9 examples of how open data can make it easier to access housing

Did you know that opening information in sectors such as housing can help you find your new home? Moving house is not usually an easy decision and some doubts may arise, such as whether it is more profitable to buy or rent, what services are available in each neighbourhood of the city or what is the approximate price of housing on the market.

The data provided by public bodies can help us find answers to these and many other questions. This data can be used to create tools and applications that, in a simple and user-friendly way, allow us to compare parameters and make better decisions, some of which we have already collected in a previous article. On this occasion we update the information including 10 new use cases, offered by public and private organisations, which can offer you information of interest to find your new home.

Home buying and renting applications offering additional data-driven services

There are currently numerous digital tools and applications that provide users with information about property listings for sale or rent. Some of these companies also offer additional services based on data that provide a better understanding of the market. Let's look at two examples.

• Idealista. In Idealista, users can find an analysis based on data from the real estate market in Spain, Portugal and Italy. To do so, they use data from both public sources (for example, from the Cadastre, the National Geographic Institute or the INE) and private sources from the idealista.com portal itself. It also has a set of technological tools - including the possibility of accessing the platform's data through an API - and information analysis tools to process, homogenise and structure useful data sources and transform them into easily accessible information. An example is the map of average sales price per square metre or its prediction of how much solar energy could be generated by all the municipalities in Spain.
• Fotocasa. This platform provides users with interactive maps with data from its Real Estate Index to know, in real time, the sale and rental price per m2 according to the supply of homes that are advertised on the real estate portal. Fotocasa encourages the use of open data, making it possible to use this valuable data to measure the market.

Re-use companies

In the market we also find companies specialised in data reuse, which exploit their potential to create services of interest in the real estate field. Some examples are:

• La Gistería. This consultancy company specialises in data visualisations using GIS technologies. Together with Geomarketing inmobiliario de Madrid, they have created 27 maps delimited by zones, positioning the points of interest in different areas such as health, leisure, or education. These maps have been created using the open data of the Madrid City Council and the brand identity of the real estate company Engel & Volkers in order to integrate it into their website and facilitate the search for a flat by users.
• Inspide. Through a web application, it allows to know if a city like Madrid adapts to the requirements of social distancing derived from the current pandemic situation and what urban actions could solve this problem. Inspide shows, for example, the width of the pavements represented with colours, and specifies whether their width is adequate to maintain the required distance between pedestrians. This is a very interesting application if we want to find a wide neighbourhood with wide streets in which to buy our next home.
• Sociedad de Tasación. This is an independent appraisal company that offers valuations of all types of assets, especially real estate assets. It offers valuation, consultancy and technological services, such as the use of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence applied to the Real Estate Sector. To implement its services, it uses its own data as well as public data from the Cadastre, the statistical portal of the Registrars, or the General Council of Notaries.

Services created by the public administrations themselves based on their data

It is not only private companies that create solutions based on open data. Local councils and public bodies also provide their citizens with applications and digital tools that show open information of interest when deciding, for example, on the location in which to buy a new home.

• Interactive Viewer of Zaragoza. Zaragoza City Council, through its geoportal, has included an interactive viewer that allows you to see the city's buildings and the shadows they cast on the streets. This new virtual map is accessible to all citizens. The interactive viewer offers an innovative vision of the city that can be of help if we want relevant information about the orientation and exposure to the sun that a certain area of Zaragoza has.
• Digital street map of Andalusia. It allows the search of postal addresses in all the municipalities of Andalusia using the information of roads and portals of the CDAU project (Unified Digital Street Map of Andalusia). It is also possible to locate other points of interest, in addition to postal addresses, using data from the DERA product (Spatial Reference Data of Andalusia). If you are thinking of looking for an area that meets the characteristics you need to buy or rent a property in Andalusia, this application can help you.
• Network of Crecemos centres in the province of Salamanca. The open data portal of the Provincial Council of Salamanca offers through its website public information on the Crecemos network of centres in the province of Salamanca. This network is part of the 'Crecemos' programme of the Junta de Castilla y León, which facilitates work-life balance in rural areas, as well as helping to generate employment and fix the population in the area. Among other information, it analyses the places where it is easier to reconcile work and personal life, which is very useful for users to know where to buy a house. The portal offers the possibility of downloading this data in various formats, such as XSLX, CSV or XML.
• Pharmacies, Health Centres and Health Areas. How many pharmacies and health centres are there in the area where you want to buy your new home? How far are they from your location? This service shows the health map of Cantabria to offer its users data about the location of pharmacies and hospitals in each area of the autonomous community.

Undoubtedly, there are numerous digital tools and applications that base their services on open data to offer information about the real estate market to their users. If you know of any other tool based on open data that you think may be of interest to us, do not hesitate to leave us a comment or send us an email to dinamizacion@datos.gob.es.

Content prepared by the datos.gob.es team.