February 22, 2024

HouseCanary Data Points Part I: Valuation

an image of a house with a sign in front that says "sold"

Sophisticated valuation Data Points from HouseCanary support business decisions across the real estate industry. Our Data Points are a wide range of API endpoints delivering up-to-the-minute real estate data and proprietary HouseCanary analytics. Use the following Data Points to take a closer look at a property’s true market value.

This article is part one of a four-part series. Find out how HouseCanary can help you stay ahead of the curve with HouseCanary Data Points Part II: Forecasting. Discover other ways HouseCanary can support your business in HouseCanary Data Points Part III: Rental Analysis, and HouseCanary Data Points Part IV: Market Analysis.The HouseCanary automated valuation model (AVM)

HouseCanary’s automated valuation model (AVM) is at the heart of our technology. The HouseCanary AVM generates a given property’s fair-market value using the power of machine learning. We gather, combine, and filter property data from a wide variety of sources to fuel our AVM. Human and automated systems check quality for all addresses and property details as they feed into the HouseCanary dataset. ​​​​​​​Premium valuation Data Points

The HouseCanary AVM generates both a property value and a range of high and low values that could apply to the subject home. Our algorithm examines information about the subject property, its background, land, comparables, transaction history, and neighborhood area. The AVM’s confidence level will be higher if the data in each group is high-quality, and it will be lower if we’re missing any data or we’re unsure of the quality of the data we’ve collected.

Missing or incorrect data can introduce errors into any valuation method. We’ve built a model which diagnoses data exceptions for your review. Value Analysis recommends the best method to secure a high-confidence valuation for a specific property based on the publicly available data for that property.

  • Land Value — HouseCanary’s valuation for land a property sits on
  • Loan-to-Value (LTV) Details — itemized active liens and details on monthly payment, interest rate, and more
  • Loan-to-Value (LTV) Origination — mortgage value compared to property value at time of origination, expressed as a ratio to help you determine risk
  • Value — HouseCanary’s proprietary AVM, updated monthly
  • Value Analysis — context and confidence for our automated valuation
    preliminary data checks
  • preliminary data density checks
  • details on comps and neighborhood norms
  • AVM value and confidence
  • recommended next step for valuation process
  • Value Distribution — block and block group distribution summaries of property values and dollars per square foot

Data Points for additional property valuation context

These Data Points explore home attributes and property details that contribute to the desirability of a property.

Property Details include any building attributes described in the county assessor’s office records. Geo Features gives you even more information about home and yard qualities, including HouseCanary’s proprietary Privacy Score. Privacy expectations vary widely by region and population density, so our Privacy Score rates a property’s privacy relative to local parcels. We also use our localized AVMs to adjust value based on home condition or potential upgrades.

  • Census — statistical geographical areas including census tracts and urban areas
  • Property Details — property assessment with building characteristics (beds, baths etc)
  • Property Details Enhanced — in-depth property characteristics
  • Geocode — property address converted to latitude and longitude coordinates
  • Geo Features — geographic attributes of the property
  • frontage length in feet
  • orientation of the front of the house
  • HouseCanary’s proprietary Privacy Scores relative to homes in the area
  • view angle from the backyard and from the center of the parcel
  • measurement of how exposed the backyard is to neighbors
  • Owner Occupied — home-owner occupancy information
  • Value Details Adjusted — property value if bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, or pool were added
  • Value Within Block — position of property value relative to block’s value distribution

Data Points on transaction history

HouseCanary offers much more information about individual homes than you’ll find on MLS listings. We provide MLS information to qualified MLS members, and then supplement it with data from other sources.
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Transaction history Data Points help tell you the whole story about a property of interest.

  • Mortgage Lien — details on mortgages and liens since the current owner purchased the property
  • Mortgage Lien All — details on all mortgages and liens recorded for the property under any owner
  • Sales History — detailed history on all recorded transactions for the property
  • Tax History — current and historical tax assessment values for the property

Data Points on property risk

Instead of using multiple databases to research risk assessment, let HouseCanary be your single source of truth. Our dataset includes extensive information from a wide variety of public records and government agencies. Using the following Data Points, you can evaluate all kinds of risks related to a property: ​​​​​​​

  • Crime — crimes reported in the last two years on the block
  • property
  • violent
  • other
  • FEMA Disaster Area — details about open FEMA-recognized disasters
  • Flood — flood hazard information from the FEMA Flood Map Center
  • Earthquake — earthquake risk for the block according to the US Geological Survey
  • Hail — HouseCanary’s summary of hailstorm activity for the block
  • Hurricane — HouseCanary’s summary of hurricane activity for the block
  • Tornado — HouseCanary’s summary of tornado activity for the block
  • Wind — HouseCanary’s summary of windstorm activity for the block
  • NOD — notice of default information
  • School — information about nearby schools
  • Superfund — federally designated toxic contamination cleanup sites on the block

Get the information you need with HouseCanary

Informed real estate decisions depend on mountains of data, but extended research adds costs and slows you down. At HouseCanary we gather the data for you, normalize it, and develop sophisticated analytics to answer your complex property-related questions at a glance.

Valuation tools are one aspect of what HouseCanary offers our customers. We also provide forecasting, rental analysis, and market analysis Data Points that deliver intelligent real estate data directly into the hands of real estate decision-makers. Check out our comprehensive API documentation to see what’s available.
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Interested in more info about how HouseCanary can help you?