Fresh off our experiment with Heap CRM comes a new experiment for February: Altos Research. Twitter addicts, conference attendees and Lucky Strike Social Media Club members may already be familiar with Altos Research’s co-founder, Mike Simonsen. Besides being an all around nice guy he is also a known peddler of real estate data reports.
Before getting into Altos Research here is a refresher on what our monthly experiments are all about:
What Our Monthly Experiments Are Designed To Do
Each month we choose an online service or product that we’re going to try out over the next 28-30 days. These products/services are chosen at random though we are open to suggestions (let us know what you want to see put to the test in the comments below.)
After the experiment has been chosen we keep you up-to-date on how useful the product/service is for our businesses and whether it’s worth trying and/or paying for.
What is Altos Research?
Altos Research is a third party provider of real estate data reports. These reports include market statistics like pricing trends, whether it’s a buyer or seller’s market, recent activity by zip code (i.e. homes absorbed, number of new listings) and automatically updated website inserts that contain valuable market data for homebuyers.
Here’s an example of the automatically updated inserts on my website HouseMeetsOwner.com:
Why It Was Chosen
When RPR was introduced it rocked the real estate data world. There was even (what I consider to be) an exaggerated death knell for data providers like Altos Research because of the premise that RPR would be the all encompassing source for data real estate pros need.
Upon further digging into RPR I discovered this tidbit (emphasis added):
Members who register with a valid NRDS ID can access non-proprietary, non-MLS/CIE sourced data; however, only MLS/CIE Subscribers/Participants will be able to view MLS/CIE sourced information. There will be no public access to the RPR™, and the database and its data cannot be shared through consumer websites.
This reaffirms my belief that data providers still serve a purpose in our industry so I wanted to give exposure to that cause all the while putting one such provider to the test. Be sure to subscribe to OnlineRealEstate101.com by RSS or email to read about our experience with Altos Research over the next month!
About Josh Ferris
