June 18th, 2013

FAQ: Neighborhood Boundaries

By Scott Petronis, Chief Product Officer

At Onboard Informatics we’ve been helping clients go beyond common geography searches to add real human context to culturally-defined areas for years. Here are some common questions we hear on using Neighborhood Boundaries.

Q. How are Neighborhood Boundaries defined?
A. Neighborhoods are locally defined by various sources and are rarely, if ever, “official” boundaries defined by a government body. As such these local designations may have ambiguity in terms of where they begin and end. Neighborhoods are typically based upon cultural, housing, socio-economic and other characteristics that provide a flavor to the area. Over time, the boundaries between these areas may become less well defined and will certainly move. A great example of this movement is the shrinking of New York City’s Little Italy in conjunction with the growth of Chinatown. As neighborhoods are in constant (though slow) flux, there is often local disagreement as to what constitutes a neighborhood and its borders. Therefore, we have identified and consulted with a large range of sources in the compilation of this information including Real Estate professionals, government and municipal authorities, travel and hospitality professionals and other local experts.

Q. Why do certain neighborhoods have multiple names?
A. Some neighborhoods go by multiple names locally and also overlap with each other. A great example of this is the Wall Street neighborhood in New York which is also part of and referred to as the Financial District. Onboard tries to capture and provide aliases whenever they are available.

Q. How are Neighborhood Boundaries commonly used?
A. Our clients use neighborhood boundaries in a few key ways to help improve local SEO, to provide a better search experience for site visitors, to show the best depiction of the local market and even for data analysis.

• SEO – Create neighborhood landing pages so when someone types a neighborhood name into a search engine your landing pages come up highly ranked.
• Site Search – “Tag” listings with neighborhood names so user can search for listings in the “Financial District” instead of having to know ZIP Code 10004.
• Map Display – Display Neighborhood Boundaries so visitors understand what each distinct neighborhood looks like on a map.
• Data Analysis – Some Onboard clients use the boundaries to analyze other data by “aggregating” data such as office locations, home sales and pricing information so they may understand counts and values by neighborhood.

Q: What’s the best way to display Neighborhood Boundaries on a map?
A: Our clients receive an in-depth guide to help them trough implementation, including our suggestions for best practices with the data. We’ve worked hard to help our clients determine the single “best” neighborhood for an address or parcel, best practices for displaying multiple boundaries, etc. If you’re not yet a client, get in touch with us to learn more.

Tags: map neighborhood data display, neighborhood boundaries, neighborhood boundaries vendors, neighborhood data, neighborhood data vendors.

September 15th, 2011

Onboard Powers Bloomberg/BusinessWeek’s Best Places to Raise Your Kids 2011

By Stacey Ret, Director of Marketing

Communities that are small, affordable and family-friendly with good public schools, make the list for Best Places to Raise a Family

If you have children, you want the best house in the best neighborhood that your family can afford, and it’s not always about the number of baths in the home – although 2+ bathrooms can certainly help bring peace to your household during teeth-brushing time! You evaluate the schools, the safety of the town, the recreation available to all of you – heck, some of you may even want to know where the closest Trader Joe’s is (or is that just me?).  Luckily, BusinessWeek has evaluated over 5,400 communities nationwide utilizing Onboard’s comprehensive community data and demographics to bring us a list of the best places to raise a family.

This year, they shifted their focus from  large urbanized cities to smaller towns with populations of 50,000 or less.Considerations included: town’s median income relative to their particular state’s median income, school performance, number of schools, crime statistics, cost of living, as well as job growth, air quality, ethnic diversity and access to recreational amenities – all of the qualities you would want in a community for your family.

The cities are listed in alphabetical order, by state, and in the CT/NJ/NY tri-state area (where we are located), the following cities top the list:

Best place to raise kids in Connecticut: Kensington

Nearby city: Hartford
Population: 8,479
Median family income: $90,189
Runner-up: Portland

Best place to raise kids in New Jersey: Ridgefield Park

Nearby city: New York
Population: 10,675
Median family income: $84,544
Runner-up: Bergenfield

Best place to raise kids in New York: West Seneca

Nearby city: Buffalo
Population: 43,575
Median family income: $69,188
Runner-up: Lancaster

To read the full list, click here: http://images.businessweek.com/slideshows/20101214/the-best-places-to-raise-your-kids-2011/slides/33

Tags: Best Places, Clients, community information, data, lifestyle search, neighborhood data, real estate data.

August 3rd, 2011

Market Leader Pioneers Market Insider

By Leo Vidal, Marketing Intern

Market Leader has delivered Market Insider today, an informative and engaging market data tool that conveniently combines all you need to know in one page. Market Leader has integrated Onboard’s data sets to produce an innovative and competitive development in our industry, providing all local information that is essential to consumers.

According to Ian Morris, chief executive of Market Leader, “Market Insider enables our customers to position themselves as the neighborhood expert and generate more traffic and leads from their website, while also engaging their prospects and clients with a steady stream of rich local information.”

“We are continually investing in creating a comprehensive and integrated software platform for real estate professionals, and feedback from early users of Market Insider tells us this product is a winner,” Morris added.

Market Insider engages home buyers and sellers with customized reports of home sales, trends, demographics, and side-by-side statistics on any neighborhood. This comprehensive local market data can be found for consumers to browse on the agent’s website or also via monthly e-newsletters.

Stated in their press release, this service is beneficial and aimed for real estate professionals to:

• Generate more leads from their website: Market Insider provides valuable information to consumers, all provided on behalf of local real estate agents to drive more website visitors and more registered leads.
• Brand themselves as the neighborhood expert: Home sellers have access to objective, local market data to help them know the right time to list. Home buyers can explore different neighborhoods, all in an agent-branded experience.
• Engage contacts with constant touch: Automated e-newsletters enable agents to continually engage prospects and clients with valuable local market information and insider tips on buying and selling a home.
• Replace costly stand-alone alternatives: Market Insider includes seamless integration with Market Leader’s website, lead generation, and CRM, enabling agents to address all their marketing needs and eliminate costly contact follow up solutions.

This product is a true testament to their company’s name, as leaders in online marketing and technology solutions for real estate professionals.

Bravo to Market Leader on their hard work to provide agents with rich information! Below are screen shots of this great execution:

Tags: data tool, IDX, innovative real estate search, leadgen, Market Insider, Market Leader, neighborhood data, Real Estate.

July 12th, 2011

Daily Updates for GreatSchools Ratings & Reviews

By Colleen Staunton, Product Manager

Onboard has been providing GreatSchools Ratings and Reviews for a number of years. This type of information has been extremely valuable to our clients who are looking to provide their consumers with more contextual information around school search. The data helps to give home buyers insight into the local schools around a home listing, not just which schools are the closest. They are able to see ratings and read reviews from Parents, Administrators, Students and former Students.

In the past this data was updated bi-weekly. We now provide an upgrade to this product so that GreatSchools Ratings & Reviews can now be updated on a daily basis. Clients who want to update the data on their sites more frequently can now be sure that the latest ratings and reviews for a school will be on their site. Not to mention the SEO benefits from frequently updating content on your site.

The following information is provided:
1. Overall Rating (now called Community Rating)
2. Four individual ratings: Teacher Rating, Principal Rating, Parent Rating, and Facilities Rating
3. Any new reviews posted since the previous day

The delivery is the same, via bulk file, so that there is no change in how you receive the data.

If this is something you may be interested in, please contact your Relationship Manager or reach out to our Product Support team at support@onboardinformatics.com.

Tags: bulk file, greatschools, greatschools ratings, home buyer insight, local data, neighborhood data.

June 23rd, 2011

Finding Amateur Golfer’s Paradise in Colorado

By Leo Vidal, Marketing Intern

Although many of you are probably preoccupied with thoughts whether McIlory Rory will take the mantle left by Tiger Woods, why these pros make it look so easy, or how to get your wife out onto the golf course – let’s not forget there is another U.S. Open awaiting us.

The month of June marks Women’s Golf Month (we all knew that!), leading into the 2011 Women’s U.S. Open, hosted on July 7-10th in Colorado Springs, Colorado. For those of you who love golf but couldn’t make it to the PGA, you still have time to play in the same area as the LPGA Pros.

Colorado Springs has many neighborhoods which make it an ideal place to play golf. We fired up our Lifestyle Search Widget to find five Golfer’s Paradise neighborhoods within the Colorado Springs metro area:

Read More

Tags: 2011 Women's US Open, Colorado Springs, golf, golf in Colorado, Golfers Paradise, Lifestyle Search Engine, neighborhood data, Women's Golf Month.

May 9th, 2011

The Active Enterprise Network creates “10 Lifestyle Searches in 10 Weeks” challenge, partnering with Onboard Informatics, the pioneer of Lifestyle Search

By Stacey Ret, Director of Marketing

May 9, 2011 – New York, NY. In an effort to drive lifestyle search to the forefront of the real estate industry, The Active Enterprise Network, will be participating in the Enterprise Network Challenge: 10 Lifestyle Searches in 10 Weeks in which their technology partner, Active Website, launches the lifestyle search engine on a different member’s site each week.

Stemming from their extended partnership with Onboard Informatics, Enterprise Network members now have access to the necessary data needed for lifestyle search, an innovative search tool that gives customers a personalized search experience on real estate websites. Through this new lifestyle search engine, customers will be able to search for homes based on parameters most important to them. Whether that’s family-friendly areas or homes close to highly rated schools, nightlife or shopping, the system will match each user’s requirements with a targeted list of ideal communities in the area.

Using a sliding scale, customers have the option to rank how important each criteria is to their particular needs and lifestyle. The system then finds neighborhoods that best fit their criteria and showcases available homes in the area. Once they’ve found their ideal community, customers can narrow their search based on number of beds and baths, square footage, price range and more.

Remaining on the cutting edge of innovation, many members have already chosen to implement lifestyle search on their site. The first member to adopt this feature is Residential Properties, LTD. Based in Providence, RI, Residential Properties has been serving the Rhode Island Real Estate market for over 30 years and was a great first candidate for the launch of this product. Through the latest search technology, Residential Properties is able to further enrich the user experience and gain a competitive advantage in the industry.

“There is a lot of competition on the web, so finding new ways to differentiate yourself from the competition is crucial to the success of your business. Through lifestyle search, not only are members providing a service that the competition doesn’t offer, but they’re able to engage the customer and increase the likelihood that they will buy or sell a home from them in the future. Typically, when an agent meets with a client they’re asking important questions such as “How important are schools for you?” or “Would you rather live in an urban setting or in the suburbs?” and so on. However, these same questions are not often addressed online. Lifestyle search bridges this gap and offers a unique approach for a more positive experience for our users,” states Ido Zucker, Managing Partner at Active Website.

The search parameters within the lifestyle search engine are based on over a decade of Onboard’s experiencedeveloping Best Places to Live solutions for top publishers such as CNN/Money, U.S. News & World Report and BusinessWeek. To ensure accuracy of the search results, the search engine combines millions of data points ranging from population demographics to housing trends to local points of interest and more.

Due to the complex functionality required to power lifestyle search accurately and efficiently, it is reserved for elite companies only. Through Active Website’s technology, coupled with data provided by Onboard, members are able to engage customers more than ever before.

“It is Onboard’s goal to provide compelling content and powerful tools that allow homebuyers to search for homes based on what is important in their lives -beyond the physical needs of the home. Lifestyle search not only accomplishes that, but also engages the visitor and keeps them coming back to the site, providing the differentiation that The Active Enterprise Network is seeking,” states Marc Siden, CEO, Onboard Informatics. “We are pleased to work with a network that understands the importance of providing consumers with tools and information they want.”

To see the enhanced features offered through the lifestyle search engine, visit Residential Properties at www.residentialproperties.com. Be sure to visit Active Website’s blog over the next several weeks as they track the progress of these releases as well.

About The Active Enterprise Network

The Active Enterprise Network member base is by invitation only. Comprised solely of private real estate firms, The Enterprise Network does not accept national brands and only works with one company per marketplace. This exclusivity allows for open collaboration and sharing of information within The Network, free from any conflict of interest. The goal for members under The Enterprise Network umbrella is to address the technology demands that are emerging in today’s changing real estate market. Together, Enterprise Network members can make the best decisions concerning implementation of systems and solutions, ultimately leveraging everyone to higher levels of business.

About Onboard Informatics

Since 2001, Onboard Informatics has provided comprehensive local, regional and national real estate data solutions, powerful Web tools and Web services to some of the most innovative companies in the real estate, publishing, and technology.  Onboard delivers seamless integration of property listings, community, school, neighborhood, geographic and demographic information to support clients in achieving business objectives on Web and mobile platforms.  Privately held since its founding, Onboard is located in the heart of the world’s financial center in the Wall Street area of New York City.  For more information about Onboard Informatics visit www.onboardinformatics.com.

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Tags: Best Places, Clients, lifestyle search, neighborhood data, news, real estate data, real estate market, school information.

April 11th, 2011

Onboard Informatics Announces A Technology Learning Series

By Stacey Ret, Director of Marketing

A weekly webinar program focusing on utilizing data and technology to drive revenue

April 11, 2011 – New York, NY. Onboard Informatics, the premier data and technology services provider to top-tier real estate, media and technology companies, has launched a Technology Learning Series program, specifically for professionals in the real estate industry.

The program will feature two 30 minute webinars each week beginning early April, with a wide variety of hot and trending topics, as well as share information that Onboard has learned over the years through working with hundreds of large, middle and small companies. Each week one topic will be addressed, and offered twice that week allowing people options for attendance.

“Our Technology Learning Series Program is an ideal way for real estate professionals to gain information about a variety of topics that can drive traffic to their site, convert visitors to consumers, and stay in touch with those consumers long after they purchase a home,” stated Marc Siden, CEO of Onboard Informatics. Siden continues, “These webinars are designed to take an abstract topic, such as Lifestyle Search, and break it down into a comprehensible and tangible tool – all the while delivering the key points in 30 minutes.”

Topics include:

April 12th & 14th:  Getting the Most Value from Neighborhood Information

April 19^th & 21^st:  All the Rage — What is a Lifestyle Search Widget & How can it improve my business?

April 26^th & 28^th:  How to Improve SEO using Data

May 3^rd & 5^th: School Content – It’s Free. Why do I Need Enhanced School Content on my website?

May 10^th & 12^th: Printable Reports: The Importance, the Value, and Options

May 17^th & 19^th: Lifestyle Search: The Pandora for Real Estate

May 24^th & 26^th: Neighborhood Information – for Canada

Webinars take place each Tuesday and Thursday at 3pm EST. The next webinar, “Getting the Most Value from Neighborhood Information?” will take place Tuesday, April 12^th . Those interested may register here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/932450858

For additional information on the topics, please visit: http://blog.onboardinformatics.com/2011/04/onboards-technology-learning-series-kicks-off-today/

About Onboard Informatics
Since 2001, Onboard Informatics has provided comprehensive local, regional and national real estate data solutions, powerful Web tools and Web services to some of the most innovative companies in the real estate, publishing, and technology.  Onboard delivers seamless integration of property listings, community, school, neighborhood, geographic and demographic information to support clients in achieving business objectives on Web and mobile platforms.  Privately held since its founding, Onboard is located in the heart of the world’s financial center in the Wall Street area of New York City.  For more information about Onboard Informatics visit www.onboardinformatics.com.

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Tags: community data, lifestyle search, listings, neighborhood data, real estate data, real estate market, school information.

April 29th, 2010

The Rise of Neighborhood Search

By Colleen Staunton, Product Manager

The tagline ‘Real Estate is Local’ is often echoed by those in the Real Estate industry. Consumers are not only buying a house but they are ‘investing’ in the surrounding neighborhood as well. They often look to see if there are others with kids the same age as theirs, what the closest schools are, and where are the places to eat. All of these things are part of a neighborhood’s make-up.

In an article posted by Matt Carter on Inman News, Name your neighborhood: the new wave in real estate search, he discusses the growing importance of neighborhood search. While more and more real estate portals/brokerages are trying to implement this type of search, the concept is far from new. Onboard has for years talked of the need to provide consumers with the right type of information. This includes giving them insight into the local community, or neighborhood. Onboard clients Washington Post and Redfin are a few examples of clients of ours that use neighborhood boundaries on their websites. Others, like Prudential Douglas Elliman and NY Post provide neighborhood profiles using neighborhood level demographics, as opposed to the usual zip code level demographics.

Matt Carter pointed out how not everyone is in agreement on what the actual boundary of a neighborhood might be. Washington Post is a perfect example of this. They prefer to define their own boundaries since they feel they have the local knowledge. Onboard is able to easily geocode their boundaries and provide the matching community information. This site allows the user to research the neighborhoods and see the polygons laid out on a map all together. When searching for houses in a neighborhood on Redfin’s site the user will see the distinct outline of that neighborhood. Their listings are then shown within that neighborhood. Both use boundaries for slightly different reasons but are highly effective.

Washington Post Neighborhood Boundaries

Redfin Neighborhood Boundary - Back Bay, Boston

Another option is to allow users to ‘find’ what neighborhood is best for them. This is especially helpful in bigger cities or when home buyers are moving to new areas. They may know what they want in a neighborhood but may not know where to look. Giving users the option of selecting from a set of lifestyle criteria will result in a much better search experience.

Neighborhood boundaries are really only the tip of the iceberg. Brokerages and real estate websites have many options when they consider their website strategy. Implementing neighborhood boundaries means you must also have the appropriate neighborhood-level demographic, school and market information. Users will want to know how many single-family homes are in the area, what the crime rate may be, which schools are in the immediate area and also what some recent home sales have been. For those that do not want to implement a map search on their site they can easily tag their listings with the neighborhood and link that to the relevant content.

The advantages of allowing users to search by neighborhood are extensive. You can improve your SEO while becoming the neighborhood expert. It’s no longer acceptable to just provide basic census data at the zip level on websites. Realtor.com and Zillow, who both offer their users neighborhood level search, are the top two sites in US internet usage for the Real Estate category, according to a Hitwise February 2010 report. Combined they account for 10% of the market. The Top 20 contains a number of other sites that have one or more neighborhood features on their site, including #3 Yahoo! (profiles), #6 Trulia (Search, boundaries and profiles) and #20 Redfin (search, boundaries and profiles). Consumers are very savvy and will ultimately go elsewhere to find the information they are looking for if your site does not offer it.

Tags: neighborhood boundaries, neighborhood data, real estate mapping, real estate neighborhoods.

September 29th, 2009

Introducing MLS OneSource – The One Stop Shop for Today’s MLSs and REALTORS

By Colleen Staunton, Product Manager

From shopping for clothes, to cars, to homes, online purchases have been growing at an exponetial rate over the past 10 years.  The Nielsen Company did a survey, which suggests that around 85% of online surfers have used the internet for shopping.  Out of those, 94% of all buyers aged 25 to 44 years used the internet to search for a home - NAR Annual Study 2008.  

With that kind of percentage of people (and climbing) utilizing the web for home search, I’d say it’s pretty important for agents to have access to the most accurate local content and innovative technology possible.

 They need engaging information on their websites and in their reports and presentations that goes beyond bed, bath, and square feet. They need access to tools that give invaluable insight into their local communities with just a few clicks. The flexibility to customize, brand and tailor their websites and sales materials to meet each of their customer/prospect’s needs. The content that increases their search engine placement and costumer engagement. They need to be a local expert, a resource, an authority on  local stats and ‘in the know’ information in order to attract, retain and drive quality lead generation.

Technology-driven tools for agents and the need for outsourced data and content used to be something that only the most tech savvy and prosperous companies were involved in. Now, especially with the economic state, it’s a ‘must have’ ‘gotta do’ business move not only to get onboard but to find the highest quality, most efficient, and most cost effective solutions possible.

We started meeting this demand roughly a decade ago when it all started, fine tuning and perfecting the art of data aggregation. Over the years we’ve made it our goal to produce the most accurate and trusted localized content to some of the most established information resources in the country; Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corporation, Century 21, NRT, Realtor.com, Long & Foster, The New York Times, WashingtonPost.com, CNN Money Magazine, and many more.

MLSs and REALTORS®  also have a major responsibility to provide their agents with easy to use tools and accurate local information and have shown an increased interest, over the the past year or so, in the solutions and services we can provide.

We decided to answer the call with our new solution, MLS OneSource.

“Creating the MLS OneSource platform was a natural progression for us. “With an influx of calls and interest stemming from the increase in pressure on agents to enhance their value proposition to consumers, it just made sense for us to formalize a platform. MLS OneSource is specifically designed to help MLSs and REALTORS® engage their consumers by providing relevant and insightful local content and easily integrated solutions that fit their individual business models.” – Marc Siden, CEO, Onboard Informatic

We are excited to launch and introduce MLS OneSource at the CMLS 2009 event this week in Lake Tahoe, California. The platform contains a suite of cutting edge products and services giving full access to our localized content for both agent portals as well as consumer-facing websites. Content categories include detailed information such as home sales, trends, school profiles with GreatSchools.net ratings, demographics, local amenities, and neighborhood boundaries.

The suite of products and solutions offered in the platform range from customizable reports and presentations, easily integrated plug and play neighborhood search tools, standardized web services, to fully tailored delivery of all Onboard’s data, providing complete control over design, development and integration. These tools play a major role in adding value to real estate websites through increasing search engine placement and customer engagement all while building credibility and quality lead generation.

Now is the time for not only real estate but all industries to realize the importance and value in innovative  web and technology solutions. The number of buyers using the internet to do their own research is only growing by the day.

Online shopping trends are showing a consistent rise due to the great response from people. In the coming years, the numbers suggesting the development of the online shopping trends are expected to rise alarmingly.

Kim Cipriano Prior, Onboard’s National Sales Director, is solely devoted to understanding and addressing the MLS sector’s unique set of needs. Kim has over 15 years in strategic business development and sales and marketing experience with 10 years specifically dedicated to the real estate industry and working with MLSs.

If you are interested in learning more about Onboard’s MLS OneSource platform, please email Kim Cipriano Prior at kprior@onboardinformatics or call 646-747-4396.

Tags: CMLS 2009, community reports, data, MLS, neighborhood data, Real Estate, realtors, school profiles, technology tools.

September 29th, 2009

America’s Best Affordable Places to Retire

By Jackie Berg, Marketing Director

An astounding 93% of the growth in the U.S. labor force through 2016 will be among workers over 55, according to a recent Pew Research Center study. With more Americans delaying retirement, U.S. News & World Report chose to focus on affordable destinations in the third annual Best Places to Retire list.

The 2009 Best Affordable Places to Retire, powered by Onboard Informatics demographic and economic indicators, reflects the shifting expectations of retirees. Rather than focusing on popular (and pricey) retirement hubs, U.S. News selected affordable high-value spots with great amenities. In order to make the cut, cities needed high-quality healthcare and elder-care facilities and outstanding cultural and learning programs.

The analysis didn’t stop there. The U.S. News editorial team conducted interviews with residents in the top towns to get a true picture of each city.

Tucson offers great outdoor activities and affordable housing for retiring seniors.

Realizing that retirement goals are extremely personal, the new U.S. News package also includes an interactive search tool for retirees to find towns that conform to their lifestyle needs and preferences.

The Best Places to Retire search application weighs a user’s criteria against a database of 2,000 places with populations of at least 10,000 and crime equal to or below the national average. Complete methodology is found here.

Listed alphabetically, here are the top 10 places to retire:

• Ann Arbor, Michigan
• Asheville, North Carolina
• Aurora, Colorado
• Columbia, South Carolina
• Columbus, Ohio
• Eugene, Oregon
• Fort Worth, Texas
• Jacksonville, Florida
• Kansas City, Missouri
• Tucson, Arizona

The Best Affordable Places, featured in October’s U.S. News & World Report magazine, hit newsstands today.

Tags: Best Affordable Places to Retire, Best Places, community data, neighborhood data, relocation, US News.