The Real Estate industry is one of the most competitive industries today. In any geographical area there are dozens of real estate companies trying to get their slice of the pie. To get ahead, you must have superior service and knowledge; but first, you must have all the facts. You need to understand the current market for the geographical location where you are working, as well as how it is expected to perform in the future.

To properly understand pricing, you need to run the comps. “Run the comps” is real estate jargon for the method of determining what the competitive price for a given property would be based on the price that similar properties in the area  have been able to fetch on a per square foot basis. This process involves taking the sale price and dividing it by the number of square feet to figure out an average, and then comparing this against other similar properties to get an average price per square foot ratio. Of course, foreclosures need to also be taken into consideration. Much of this information is restricted to real estate agents in their Multiple Listing Service database, referred to as MLS.

As a real estate professional, you need to have a working knowledge of agents, listings, plots, and prices. Gathering this information and processing it can be both time consuming and tedious, not to mention difficult to get. To stay ahead in the marketplace, one must not only understand current market trends but also be able to forecast where they are going in the future.

A prominent Miami broker and investor – Nicolas Quijano, once said:

     “When the market is good, and money is easy to get, everybody is good in real estate, even your family pet, but the best are able to see when the market is going down and know how to plan accordingly”.

Gain An Edge In The Marketplace

Once you have the data you need, you need to be able to analyze and process it to gain a solid footing. One of the most useful and easiest ways to collect, analyze and interpret the various forms of data needed to excel in the real estate business is data scraping. Data scraping services can get the comps, current market values, exhaustive agent information, buyer and seller details, etc. Using this information can allow you to see where the market is currently at and where it is trending. Scraping data from relevant websites can process this information and break it down so that you can understand current, as well as future market values in your geographical area.

Data scraping not only gives valuable details for the current market conditions, but also helps you understand where the market is going in the future. It can analyze listing and agent information as well as emails and allow you to form your own database. Armed with this data, you can develop proper, competitive marketing strategies and gain a more secure position in the real estate industry. Having a more comprehensive database will not only lead to better sales, but to the potential of becoming an innovator in the industry. This kind of insight can allow you to get ahead of, and stay ahead of, the competition.

Data Scraping Services Can Help

Scraping manually from listings and investor websites can not only be time consuming and tedious, but also brings in the possibility of inaccuracy. The number one way to get useful and accurate data is to use data scraping services. One must have credible, useful, and accurate data.

Third party data scraping services:

  1. Help materialize this goal and turn it into a reality
  2. Scrape websites for specific information and use it to form personalized databases
  3. Scour the web for this vital data, compile it, and verify its accuracy
  4. Ensure proper information gathering as well as guarantee accuracy in results
  5. Save valuable time, and get market data from listings and other sources

Data scraping services crawl existing websites and get relevant data according to the parameters that it is programmed to operate by. Then they break this data down into easily understandable information in databases ready to be consumed by the customer. This will effectively improve search engine optimization for your real estate practice.

In developing your real estate practice, scraping real estate websites can empower you to locate useful information for your daily operations. It provides you with access to volumes of information from real estate websites according to the criteria that you determine. This process provides that information in an organized way that can be stored in a database that you can retrieve on demand when you need it. You can establish parameters that search for specific types of properties, at a given location, of a particular size, a certain set of amenities, as well as by price and developer. It can locate and discover information from virtually any corner of the web, providing a cluster of data that can be a catalyst for your real estate aspirations.

A Game Changer

The real estate industry is full of competition, and web scraping can be the means that you use to create a database that you can use to differentiate your business and make it stand out. It makes it possible to present for your clients a useful information they’re looking for as they seek to buy or sell a property.

Buyers want to know more than just the details about the property. They want to know about the school zone, proximity to various attractions and amenities. And the sellers want to know that they’re in competent hands with an agent who knows the market and knows what they are doing. With a satisfied customer base, you will be able to ensure that your business prospers and provides the kind of returns you’re looking for.

Please, share your thoughts or experience in the comment section below.