#Redfin Data Scraper

[datafusionx]

🏡 Real Estate Web Scraping — A Simple Way to Collect Property Info Online

Looking at houses online is fun… but trying to keep track of all the details? Not so much.

If you’ve ever searched for homes or rental properties, you know how tiring it can be to jump from site to site, writing down prices, addresses, and details. Now imagine if there was a way to automatically collect that information in one place. Good news — there is!

It’s called real estate web scraping, and it makes life so much easier.

🤔 What Is Real Estate Web Scraping?

Real estate web scraping is a tool that helps you gather information from property websites — like Zillow, Realtor.com, Redfin, or local listing sites — all without doing it by hand.

Instead of copying and pasting, the tool goes to the website, reads the page, and pulls out things like:

The home’s price

Location and zip code

Square footage and number of rooms

Photos

Description

Contact info for the seller or agent

And it puts all that data in a nice, clean file you can use.

🧑‍💼 Who Is It For?

Real estate web scraping is useful for anyone who wants to collect a lot of property data quickly:

Buyers and investors looking for the best deals

Real estate agents tracking listings in their area

Developers building property websites or apps

People comparing prices in different cities

Marketing teams trying to find leads

It saves time and gives you a better view of what’s happening in the market.

🛠️ How Can You Do It?

If you’re good with code, there are tools like Python, Scrapy, and Selenium that let you build your own scraper.

But if you’re not into tech stuff, no worries. There are ready-made tools that do everything for you. One of the easiest options is this real estate web scraping solution. It works in the cloud, is beginner-friendly, and gives you the data you need without the stress.

🛑 Is It Legal?

Great question — and yes, as long as you’re careful.

Scraping public information (like listings on a website) is generally okay. Just make sure to:

Don’t overload the website with too many requests

Avoid collecting private info

Follow the website’s rules (terms of service)

Be respectful — don’t spam or misuse the data

Using a trusted tool (like the one linked above) helps keep things safe and easy.

💡 Why Use Real Estate Scraping?

Here are some real-life examples:

You’re a property investor comparing house prices in 10 cities — scraping gives you all the prices in one spreadsheet.

You’re a developer building a housing app — scraping provides live listings to show your users.

You’re just curious about trends — scraping lets you track how prices change over time.

It’s all about saving time and seeing the full picture.

✅ In Short…

Real estate web scraping helps you collect a lot of property data from the internet without doing it all manually. It’s fast, smart, and incredibly helpful—whether you’re buying, building, or just exploring.

And the best part? You don’t need to be a tech expert. This real estate web scraping solution makes it super simple to get started.

Give it a try and see how much easier your real estate research can be.

[actowizsolutions0]

 Real Estate Data Scraping Services for Smarter Decisions

Introduction In today’s fast-paced property market, data-driven decision-making is no longer optional—it's essential. Real estate professionals, investors, and property tech companies rely on precise, up-to-date data to gain a competitive edge. At Actowiz Solutions, our advanced real estate data scraping services empower you to tap into actionable insights from top listing sites and public property records with ease.

Why Real Estate Data Scraping Is a Game-Changer

The real estate industry is flooded with constantly shifting data—listings, pricing trends, zoning changes, and more. Manual data collection is time-consuming and error-prone. That’s where web scraping for real estate data comes in. It automates data extraction from top portals like Zillow, Realtor.com, Redfin, and other major platforms.

Whether you want to monitor housing market trends, perform property valuation analysis, or power your real estate platform, our real estate web scraping solutions deliver clean, structured data in real-time.

Key Benefits of Our Real Estate Scraper Tools

Custom Data Points – Extract property details, pricing, photos, agent info, and more.

Scalable Architecture – Collect data across multiple cities, states, or countries.

Real-Time Updates – Stay informed on the latest listings and market shifts.

Discover more about our powerful real estate scraper that can fetch data across major platforms, tailored to your business needs.

Gain a Competitive Edge with Real Estate Data Intelligence

Data isn't just about numbers—it’s about insights. Our specialized real estate data intelligence services help you unlock deeper trends and buyer behaviors. From market forecasting to location analytics, our intelligence layer helps you make smarter investments and strategic decisions.

Use Cases for Real Estate Data Collection

Brokerage Platforms: Track competitor listings and pricing strategies.

Property Developers: Analyze land use, permits, and zoning data.

Real Estate Investors: Identify undervalued properties and market gaps.

AI/ML Models: Feed historical and real-time data for valuation algorithms.

Explore how our scrape real estate solutions can help you automate and scale your operations.

Conclusion

With Actowiz Solutions, you gain a technology partner equipped to handle complex real estate data challenges. Whether you're looking to streamline your workflows or fuel next-gen analytics, our real estate data scraping tools and services are designed to meet your goals with precision and efficiency.

Ready to revolutionize your real estate data strategy? Contact us today to schedule a free consultation.

[actowiz1]

Redfin Real Estate Data Scraper | Redfin Scraping Tools & Extension

Utilize Redfin Real Estate Data Scraper to extract Redfin Real Estate Data. Use Redfin Scraping Tools to scrape Broker’s Name, etc. in countries like USA, UK, UAE.

know more https://www.actowizsolutions.com/redfin-real-estate-data-scraper.php

[iwebdatascrape]

Redfin Data Scraper | Redfin Scraping Tool

Scrape real estate data, including property listings, prices, etc., using Redfin Data Scraper. We use a Realtor scraping tool to extract data across the USA, UK, etc.

Know More: https://www.iwebdatascraping.com/redfin-scraper.php

[3idatascraping]

If you don't have the means or technological skills to execute web scraping, finding deals on property sites is difficult. Web scraping of various property sites is provided by 3i Data Scraping in the United States and United Kingdom.

Read More: Redfin Data Scraper

[web-scraping-tutorial-blog]

How to scrape New York Apartment listings from Redfin

In this article, we will tell you how to scrape New York Apartment listings from Redfin using ScrapeStorm’s “Smart mode“.

Introduction to the scraping tool

ScrapeStorm (www.scrapestorm.com) is a new generation of Web Scraping Tool based on artificial intelligence technology. It is the first scraper to support both Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.

Introduction to the scraping object

Rent.com a leading apartment search website on the Internet catering to the millennial population. It is owned by RentPath, LLC, an operator of a number of apartment search websites, including Apartment Guide, Lovely, Rentals.com, and RentalHouses.com. RentPath is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

Official Website: https://www.rent.com/

Scraping fields

title, title_link, Price, Updated Time, Address, Bed, Pets, Call, Image

Function point directory

How to manually set the page

How to extract the list page plus the detail page

How to download images

Preview of the scraped result

Export to Excel2007:

Export images to local:

1. Download and install ScrapeStorm, then register and log in

(1) Open the ScrapeStorm official website, download and install the latest version.

(2) Click Register/Login to register a new account and then log in to ScrapeStorm.

Tips: You can use this web scraping software directly, you don’t need to register, but the tasks under the anonymous account will be lost when you switch to the registered user, so it is recommended that you use it after registration.

2. Create a task

(1) Copy the URL of Rent.com

Click here to learn more about how to enter the URL correctly.

(2) Create a new smart mode task

You can create a new scraping task directly on the software, or you can create a task by importing rules.

Click here to learn how to import and export scraping rules.

3. Configure the scraping rules

(1) Set the fields

Intelligent mode automatically recognizes the fields on the page. You can right-click the field to rename the name, add or delete fields, modify data, and so on.

Click here to learn how to how to configure the extracted field.

Add or remove fields as needed, and rename the fields. The results of the field settings are as follows:

(2) Manually set the page

Some web pages have special buttons on the next page, and the system may not recognize them. In this case, you need to manually set the page to “Select Page Button”, then click the symbol for next page.

Click here to learn how to manually select the page.

(3) Use the “Scrape into” feature to scrape the detail page data

There is only partial data on the list page, you can use the “scrape into” function to enter the detail page to scrape the data.

Click here to learn how to extract the list page plus the detail page.

Then we add the required fields: Address, Bed, Pets, Call, Image

4. Set up and start the scraping task

(1) Running and Anti-block settings

Click “Setting”, set waiting time based on web page open speed. You can check “Block Images” and “Block Ads”. The anti-block settings follow the system default settings. Then click “Save”.

Click here to learn more about how to configure the scraping task.

P.S. “Block Images” will reduce the load time and speed up the scraping process. And this operation does not affect the scraping and downloading of images.

(2) Start scraping data

Premium Plan and above users can use “Scheduled job” and “Sync to Database”. If you want to download images, you can check “Download images while running”. Then click “Start”.

Click here to learn about scheduled job.

Click here to learn about sync to database.

Click here to learn about download images.

(3) Wait a moment, you will see the data being scraped.

5. Export and view data

(1) Click “Export” to download your data.

(2) Choose the format to export according to your needs.

ScrapeStorm provides a variety of export methods to export locally, such as excel, csv, html, txt or database. Professional Plan and above users can also post directly to wordpress.

Click here to learn more about how to view the extraction results and clear the extracted data.

Click here to learn more about how to export the result of extraction.

[cathrynstreich]

Pet Project or Full-Time Hustle? One Startup’s Story

My name is Steven Wynands and I’m the co-founder and CEO of Peer Reputation. Over 60,000 real estate agents and brokers use our platform to discover and leverage their professional relationships. This is my personal reflection on what happened over our first 12 months that finally gave me the courage to believe in myself and pursue this project full-time. I hope you find it interesting and that it helps you if you’re going through the same decision. 

Facing The Big Decision

I never thought I’d find myself in this position. Saddled with student loans, credit cards, a mortgage, and childcare for two, it would be very irresponsible for me to leave my cushy, government job to pursue my own startup ambitions. I tried to delay this decision as long as possible. I sacrificed sleep so that I could be there for my family and deliver everything my job expected of me. Wishfully, I hoped that the universe would take care of it for me by turning the startup into an overnight success or burying it to the ground. Neither of those things happened, but I did get plenty of signs that helped me make a decision.

Getting Inspired (Again)

I was just one year removed from an unsuccessful real estate startup that spanned two years. I had no intention of jumping into another project, but one afternoon of phone calls changed everything. The first phone call was from a buyer’s agent whose clients were interested in one of my listings. Her call made me uneasy and I wanted to protect my sellers so I made a few more calls of my own. 

I reached out to other listing agents who had recently worked with this buyer agent and was surprised by the responses. I wasn’t connected to these other agents in any way yet they openly shared detailed warnings with me about working with this buyer’s agent. They were eager and grateful for the opportunity to protect other agents and consumers from reliving their nightmares and wished there was an easier way to do so. Thankful and inspired, I called up my friend Steve with an idea.

Starting Up, Extra Lean & First Signs from The Universe

I’ve known Steve since middle school. We worked together throughout secondary school as well as college where we studied computer engineer together at Virginia Tech. We continued working together on projects after graduation including the recent unsuccessful real estate startup. At this point we were each raising two small kids and a bit burned out from long nights and weekends so I approached him with a very simple project based on the phone calls I just had that afternoon. We discussed the backstory and basic specs and agreed to meet a few days later to test out my idea.

The basic premise was simple. I wanted to know if other agents were just as eager to share their feedback to protect other agents and consumers too. To test out this idea I created a list of 600 recently sold homes along with the listing and selling agent information, and Steve coded up a test project to request feedback between these cooperating agents. We built this out on Saturday and Sunday and were ready to launch the following Monday. 

Immediately after launching our test I was prepared to throw in the towel. I thought the experiment had failed and I was just happy to know that we had only spent a few days on it. It turned out that the only failure was my uninformed expectations and analysis. I showed the results of our testing from that day to my brother who enjoys marketing as a Product Manager for Zappos and he was blown away!  He said that we were hugely successful by achieving a 70% total email open rate and 20% email click rate. 

I still wasn’t sure exactly what we were building but I knew enough from his reaction that we had to keep on going. The next week we doubled the sample size and tweaked some wording in our emails and achieved an 80% total open rate and 27% click rate! It was very clear that we were building something that people wanted. We just had to keep it going while we figured out exactly what that thing was.

Product? Market? Fits!

Over the next few weeks, we increased our survey sample sizes and maintained high open and click rates. We received over 10,000 responses in our first month! The manual data loads were becoming so overwhelming that we didn’t have time to work on the platform. I buckled down and focused on creating a web scraper to automate the data routines while Steve worked on building out the infrastructure that could house a richer experience.

Four months after conducting our first test we finally had our platform shell in place. We relaunched our feedback platform more broadly in the same local market and watched the results come in immediately. Now that we finally had a user dashboard, agents were registering and interacting directly with us. A thousand agents registered the first month and I knew we had a hit when they were telling us how surprised they were that this kind of platform hadn’t existed before. They were also asking us for more features! We could not believe how smoothly everything was happening! Things were continuing to ramp up based on user demand.

Traction and Scaling

Eight months into our project, things were going very smoothly. Peter joined us as a co-founder and freed us up to be more strategic and engaged with the user community. Our friends saw their friends using our platform from social media and asked if they could help with our startup. We all had fun learning and growing together while watching thousands of feedback and hundreds of new users register every week, but I could feel the transformation of startup project to company taking place.

10 months into the project, I was spending nights and weekends at Steve’s house again. We’d plan and program into the morning hours and then I would sleep just enough that I could drive home safely and spend time with my family. I was also working nights and weekends to deliver on my full-time job and doing 20 real estate transactions on the side. I knew it was time to come out of the startup honeymoon and figure out if this thing was going to last before I burned out again and so we put ourselves through a major test-expansion.

For the first ten months, we only served one market as we built and fine-tuned the platform. We had grown at a compound monthly growth rate of 27%, and we were ready to find out if we could replicate our success nationally. We expanded to a few test markets and were thrilled to see that the email open and click rates stayed high as we increased our registered users 42% over the previous month! Everything was going so well but I couldn’t seem to take the leap of faith and work on this project full-time. This is around the time that the universe sent more signals my way.

Our Users Established Our Product Messaging

As an engineer who got into PropTech and then became a top-producing real estate agent, I’m keenly aware of how sensitive the real estate industry can be. I studied how RedFin pulled its Scouting Report project and how Keller Williams opposed AgentMatch. But I also saw how NAR and Houston Realtors had tried moving forward with ratings, and that the agent performance analysis was enough to propel HomeLight to a $40M Series B. Since our platform was built on top of agent-to-agent ratings, I didn’t feel comfortable taking the full-time plunge yet and thrusting myself into major industry scrutiny. That changed very quickly with one phone call from a real estate agent.

Every week we receive feedback from tens of thousands of real estate agents. We also get lots of phone calls and emails about our platform that I answer personally. After I finished my usual explanation on one of these phone calls, the agent responded, “Oh, it’s about professionalism? That’s awesome.” That was the key. Although our system was built on top of ratings that’s not really what we stood for. I learned from our users that they were actually utilizing it for professionalism and accountability. We finally had a message that we could promote publicly with great confidence and it came just in time for the next big moment.

Coming Out of Stealth Mode (Product Timing & The Parker Principles)

On April 2, 2018, Inman News published The Parker Principles: A Real Estate Manifesto. It was created based on input from agents, brokers, companies, and associations from around the country as a series of principles to make real estate better. It echoed so many tenets of our startup: Quality, professionalism, and accountability in real estate. When I read The Parker Principles I felt like these industry leaders were screaming for the solution our team had built. The universe was clearly telling me to pop out of my shell and so I did. I reached out to Inman News about our platform and they covered us two months later in June. I had outed myself as the real estate agent behind Peer Reputation and there was no going back now.

Something’s Gotta Give

We were about 11 months removed from the weekend project that turned into a full-blown startup and the major Inman Connect real estate conference was coming up in mid-July. I knew we had to keep the momentum going so I took a week off from work and flew out to San Francisco to mingle with the industry I had just revealed myself to. 

On the second day of Inman Connect I was standing in the lobby of the Hilton when the COO of Remine, Jonathan Spinetto, said, “Follow me.” He led me through a series of halls and we stopped outside of a suite. When the suite doors opened a few minutes later, MLS executives walked out and I walked into a dim room lit blue by a portable projector and populated with the CEO, COO, and CFO of Remine. Jonathan handed me a display cable and said, “Demo.” 

We went over the platform, the processes, team, and potential roadmap. At one point during our discussion I remember that Mark Schacknies, then-CFO and now-CEO, told me, “You need to sleep.” It actually wasn’t the first time I had heard something like that. When Gill South interviewed us for the Inman News article, she told me that I should devote my full attention to the startup. Smart industry folks were telling me that I needed to quit my full-time job and I was finally ready to consider it.

The Tipping Point & Decision

A few weeks after coming back from Inman Connect, my boss called me into his office and asked me, “Do you have outside employment?” I responded openly and honestly and from there my work life began to unravel. My telework was cut in half which meant I spent more time driving through grueling DC area traffic. I wasn’t prepared to scale back on my startup activities when things were going so well so I just continued sleeping less.

I was tired. The startup was going great and the work environment was souring. Why couldn’t I just quit and focus on the startup? The answer was that I wanted to provide a stable environment for my wife and children, and that requires income. I had been so focused on building the platform and acquiring users that I hadn’t considered income until now. Now I was motivated, confident, and ready to take a leap. On October 17th, 2018 Peer Reputation welcomed its first paid subscriber. 10 days later, I quit my job.

Fast Forward

It’s been 9 months since I quit my job and I don’t regret it one bit. Things have not slowed down and continue to look better and better. I’d love to write more about it but, unfortunately, I’m out of time! I’ve got to get back to preparing for some major events. I’m heading to Inman Connect in Las Vegas where we’ve been selected as a finalist for the Inman Innovator Award. I’ll also be pitching onstage at the conference as one of eight selected startups at Tech Connect. If you’re going to the conference as well please swing by our table in Startup Alley to say hi! (I still can’t believe this is all happening!)

The post Pet Project or Full-Time Hustle? One Startup’s Story appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

Pet Project or Full-Time Hustle? One Startup’s Story published first on https://thegardenresidences.tumblr.com/

[brettseaton]

Pet Project or Full-Time Hustle? One Startup’s Story

My name is Steven Wynands and I’m the co-founder and CEO of Peer Reputation. Over 60,000 real estate agents and brokers use our platform to discover and leverage their professional relationships. This is my personal reflection on what happened over our first 12 months that finally gave me the courage to believe in myself and pursue this project full-time. I hope you find it interesting and that it helps you if you’re going through the same decision. 

Facing The Big Decision

I never thought I’d find myself in this position. Saddled with student loans, credit cards, a mortgage, and childcare for two, it would be very irresponsible for me to leave my cushy, government job to pursue my own startup ambitions. I tried to delay this decision as long as possible. I sacrificed sleep so that I could be there for my family and deliver everything my job expected of me. Wishfully, I hoped that the universe would take care of it for me by turning the startup into an overnight success or burying it to the ground. Neither of those things happened, but I did get plenty of signs that helped me make a decision.

Getting Inspired (Again)

I was just one year removed from an unsuccessful real estate startup that spanned two years. I had no intention of jumping into another project, but one afternoon of phone calls changed everything. The first phone call was from a buyer’s agent whose clients were interested in one of my listings. Her call made me uneasy and I wanted to protect my sellers so I made a few more calls of my own. 

I reached out to other listing agents who had recently worked with this buyer agent and was surprised by the responses. I wasn’t connected to these other agents in any way yet they openly shared detailed warnings with me about working with this buyer’s agent. They were eager and grateful for the opportunity to protect other agents and consumers from reliving their nightmares and wished there was an easier way to do so. Thankful and inspired, I called up my friend Steve with an idea.

Starting Up, Extra Lean & First Signs from The Universe

I’ve known Steve since middle school. We worked together throughout secondary school as well as college where we studied computer engineer together at Virginia Tech. We continued working together on projects after graduation including the recent unsuccessful real estate startup. At this point we were each raising two small kids and a bit burned out from long nights and weekends so I approached him with a very simple project based on the phone calls I just had that afternoon. We discussed the backstory and basic specs and agreed to meet a few days later to test out my idea.

The basic premise was simple. I wanted to know if other agents were just as eager to share their feedback to protect other agents and consumers too. To test out this idea I created a list of 600 recently sold homes along with the listing and selling agent information, and Steve coded up a test project to request feedback between these cooperating agents. We built this out on Saturday and Sunday and were ready to launch the following Monday. 

Immediately after launching our test I was prepared to throw in the towel. I thought the experiment had failed and I was just happy to know that we had only spent a few days on it. It turned out that the only failure was my uninformed expectations and analysis. I showed the results of our testing from that day to my brother who enjoys marketing as a Product Manager for Zappos and he was blown away!  He said that we were hugely successful by achieving a 70% total email open rate and 20% email click rate. 

I still wasn’t sure exactly what we were building but I knew enough from his reaction that we had to keep on going. The next week we doubled the sample size and tweaked some wording in our emails and achieved an 80% total open rate and 27% click rate! It was very clear that we were building something that people wanted. We just had to keep it going while we figured out exactly what that thing was.

Product? Market? Fits!

Over the next few weeks, we increased our survey sample sizes and maintained high open and click rates. We received over 10,000 responses in our first month! The manual data loads were becoming so overwhelming that we didn’t have time to work on the platform. I buckled down and focused on creating a web scraper to automate the data routines while Steve worked on building out the infrastructure that could house a richer experience.

Four months after conducting our first test we finally had our platform shell in place. We relaunched our feedback platform more broadly in the same local market and watched the results come in immediately. Now that we finally had a user dashboard, agents were registering and interacting directly with us. A thousand agents registered the first month and I knew we had a hit when they were telling us how surprised they were that this kind of platform hadn’t existed before. They were also asking us for more features! We could not believe how smoothly everything was happening! Things were continuing to ramp up based on user demand.

Traction and Scaling

Eight months into our project, things were going very smoothly. Peter joined us as a co-founder and freed us up to be more strategic and engaged with the user community. Our friends saw their friends using our platform from social media and asked if they could help with our startup. We all had fun learning and growing together while watching thousands of feedback and hundreds of new users register every week, but I could feel the transformation of startup project to company taking place.

10 months into the project, I was spending nights and weekends at Steve’s house again. We’d plan and program into the morning hours and then I would sleep just enough that I could drive home safely and spend time with my family. I was also working nights and weekends to deliver on my full-time job and doing 20 real estate transactions on the side. I knew it was time to come out of the startup honeymoon and figure out if this thing was going to last before I burned out again and so we put ourselves through a major test-expansion.

For the first ten months, we only served one market as we built and fine-tuned the platform. We had grown at a compound monthly growth rate of 27%, and we were ready to find out if we could replicate our success nationally. We expanded to a few test markets and were thrilled to see that the email open and click rates stayed high as we increased our registered users 42% over the previous month! Everything was going so well but I couldn’t seem to take the leap of faith and work on this project full-time. This is around the time that the universe sent more signals my way.

Our Users Established Our Product Messaging

As an engineer who got into PropTech and then became a top-producing real estate agent, I’m keenly aware of how sensitive the real estate industry can be. I studied how RedFin pulled its Scouting Report project and how Keller Williams opposed AgentMatch. But I also saw how NAR and Houston Realtors had tried moving forward with ratings, and that the agent performance analysis was enough to propel HomeLight to a $40M Series B. Since our platform was built on top of agent-to-agent ratings, I didn’t feel comfortable taking the full-time plunge yet and thrusting myself into major industry scrutiny. That changed very quickly with one phone call from a real estate agent.

Every week we receive feedback from tens of thousands of real estate agents. We also get lots of phone calls and emails about our platform that I answer personally. After I finished my usual explanation on one of these phone calls, the agent responded, “Oh, it’s about professionalism? That’s awesome.” That was the key. Although our system was built on top of ratings that’s not really what we stood for. I learned from our users that they were actually utilizing it for professionalism and accountability. We finally had a message that we could promote publicly with great confidence and it came just in time for the next big moment.

Coming Out of Stealth Mode (Product Timing & The Parker Principles)

On April 2, 2018, Inman News published The Parker Principles: A Real Estate Manifesto. It was created based on input from agents, brokers, companies, and associations from around the country as a series of principles to make real estate better. It echoed so many tenets of our startup: Quality, professionalism, and accountability in real estate. When I read The Parker Principles I felt like these industry leaders were screaming for the solution our team had built. The universe was clearly telling me to pop out of my shell and so I did. I reached out to Inman News about our platform and they covered us two months later in June. I had outed myself as the real estate agent behind Peer Reputation and there was no going back now.

Something’s Gotta Give

We were about 11 months removed from the weekend project that turned into a full-blown startup and the major Inman Connect real estate conference was coming up in mid-July. I knew we had to keep the momentum going so I took a week off from work and flew out to San Francisco to mingle with the industry I had just revealed myself to. 

On the second day of Inman Connect I was standing in the lobby of the Hilton when the COO of Remine, Jonathan Spinetto, said, “Follow me.” He led me through a series of halls and we stopped outside of a suite. When the suite doors opened a few minutes later, MLS executives walked out and I walked into a dim room lit blue by a portable projector and populated with the CEO, COO, and CFO of Remine. Jonathan handed me a display cable and said, “Demo.” 

We went over the platform, the processes, team, and potential roadmap. At one point during our discussion I remember that Mark Schacknies, then-CFO and now-CEO, told me, “You need to sleep.” It actually wasn’t the first time I had heard something like that. When Gill South interviewed us for the Inman News article, she told me that I should devote my full attention to the startup. Smart industry folks were telling me that I needed to quit my full-time job and I was finally ready to consider it.

The Tipping Point & Decision

A few weeks after coming back from Inman Connect, my boss called me into his office and asked me, “Do you have outside employment?” I responded openly and honestly and from there my work life began to unravel. My telework was cut in half which meant I spent more time driving through grueling DC area traffic. I wasn’t prepared to scale back on my startup activities when things were going so well so I just continued sleeping less.

I was tired. The startup was going great and the work environment was souring. Why couldn’t I just quit and focus on the startup? The answer was that I wanted to provide a stable environment for my wife and children, and that requires income. I had been so focused on building the platform and acquiring users that I hadn’t considered income until now. Now I was motivated, confident, and ready to take a leap. On October 17th, 2018 Peer Reputation welcomed its first paid subscriber. 10 days later, I quit my job.

Fast Forward

It’s been 9 months since I quit my job and I don’t regret it one bit. Things have not slowed down and continue to look better and better. I’d love to write more about it but, unfortunately, I’m out of time! I’ve got to get back to preparing for some major events. I’m heading to Inman Connect in Las Vegas where we’ve been selected as a finalist for the Inman Innovator Award. I’ll also be pitching onstage at the conference as one of eight selected startups at Tech Connect. If you’re going to the conference as well please swing by our table in Startup Alley to say hi! (I still can’t believe this is all happening!)

The post Pet Project or Full-Time Hustle? One Startup’s Story appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

Pet Project or Full-Time Hustle? One Startup’s Story syndicated from https://oicrealestate.wordpress.com/

[clarencevancleave]

Pet Project or Full-Time Hustle? One Startup’s Story

My name is Steven Wynands and I’m the co-founder and CEO of Peer Reputation. Over 60,000 real estate agents and brokers use our platform to discover and leverage their professional relationships. This is my personal reflection on what happened over our first 12 months that finally gave me the courage to believe in myself and pursue this project full-time. I hope you find it interesting and that it helps you if you’re going through the same decision. 

Facing The Big Decision

I never thought I’d find myself in this position. Saddled with student loans, credit cards, a mortgage, and childcare for two, it would be very irresponsible for me to leave my cushy, government job to pursue my own startup ambitions. I tried to delay this decision as long as possible. I sacrificed sleep so that I could be there for my family and deliver everything my job expected of me. Wishfully, I hoped that the universe would take care of it for me by turning the startup into an overnight success or burying it to the ground. Neither of those things happened, but I did get plenty of signs that helped me make a decision.

Getting Inspired (Again)

I was just one year removed from an unsuccessful real estate startup that spanned two years. I had no intention of jumping into another project, but one afternoon of phone calls changed everything. The first phone call was from a buyer’s agent whose clients were interested in one of my listings. Her call made me uneasy and I wanted to protect my sellers so I made a few more calls of my own. 

I reached out to other listing agents who had recently worked with this buyer agent and was surprised by the responses. I wasn’t connected to these other agents in any way yet they openly shared detailed warnings with me about working with this buyer’s agent. They were eager and grateful for the opportunity to protect other agents and consumers from reliving their nightmares and wished there was an easier way to do so. Thankful and inspired, I called up my friend Steve with an idea.

Starting Up, Extra Lean & First Signs from The Universe

I’ve known Steve since middle school. We worked together throughout secondary school as well as college where we studied computer engineer together at Virginia Tech. We continued working together on projects after graduation including the recent unsuccessful real estate startup. At this point we were each raising two small kids and a bit burned out from long nights and weekends so I approached him with a very simple project based on the phone calls I just had that afternoon. We discussed the backstory and basic specs and agreed to meet a few days later to test out my idea.

The basic premise was simple. I wanted to know if other agents were just as eager to share their feedback to protect other agents and consumers too. To test out this idea I created a list of 600 recently sold homes along with the listing and selling agent information, and Steve coded up a test project to request feedback between these cooperating agents. We built this out on Saturday and Sunday and were ready to launch the following Monday. 

Immediately after launching our test I was prepared to throw in the towel. I thought the experiment had failed and I was just happy to know that we had only spent a few days on it. It turned out that the only failure was my uninformed expectations and analysis. I showed the results of our testing from that day to my brother who enjoys marketing as a Product Manager for Zappos and he was blown away!  He said that we were hugely successful by achieving a 70% total email open rate and 20% email click rate. 

I still wasn’t sure exactly what we were building but I knew enough from his reaction that we had to keep on going. The next week we doubled the sample size and tweaked some wording in our emails and achieved an 80% total open rate and 27% click rate! It was very clear that we were building something that people wanted. We just had to keep it going while we figured out exactly what that thing was.

Product? Market? Fits!

Over the next few weeks, we increased our survey sample sizes and maintained high open and click rates. We received over 10,000 responses in our first month! The manual data loads were becoming so overwhelming that we didn’t have time to work on the platform. I buckled down and focused on creating a web scraper to automate the data routines while Steve worked on building out the infrastructure that could house a richer experience.

Four months after conducting our first test we finally had our platform shell in place. We relaunched our feedback platform more broadly in the same local market and watched the results come in immediately. Now that we finally had a user dashboard, agents were registering and interacting directly with us. A thousand agents registered the first month and I knew we had a hit when they were telling us how surprised they were that this kind of platform hadn’t existed before. They were also asking us for more features! We could not believe how smoothly everything was happening! Things were continuing to ramp up based on user demand.

Traction and Scaling

Eight months into our project, things were going very smoothly. Peter joined us as a co-founder and freed us up to be more strategic and engaged with the user community. Our friends saw their friends using our platform from social media and asked if they could help with our startup. We all had fun learning and growing together while watching thousands of feedback and hundreds of new users register every week, but I could feel the transformation of startup project to company taking place.

10 months into the project, I was spending nights and weekends at Steve’s house again. We’d plan and program into the morning hours and then I would sleep just enough that I could drive home safely and spend time with my family. I was also working nights and weekends to deliver on my full-time job and doing 20 real estate transactions on the side. I knew it was time to come out of the startup honeymoon and figure out if this thing was going to last before I burned out again and so we put ourselves through a major test-expansion.

For the first ten months, we only served one market as we built and fine-tuned the platform. We had grown at a compound monthly growth rate of 27%, and we were ready to find out if we could replicate our success nationally. We expanded to a few test markets and were thrilled to see that the email open and click rates stayed high as we increased our registered users 42% over the previous month! Everything was going so well but I couldn’t seem to take the leap of faith and work on this project full-time. This is around the time that the universe sent more signals my way.

Our Users Established Our Product Messaging

As an engineer who got into PropTech and then became a top-producing real estate agent, I’m keenly aware of how sensitive the real estate industry can be. I studied how RedFin pulled its Scouting Report project and how Keller Williams opposed AgentMatch. But I also saw how NAR and Houston Realtors had tried moving forward with ratings, and that the agent performance analysis was enough to propel HomeLight to a $40M Series B. Since our platform was built on top of agent-to-agent ratings, I didn’t feel comfortable taking the full-time plunge yet and thrusting myself into major industry scrutiny. That changed very quickly with one phone call from a real estate agent.

Every week we receive feedback from tens of thousands of real estate agents. We also get lots of phone calls and emails about our platform that I answer personally. After I finished my usual explanation on one of these phone calls, the agent responded, “Oh, it’s about professionalism? That’s awesome.” That was the key. Although our system was built on top of ratings that’s not really what we stood for. I learned from our users that they were actually utilizing it for professionalism and accountability. We finally had a message that we could promote publicly with great confidence and it came just in time for the next big moment.

Coming Out of Stealth Mode (Product Timing & The Parker Principles)

On April 2, 2018, Inman News published The Parker Principles: A Real Estate Manifesto. It was created based on input from agents, brokers, companies, and associations from around the country as a series of principles to make real estate better. It echoed so many tenets of our startup: Quality, professionalism, and accountability in real estate. When I read The Parker Principles I felt like these industry leaders were screaming for the solution our team had built. The universe was clearly telling me to pop out of my shell and so I did. I reached out to Inman News about our platform and they covered us two months later in June. I had outed myself as the real estate agent behind Peer Reputation and there was no going back now.

Something’s Gotta Give

We were about 11 months removed from the weekend project that turned into a full-blown startup and the major Inman Connect real estate conference was coming up in mid-July. I knew we had to keep the momentum going so I took a week off from work and flew out to San Francisco to mingle with the industry I had just revealed myself to. 

On the second day of Inman Connect I was standing in the lobby of the Hilton when the COO of Remine, Jonathan Spinetto, said, “Follow me.” He led me through a series of halls and we stopped outside of a suite. When the suite doors opened a few minutes later, MLS executives walked out and I walked into a dim room lit blue by a portable projector and populated with the CEO, COO, and CFO of Remine. Jonathan handed me a display cable and said, “Demo.” 

We went over the platform, the processes, team, and potential roadmap. At one point during our discussion I remember that Mark Schacknies, then-CFO and now-CEO, told me, “You need to sleep.” It actually wasn’t the first time I had heard something like that. When Gill South interviewed us for the Inman News article, she told me that I should devote my full attention to the startup. Smart industry folks were telling me that I needed to quit my full-time job and I was finally ready to consider it.

The Tipping Point & Decision

A few weeks after coming back from Inman Connect, my boss called me into his office and asked me, “Do you have outside employment?” I responded openly and honestly and from there my work life began to unravel. My telework was cut in half which meant I spent more time driving through grueling DC area traffic. I wasn’t prepared to scale back on my startup activities when things were going so well so I just continued sleeping less.

I was tired. The startup was going great and the work environment was souring. Why couldn’t I just quit and focus on the startup? The answer was that I wanted to provide a stable environment for my wife and children, and that requires income. I had been so focused on building the platform and acquiring users that I hadn’t considered income until now. Now I was motivated, confident, and ready to take a leap. On October 17th, 2018 Peer Reputation welcomed its first paid subscriber. 10 days later, I quit my job.

Fast Forward

It’s been 9 months since I quit my job and I don’t regret it one bit. Things have not slowed down and continue to look better and better. I’d love to write more about it but, unfortunately, I’m out of time! I’ve got to get back to preparing for some major events. I’m heading to Inman Connect in Las Vegas where we’ve been selected as a finalist for the Inman Innovator Award. I’ll also be pitching onstage at the conference as one of eight selected startups at Tech Connect. If you’re going to the conference as well please swing by our table in Startup Alley to say hi! (I still can’t believe this is all happening!)

The post Pet Project or Full-Time Hustle? One Startup’s Story appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

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[3idatascraping]

How Web Scraping is used to Extract Foreclosure Data from Real Estate Websites?

You will be easily able to scrape property details from foreclosure listings such as – Address, Price, Area, Estimated Mortgage, Property Type, Availability, Images, and more.

Get the Foreclosure Listings link for your desired location.

A foreclosure happens when a homeowner fails to make mortgage payments. If the owner is unable to pay off the remaining debt or sell the property, it will be auctioned off during a foreclosure auction. If the property does not sell there, the loan institution seizes it.

Here you will learn to get Foreclosure links from Trulia, Zillow, Realtor, and Redfin.

How to Search for Foreclosure Data on Trulia?

Visit Trulia.com and search for the city, neighborhood, zip code, or country of your interest.

Copy the URL of the page to deliver this as an input to the Trulia Scraper. Below given is the demonstration of what the foreclosure homes listed on Trulia will look like:

https://www.trulia.com/for_sale/Washington,DC/foreclosure_lt/

After you've applied any further criteria (price, kind of property, etc.) based on your requirements, copy and paste the URL(s) into the Trulia Scraper. The crawler must be in Advanced Mode to add additional URLs.

How to Search for Foreclosure Data on Zillow?

Visit Zillow.com and look for real estate listings in your desired area. The real estate listings will be displayed on the results page. Similarly, to Trulia, you may pick Remove Map Boundary to enhance the number of listings or search area.

The For Sale tab is located to the right of the search bar. Select the dropdown menu adjacent to the tab.

Select the Foreclosures and Pre-Foreclosures checkbox. You may also use the Foreclosed option if you like. Check that all the other options are unchecked. After you save the filters, you will be able to examine the list of foreclosures.

https://www.zillow.com/washington-dc/foreclosures/

After you've applied all of the necessary criteria according to your requirements, copy and paste the URL(s) into the Zillow Crawler. The crawler must be in Advanced Mode to add additional URLs. You may also specify how many pages to scrape. If you leave this field empty, the system will gather all of the data.

Please keep in mind that the Zillow Crawler can only retrieve a maximum of 800 entries per input URL. We recommend using different filters on the website to narrow down the search results and providing them as multiple-input URLs.

Since January 2021, Zillow and Trulia have changed the way they display listings. You may read more about the changes here and see whether you need to update your inputs.

How to Search for Foreclosure Data on Realtor?

Visit Realtor.com and look for real estate listings in the area you want to live. The real estate listings will be displayed on the results page.

Here's an example of a Realtor link for Foreclosed Homes:

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Washington_DC/show-foreclosure

You may pick the Map and create your boundaries to enhance the number of listings or the region searched.

After you've applied all of the necessary criteria based on your requirements, copy and paste the URL(s) into the Realtor Crawler. The crawler must be in Advanced Mode to add additional URLs. You may also specify how many pages to scrape. If you leave this field empty, the system will gather all of the data.

How to Search for Redfin Foreclosure Data?

Visit Redfin.com and look for real estate listings in the area you want. The real estate listings will be displayed on the results page.

Select the dropdown next to 'More Filters' on the listing page.

The options are listed under the heading Listing Type (Make sure the Listing Status is For Sale). Except for Foreclosures, uncheck all of the other choices.

Below is an example of the link of how foreclosed homes look like:

https://www.redfin.com/city/12839/DC/Washington-DC/filter/include=foreclosed

You can delete the Map outline and set your own boundaries to enhance the number of listings or the region searched.

Once you have added all the desired filters based on your needs, copy and paste the URL(s) into the Redfin Crawler. The crawler must be in Advanced Mode to add additional URLs. You may also specify how many pages to scrape. If you leave this field empty, the system will gather all of the data.

3i Data Scraping Custom Solutions

The most significant advantage of foreclosed properties is that the majority of foreclosures are sold at a significant discount below market value. Buyers may be able to save even more money by taking advantage of features such as lower down payments and cheaper charges. Websites like Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor can assist you in locating foreclosure leads and homes. You can detect these indicators and make smarter investing selections with foreclosure data.

Using web scraping to extract foreclosure data can help you obtain structured, concise datasets in the format you prefer. You may obtain data on a specified schedule by using a web scraping service like 3i Data Scraping. We can give reliable real estate data if you want to collect real estate data on a wide scale across various websites.

For any other web scraping services, contact 3i Data Scraping today!

Request for a quote!

[web-scraping-tutorial-blog]

Scraping New York Real Estate listings from Redfin

In this article, we will tell you how to scrape New York Real Estate listings from Redfin using ScrapeStorm’s “Smart mode“.

Introduction to the scraping tool

ScrapeStorm (www.scrapestorm.com) is a new generation of Web Data Extractor based on artificial intelligence technology. It is the first scraper to support both Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.

Introduction to the scraping object

Redfin is a real estate brokerage that uses modern technology to only help people buy and sell homes. The Seattle-based company was founded in 2004, and went public in Aug. 2017. Glenn Kelman is the CEO. Redfin’s business model is based on sellers paying Redfin a small fee, in the 1-2% range.

Official Website: https://www.redfin.com/

Scraping fields

title, title_link, Address, City State Zip, Price, Value, Image, Community, County, MLS#

Function point directory

How to manually set the page

How to extract the list page plus the detail page

How to download images

Preview of the scraped result

Export to Excel2007:

Export images to local:

1. Download and install ScrapeStorm, then register and log in

(1) Open the ScrapeStorm official website, download and install the latest version.

(2) Click Register/Login to register a new account and then log in to ScrapeStorm.

Tips: You can use this web scraping software directly, you don’t need to register, but the tasks under the anonymous account will be lost when you switch to the registered user, so it is recommended that you use it after registration.

2. Create a task

(1) Copy the URL of Redfin

Click here to learn more about how to enter the URL correctly.

(2) Create a new smart mode task

You can create a new scraping task directly on the software, or you can create a task by importing rules.

Click here to learn how to import and export scraping rules.

3. Configure the scraping rules

(1) Set the fields

Intelligent mode automatically recognizes the fields on the page. You can right-click the field to rename the name, add or delete fields, modify data, and so on.

Click here to learn how to how to configure the extracted field.

Add or remove fields as needed, and rename the fields. The results of the field settings are as follows:

(2) Manually set the page

Some web pages have special buttons on the next page, and the system may not recognize them. In this case, you need to manually set the page to “Select Page Button”, then click the symbol for next page.

Click here to learn how to manually select the page.

(3) Use the “Scrape into” feature to scrape the detail page data

There is only partial data on the list page, you can use the “scrape into” function to enter the detail page to scrape the data.

Click here to learn how to extract the list page plus the detail page.

Then we add the required fields: Image, Community, County, MLS#

4. Set up and start the scraping task

(1) Running and Anti-block settings

Click “Setting”, set waiting time based on web page open speed. You can check “Block Images” and “Block Ads”. The anti-block settings follow the system default settings. Then click “Save”.

Click here to learn more about how to configure the scraping task.

P.S. “Block Images” will reduce the load time and speed up the scraping process. And this operation does not affect the scraping and downloading of images.

(2) Start scraping data

Premium Plan and above users can use “Scheduled job” and “Sync to Database”. If you want to download images, you can check “Download images while running”. Then click “Start”.

Click here to learn about scheduled job.

Click here to learn about sync to database.

Click here to learn about download images.

(3) Wait a moment, you will see the data being scraped.

5. Export and view data

(1) Click “Export” to download your data.

(2) Choose the format to export according to your needs.

ScrapeStorm provides a variety of export methods to export locally, such as excel, csv, html, txt or database. Professional Plan and above users can also post directly to wordpress.

Click here to learn more about how to view the extraction results and clear the extracted data.

Click here to learn more about how to export the result of extraction.