Property data and analytics firm RealtyTrac has entered the tax, deed and mortgage data licensing business, making it the first new entrant in the business in more than a decade.
The announcement follows Tuesday's news that competitor CoreLogic had completed its acquisition of DataQuick for about $661 million. An agreement between CoreLogic and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) paved the way for RealtyTrac to get access to the data needed in order to launch its new tax, deed and mortgage data licensing business. As stipulated in the agreement, CoreLogic must license to RealtyTrac its national assessor and recorder bulk data, as well as several ancillary data sets that DataQuick provides, so as to level the competitive playing field between the two firms.
The new, nationwide property-level data set for tax, deed and mortgage records complements RealtyTrac's proprietary database of more than 20 million current and historical foreclosure records and local and environmental data through Homefacts. In essence, the launch of the new division makes RealtyTrac a stronger competitor in the property data and analytics field.
‘For nearly 20 years, RealtyTrac has been a market leader in B2B and B2C applications for comprehensive real estate data, and we are excited to expand our data footprint and continue our mission of bringing more data to more people,’ says Jamie Moyle, CEO at RealtyTrac, in a release. ‘We are expanding the horizons in every direction when it comes to leveraging real estate data for personal, business and policy decision-making.
‘We will continue to grow our aggregation department even further to make more data available to our customers, but this was a big step," Moyle adds. "RealtyTrac will bring the same creativity, flexibility and transparency to the market for tax, deed and mortgage data that it brought to the foreclosure data market more than 10 years ago and that it brought to the local and environmental data market two years ago with the acquisition of Homefacts."
In related news, RealtyTrac has hired industry veteran Brian Mushaney to head up its file licensing division. Mushaney, who has 28 years of experience, previously worked as a senior executive with X1 Analytics. Prior to that, he was senior vice president of sales within the data solutions group at Lender Processing Services (now Black Knight Financial Services).
‘This move marks the first new entrant into data licensing since FNF purchased IDM Corp. in 2001,’ Mushaney says. ‘RealtyTrac now offers a third option to value added resellers or licensees in the industry. The main difference is our lack of channel- or client-specific conflict with our potential license partners. We look to be a business partner and enable our partners with the data that is the foundation to making smart business decisions.
‘Whether customers desire a bulk file license, custom API or a more creative solution, RealtyTrac has the internal knowledge and expertise to quickly enable innovative new products that continue to challenge the status quo of buying, selling and analyzing real estate,’ Mushaney adds.
Richard Sawicky, senior director of database technology at RealtyTrac, says, ‘Just as RealtyTrac disrupted the hidden distressed market with its democratization of foreclosure data when I first joined the company nearly a decade ago, we now have the ability to be a positive disruptive force in the entire universe of housing information, in which there have been limited options to acquire and analyze record-level real estate data.’
The launch of the new tax, deed and mortgage data licensing business means RealtyTrac can now deliver historical sales transaction data back to the year 2000, including details such as sales date, price, buyer, seller and foreclosure status at the time of sale. This also includes deeds and conveyances that are non-arms-length transactions.
RealtyTrac will also be able to deliver detailed mortgage activity data, including current open loans and position of those outstanding loans, along with loan details such as originating lender, interest rate and loan type. Â
The firm will also be able to deliver both current and historical estimated market value (AVM) data. Parcel-level market value snapshots are available for about 3 billion properties, RealtyTrac claims.
RealtyTrac will also be able to deliver property characteristics data, such as the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, lot size, property type, year built and much more. What's more, it will be able to provide tax-assessed value and history of property taxes levied for specific properties, as well as current ownership status (i.e., vacant, owner-occupied, non-owner-occupied).
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