve focused on exposing some key new search criteria and also added a new content retrieval concept into the web service.

The concept is simple: there are criteria people will use to “drive” their search and then there’s additional content one wishes to see to help better educate herself/himself on the area surrounding the listing. So we’re exposing easily understood and highly relevant criteria in the search web service. Then we’re exposing more detailed content that may be pulled for presentation on the listing detail page.

School Performance
The first new search criteria is one of the most crucial for the largest demographic of homebuyers nationwide—families with school age children.  In fact, school performance can be THE driving force.  So we’ve focused our initial efforts on enabling searches based on school ratings from GreatSchools.   Now, within the Listings Web Service a desired GreatSchools rating (such as 8 or greater) can be identified and the search will return listings nearby those schools.  This way, a user can get an understanding of school performance up front rather than having to dig through a whole bunch of information after the search.  This may also be combined with other criteria so the user may search for listings within a specified distance of an address (i.e., their workplace), select a desired number of beds and baths, and input a price range.  The search will take into account all the criteria to execute the search.

The search can be initiated to just show counts of listings that meet the criteria.   Or it may pull back the listings themselves so they may be presented in tabular or map form.  Records returned may be pre-sorted based on any of the criteria submitted.  For example, you may choose to sort on the GreatSchools rating from greatest to least if that’s the criterion the user indicated is most crucial.

In addition to the search capability, a new call has been added to pull back the details of the school district.  This is especially useful when presenting the listing detail.  The way this works is that once a specific listing is pulled back, another request may be made (“GetContentSchoolDistrict”) for the detailed information on that specific school district.  This pulls back information such as number of students, student teacher ratios, enrollment by grade, expenditures, and more.  Once retrieved, this content might then be presented in another tab within the listing details page or however your design dictates.  So users don’t have to go searching for this information on their own, nor do you have to link off to another site to provide it.   It keeps the user engaged on your site and  provides the added benefit of improving SEO by adding locally relevant content into your pages.

Nearby Amenities
Another common way people search is by nearby amenities such as golf courses, parks or playgrounds, cafes and a wide variety of other “points of interest.”  We have loads of this data that we’re integrating into the search and have started with over a dozen key categories including: schools, parks and playgrounds, golf courses, grocery stores, cafes, public swimming pools, hospitals, airports, libraries, bookstores, veterinarians, pharmacies, health clubs, and universities.   Depending on the individual’s lifestyle and what stage of life they’re in, one or more of these may be crucial in their home search.

Using these criteria a search may be conducted to determine the listing located within a certain distance of a desired amenity.  Likewise, they may wish to ensure that they are NOT near one of these as well.  For example, someone may want to be near a golf course but NOT near a school.  Or they may wish to be near a school, park or playground and library, but further away from an airport.  There are numerous ways these criteria may be used to enhance the search experience and drive the relevance of the results.

Just like with the school district content, the details of each nearby amenity may also be retrieved for display.   So if there’s a golf course, nearby, the listing web service will return the name, address and other pertinent details.  The same holds true for any of the amenities.  This way, a list of nearby amenities may be displayed on the listing details page or in its own tab to help give a solid impression of the area and all it has to offer.

Other Search Criteria
We’re in the process of fleshing out a host of additional criteria for use in the search.  These decisions are being driven by ongoing research with both sides of the equation—home buyers and searchers as well as real estate brokers and agents.  We’re gaining great insight into how people search, what information they feel they need, where they tend to find this information today and what role the broker or agent plays in this laborious process.  As more of this information is collected, I’m looking forward to sharing the results to help drive more thoughtful design and better user experiences.

One criteria that’ made to the top of the list (I mentioned it in my last post) is the ability to search based on a desired “commute time or distance.”  This is well underway and we’re very close to getting out a first cut.  With this new capability, a user will be able to input their work location and either a desired commute time or a maximum commute distance.  The system will then calculate the potential areas and will retrieve the listings that are within those areas.  As we all know, there can be a significant difference between the straight line distances most searches use and the actual road distance.  Case in point, New Jersey is just across the Hudson River from New York and if you could kayak across, you’d be golden.  But for those of us not in the kayaking mood, we have to cross a pesky bridge.  So our commute time calculations will take this sort of situation into account.  Of course this will have maximum value when we can incorporate transit which we’re diligently working towards.

Other criteria on the docket right now are:

• Area demographics (i.e., average age, household income, family type, etc.)
• Cost of Living (i.e., total cost of living, cost of living per category, COL vs. the national average and vs. the general area, etc.)
• Safety (i.e., area crime, health, air quality, weather, natural disaster and other factors that impact safety and security) Note to self…see if Earth, Wind & Fire is available for launch party.
• Fun (i.e., bars, clubs, museums, arts and entertainment, and other places and events that give an area a “fun factor”)
• Employment Statistics (i.e., white collar vs. blue collar, does the area have more professionals or laborers, etc.)
• Educational Achievement (i.e., does the area have mostly college educated people or high school attainment?)

Again, depending on the lifestyle and stage of life the searcher is in, one or more of these items may be paramount.  As a young family just starting out, I may want to find places with other young families that tend to hold similar professions but also an area where the cost of living is reasonable compared to the national average.  An “empty nest” couple may also be looking for a lower cost of living but wish to be near others in a similar age group and might not care so much about the employment statistics.  So these different criteria may be used by different groups to identify the best fit for their needs.

Smoothing out the edges
As I mentioned in my last post, what we’re providing right now is purely an  that can be accessed via SOAP or using RESTful HTTP requests.  So one area we’re about to start diving into is the creation of some SDKs to “smooth out the edges.”  Many of the people I’ve talked to so far develop primarily in C#, are using .Net Framework 2.0 and primarily work in Microsoft VisualStudio .Net. So this is our likely starting point.  I’ve also spoken with quite a few PHP developers who work primarily on a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) technology stack.  So this appears to be the next logical environment.  But I’d like to hear more about what environments your working in, tools you use, and the extent to which you’d like to see UI widgets vs. pure .

I realize time is a precious commodity none of us have enough of, so I want to be sure we’re delivering enough to get you well on your way but not so much that we take away the very benefits of a flexible web service.  So what’s “enough” in your mind?

Please keep the comments coming and pipe in with your ideas as well as your critiques!

Feel free to reach out to me at spetronis@onboardinformatics.com until my next post.

Tags: API, geocode search, geocoding, Lifestyle, lifestyle search, listings, LLE, onboardinformatics, Products, property search.

March 11th, 2009

All the Best Places to Live, Work, Eat, Procreate, and Kiss Life Goodbye

By Megan Murphy, Marketing Manager

I’m a huge believer in quality of life and the idea of ‘work to live’ not ‘live to work’ which is hard to believe considering I live in the roughest city in the U.S. but I guess that would fall under work hard, play hard. 

Anways, I know this is not a new way of thinking and I understand in times like these many don’t have the luxury or time to focus on maintaining a high quality of  life…. but life goes on.  Regardless of the economy people are still having  kids, getting married, relocating for work, moving closer to their elderly parents, etc. and all of them want to find a home that fits their needs and lifestyle. 

Lifestyle, whether you’re a young professional, a mother with three kids, or a retiree, it’s important to find that perfect place to fit that phase and time in your life. 

I don’t know anyone that doesn’t enjoy a “Best Places to…” story, so I’ve taken some of my favorites from this year and last to share a variety of places that one can fulfill a person’s lifestyle and hopefully get us all thinking more about how and where we want to live and not merely survive.

Best Places to Live

CNNMoney.com, Best Places to Live 2008

And the winners are…

Plentiful jobs, excellent schools, affordable housing - America’s best small cities have all that and more. See the top 100 best places to live - including detailed city profiles, homes for sale and million-dollar homes. More

1. Plymouth, MN

2. Fort Collins, CO

3. Naperville, IL

4. Irvine, CA

5. Franklin Township, NJ

• See the top 100

6. Norman, OK

7. Round Rock, TX

8. Columbia/Ellicott City, MD

9. Overland Park, KS

10. Fishers, IN

Best Places to Work

FORTUNE, 100 Best Companies to Work For 2009

And the winners are…

Even in this economy, some companies are going out of their way to please employees. This year, there’s a new no. 1, as Google slips to no. 4. See detailed profiles of the top 100 employers, including interactive maps, key perks, contact information, and more.

• See the top 100

 

Best Places to Eat

Gayot.com, The Restaurant Issue, TOP 40 Restaurants in the U.S.

These restaurants have influenced the dining scene in big cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco with daring, elegant, exciting and soothe-the-soul concepts. Smaller towns, too, whether on secluded Atlantic shores or California’s golden hills, have benefited by having one of these top-rated restaurants in their midst. The top restaurants not only share their spirit, but ignite our intelligence, imagination, and desire for more truly exceptional dining experiences.

Best Places to Have Kids

BusinessWeek, The Best Place to Raise your Kids 2009

Kid-Friendly and Cost-Friendly

A Chicago suburb beats out thousands of other communities around the U.S. as the best, most affordable place to raise kids

Mount Prospect, Ill., is a quiet Chicago suburb with a population of just over 56,000. It is a tight-knit town where over the past eight years Prospect High School’s football team won three state championships, its Marching Knights picked up their 26th straight grand champion title at the annual state marching band festival, and just last month the school itself ranked 12th among all state high schools. Now the town is also the winner of Businessweek’s second annual roundup of the Best Places in America to Raise Kids.

Best Places to Retire

CNNMoney.com, Best Places to Retire

Beaufort, SC is by far my favorite of this bunch.  I am partial due to my entire upbringing being in South Carolina, from beautiful horse country of Aiken, to the home of the Carolina Gamecocks in Columbia, and my favorite, the beaches of Charleston.  Now living in New York (which I love and while I am mentally ready to retire, I am no where near financially) I can appreciate the slow pace and beauty of the coastline and quaint towns.

 6 Terrific towns, all on the water

Many baby boomers dream of retiring somewhere by the water. These half-dozen places are on a lake, a river or an ocean - yet won’t sink your retirement budget. More

• Dunedin, FL
• Sequim, WA
• St. Joseph, MI
• Beaufort, SC
• Durango, CO
• Marble Falls, TX

Onboard Informatics had the pleasure of working with many media companies to produce data-driven stories such as the ones above.  Of these, Onboard provided the data for CNNMoney’s Best Places to Liveand BusinessWeeks’s Best Places to Raise Kids.

Check out some of our other media client’s lifestyle stories… BusinessWeek’s  Best Affordable Suburbs in the U.S. 2009, Progressive Farmer, Five Safest Places to Live in Rural America and  Best Places to Raise Farm Kids.

For more information on how we partner with media and publishing companies please contact us at 646.747.4273 or info@onboardinformatics.com.

Tags: Best Places to Live, Business Week, CNNMoney, Fortune, Gayot, Lifestyle, Onboard Informatics, Real Estate.

March 3rd, 2009

Defining Lifestyle, Part 1: Content

By Peter Goldey, CKO & CIO

Let’s start with a question:  How does Onboard Informatics define “lifestyle”?

If we’re providing lifestyle search, we must have a clear set of lifestyles defined, right?  A nice neat set of definitions to shoehorn buyers and sellers into?  A concise categorization of neighborhoods with a pretty bow?

Launching a Lifestyle search product raises some interesting questions.  What is a lifestyle?  How can it be defined?  How does it differ from person to person?  When someone in New York says they live an “outdoors lifestyle” how does that translate to a Texan’s vision of the great outdoors?

Happily, those aren’t questions that Onboard need answer.  Instead, we are providing the toolset, the methods and implementation assistance needed by developers to empower end users and real estate professionals to create their personal answers.

Sounds a bit like side-stepping the issue?  I agree.  But this is an issue that will defy universal solution and simple definitions.  We’ve embraced the concept of individualized definition instead.  Rather than focus on labels and preconceptions, our focus is on on delivering the maximum potential for the elegant solution.

The “elegant solution” is a phrase that has become popular as an ideal in manufacturing and process creation.  In basic terms, elegant solutions take the complex and - without compromising quality, features or value - create downstream simplicity in implementation.  We wrap the heavy lifting in easily understood packages and processes so that downstream implementations are straight forward.

The four part equation

We’re looking to break this down to a simple, four part equation with all the values and their relationships defined by users of the lifestyle engine.  While we work with clients to package common search parameters, there is nearly limitless potential for individuals actually finding neighborhoods and listings that meet their individual lifestyle criteria.

Imagine page one of the listings search results being spot on target with what the end user really wants.

So, what is this mysterious equation in four parts?

Content + Context + Differentiation + Control = potential definition.

OK - ambiguous and fuzzy.  You’re going to have to wait on the last three, but lets talk a bit about content today.

On Content

Is content really king? If it’s the right content, at the right moment, for the right person — yep, it sure is.

Let’s use school content as an example.  A typical home buyer will look for a property they can afford within a reasonable commute time from where they work where their kids will go to the best school system they can afford.

Or maybe not.  What if the buyer is a senior?  Or a single twentysomething?  Or a couple with no intention of having kids?  They may want an area with poor schools.  Ok, that’s not accurate either.  They are likely thinking about cost of living, and good schools typically come with a high cost in property taxes.  So, jettison the good schools and lower your tax burden.

No, really - I don't care about good schools... or do I?

But school performance is not the only angle on the relevance of education in the home search process.  Picture the young writer or research assistant looking for a vibrant intellectual community.   Is there a connection between community intellect and school performance?  Educational attainment levels of residents and a measure of the climate that supports intellectual pursuit will be far more indicative of this than actual K - 12 school performance.  Do performance and educational climate correspond?

Sometimes.

Sometimes not.  (think Santa Fe or NYC)

But Santa Fe and NYC both have vibrant arts communities, intellectual community organizations.  New York - never the poster child for public school performance - is a tremendous university center with incredible resources on hand.

The point here is that data out of context doesn’t really provide good insight to the end user.  The context needed includes not just how local areas relate to their surroundings (a very important and missing concept in most search systems), but also the critical context of how the data points relate to the specific end user’s focus, intent and perspective.   It should be clear that the beauty of a neighborhood and a property are really in the eye of the individual buyer.  Delivering the flexibility, context and toolset to developers that provides for personalized lifestyle search is what our product platform is all about.

It will take some time, but when home buyers discover that first system that actually delivers multi-dimensional, contextual, lifestyle search paired with outstanding property detail information an entire new class of qualified prospects will hit our clients’ systems.

In the next part….

I’ll discuss why the right context is so important.

Tags: content, context, control, differentiation, Lifestyle, lifestyle search.

February 25th, 2009

Business Week - Best Affordable Suburbs in the U.S. 2009

By Megan Murphy, Marketing Manager

#1, Pewaukee, Wisconsin

Business Week launched their Best Affordable Suburbs in the U.S. 2009   story last week located in the Lifestyle section of their site.  They ranked the best affordable suburbs in the U.S. state by state  based on the quality of schools, crime rates, reasonable commutes, strong economies and good quality of life near the most populated city in each state.

We are always excited when one our media clients launches a “Best places…” story.   Most people know Onboard Informatics for providing content like community profiles, demographics, and now our new Lifestyle Listings Engine, to real estate companies but our media clients give us another chance to showcase our ability to customize our data  in creative ways to fit  clients needs. 

Our data team worked closely with Business week to create this data-driven story based on their criteria and the filters they selected to produce the most concise and accurate information possible. 

Editor’s note: The selected suburbs were limited to towns within 25 miles of the most populated city, with populations of 5,000 to 60,000 people, median family incomes of $51,000 to $120,000, and lower-than-average crime rates. We weighted a variety of factors including livability (short commutes, low pollution, green space), education (well-educated residents, high test scores), crime (low personal and property crime), economy (high job growth, low unemployment rate, high family income), and affordability (median household income, cost of expenditures). Affordability was most heavily weighted in our calculations. We penalized places with bad weather, a lack of racial diversity, high divorce rates, and few children. Household median income, which is derived from U.S. Census data, and the median home price are 2008 projections. The unemployment rate comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is for 2007. The violent crime index, which is based on FBI crime statistics, is a weighted index of the most recently available seven years (”100″ is the national average for violent crime, so “200″ would be twice the national average and “50″ would be half the national average). The commute time is the median travel time for residents in the area, and is not necessarily the time it takes to reach the largest major city.

Check out which suburb is the winner for your state… Best Affordable Suburbs 2009.

Tags: Best Affordable Suburbs 2009, Best Place to LIve, Business Week, data stories, Lifestyle, Onboard Informatics.

February 20th, 2009

Lifestyle Listings Engine Web Service - New Property Search Version 0.8 Delivered

By Scott Petronis, Senior Director of Product Management

This week we launched the first version of our Lifestyle Listings Engine– version 0.8. The Listings Web Service has been in process for some time and has been in use by a number of early beta testers who have provided a lot of great feedback.  Over the coming weeks and months we’ll continue our work on improving what’s there, adding in additional search capabilities and filling in more details in terms of documentation, samples and so forth.  So there’s still a lot more to come.

What we have readily available through the web service are two primary search mechanisms—geographic and parametric. The web service is accessible using WSDL and conforms to SOAP 1.1 or 1.2.  You may also use REST over HTTP.   I’d like to provide a brief overview of the capabilities to give a sense of what’s possible. Then I’ll give a little insight into what’s next.

Geographic Search 

There are a number of geographic search capabilities built directly into the Listings Web Service so there’s no need to use another service unless you want to.   For example, you may geocode addresses directly through the web service without needing to make a separate call to Microsoft Virtual Earth or other service. For all search requests, there’s the option to bring back just the listings counts (e.g., 62 listings met the search criteria) or the listings themselves (listing summaries in XML). The specific geographic search capabilities in the web service include:

• GeoCode – Allows for address input and return either a <latitude> <longitude> (coordinate) pair or a string to be used in proximity searches.
• GeoCodeSearch – Allows for entry of a latitude/longitude pair and distance, and returns the records that meet the criteria. This can be used in concert with the GeoCode call or by passing lat/long values obtained from other services.
• GeoPointSearch – Allows for the entry of an already geocoded point and distance (radius) and returns the records that meet the criteria.
• AddressSearch – Allows for input of an Address and Search Distance and returns the records that meet the criteria.
• Poly and PolyPointSearch – Allows for entry of a set of geographic points (polygon) as either an array or from a file and returns the records that fall within the corresponding polygon (area). This is particularly useful when the UX includes a map interface where the user may select a custom, highly-refined geographic area to search within.
• CitySearch – Allows for the input of City/State and returns the records that meet the criteria.
• ZipSearch – Allows for entry of specific ZIP Code and returns the records that meet the criteria.
• HoodIdSearch – Allows for entry of an Onboard Neighborhood ID and returns the records that meet the criteria.

Geographic Lookup

In addition to geographic search functionality, we provide a robust and pre-defined geographic model upon which all other relationships are built. The web service exposes this in a way that lets you interact with various levels of geography for both searching and presentation to the user.  For example, you might want to present a series of selection lists, each of which is predicated on the one before it such as: select the state you which to search in, then select the county(ies), then select the neighborhood(s). The web service provides the following geographic “lookup” capabilities to enable this:

• LookupStates – Returns a list of all State covered based on the Account ID.
• LookupCountyByState – Allows for entry of a specific State and returns all Counties that fall within the specified State.
• LookupCityByState – Allows for entry of a specific State and returns all Cities/Places that fall within the specified State.
• LookupZipsByState – Allows for entry of a specific State and returns all ZIP Codes that fall within the specified State.
• LookupCityByCounty – Allows for entry of a specific State/County and returns all Cities/Places that fall within the specified County.
• LookupHoodMarket – Allows for entry of a specific Market and returns all Neighborhoods that fall within the specified Market.
• LookupHoodState – Allows for entry of a specific State and returns all Neighborhoods that fall within the specified State.
• LookupHoodAll – Enables retrieval of a list of all Neighborhoods that are available based on the Account ID.

Listings Lookup and Detail

The last area I’m going to cover is some of the capabilities specific to the feeds and the listings themselves. Again, some of these calls may be used on their own or in concert with the other calls depending on the UX you’re going for. Some of these calls are purely for “utility” purposes such as just understanding what content you have access to.  Most are pretty self-explanatory and very straight-forward.

• GetListingDetail – Allows for input of a specific Property ID in order to retrieve the detailed attributes of that specific listing. In the calls above, you’ve gotten back the listings that meet the search parameters. Now with this you pull back all the details on the individual listing.
• GetListingsFeedSearchByMlsIds – Allows for MLS ID input and returns the specific MLS property record.
  
• GetListingsFeedSearch – Allows for input of a Feed ID and returns all listings within that feed.
• LookupAgentsByFeed – Allows for entry of a specific Feed ID and returns all Agents associated to the specified Feed.
• LookupAllFeeds – Enables retrieval of a list of all Feeds that are available based on the Account ID submitted.
• LookupCurrentCitiesByFeed – Allows for entry of a specific Feed ID and returns all Cities covered by the specified Feed. This can be used, for example, to display a coverage list.
• LookupCurrentZipsByFeed – Allows for entry of a specific Feed ID and returns all ZIP Codes covered by the specified Feed.
• LookupPropertyTypes – Returns a list of all property types associated to the property (listings) records.
• LookupRecordRules – Returns a list of all display rules associated to the Account ID. Specific rules may apply based on licensing terms or other legal restrictions.
• LookupSearchableFeatures – Returns a list of all searchable features associated to the property (listings) records.
  

Of course, in addition to all the functionality described above, the standard parametric search capabilities you’d expect are also included.  These search parameters may be set to filter results in any of the other searches:

• PropertyType
• MinPrice
• MaxPrice
• MinSize
• MaxSize
• Bedrooms
• Bathrooms
• MinYearBuilt
• MaxYearBuilt
• SearchDistance
• FeatureProfile
• DOM (Days On Market)
• FeedID
• AgentID
• OfficeID
• AgentName
• OfficeName
• RecordLimit (Max number of records to return)
• Sort (specific value to sort by)

There’s one additional capability worth special note.   A “SpecialFormat” flag allows you to set a priority to be placed on Agent or Office criteria to move any listings for the specified agent or office to the top of the list. It requires that either an Agentname or Officename filter be submitted and then takes precedent over the Sort value and order. Any values in the Sort parameter would be acted on next.

What’s Next?

As I mentioned at the top, this is just the beginning. We’re diligently working on enhancements around the clock. Major items in the works include: search based on school performance (e.g., show me only listings with 4+ bedrooms, 2.5+ baths for between $300,000 and $350,000 in areas that have great schools); search based on commute time (show me only listings that are within a 30 minute drive to work); and, search based on distance to one or more amenities (I want to see places that are within 5 miles of a golf course).

Beyond this, I’m looking for feedback on:

• Web service usability – we have a fleshed out foundation here, but what would make it more useable to fit within your design patterns? I’d love to get some additional Beta testers.
• Development environments – what development environments are you working with? .Net, PHP, Java/JSP, Adobe ColdFusion, Adobe Flex?
• Helpers and samples – beyond the API, what would help to reduce your development time and speed deployment? Sample PHP code? JavaScript helpers? AJAX widgets?
• Output formats – beyond XML, what would make your life easier? JSON output?
• Search functionality – we have loads of additional lifestyle characteristics we can make available but the key is prioritizing the most important ones first. Your feedback is always welcome to help shape those priorities!

Until next time…

-sap

Tags: API, geocode search, geocoding, Lifestyle, lifestyle search, listings, LLE, onboardinformatics, Products, property search.