Data creates possibilities. The most progressive companies—think category-leaders, fintechs, innovative marketers—understand this. They relentlessly consume and analyze data to identify patterns, support AI and machine learning, and transform decision making. Leveraging data superiority is how they win on the margins and swing for the fences. To them, data isn’t a commodity, it’s a competitive advantage.
That is why data-driven organizations look to partner with providers that can demonstrate the quality, depth, currency and usability of their data, as well as a variety of ways to consume it.
This white paper will examine how First American Data & Analytics acquires and curates property and public record data, the scale of our massive datasets and how our data can be matched and enhanced with other datasets, including spatial, demographic and economic data, to provide new insights.
Our History
For nearly 140 years, our company and its parent have been a trusted source of real estate and public record data and information: first as a California title company and now as the largest provider of property-related data and analytics in U.S.
Today, our coverage includes:
- 100% of tax assessor data.
- 100% of residential real estate values (updated daily).
- 99% of deeds, mortgages and foreclosures.
- 96% of assignments and lien releases.
- 99% of map and parcel boundaries.
In addition, First American Data & Analytics has developed a number of specialty datasets, including homeowners' association (HOA) and loan balance estimates. All of these datasets can be further enhanced by linking them with our spatial data. When property data is enhanced with spatial assets, like parcel boundaries, it can produce a more holistic view of properties, driving faster and more specific real estate searches, accelerating the time needed to identify and vet investment opportunities, as well as provide a more comprehensive view of a subject property. This helps companies make more informed business decisions.
We’ve also invested deeply in automated valuation models (AVMs) as part of our broader property intelligence suite. Our AVM offerings—designed to serve a range of use cases from portfolio valuation to consumer-facing pricing tools—leverage our proprietary datasets to deliver fast, reliable and statistically validated property valuations. These AVMs are built on the same foundational datasets we’ve refined over decades and are further differentiated by our advanced data science, rigorous testing framework and unique ability to integrate spatial and tabular data. They are trusted by top lenders, servicers, fintechs and investors seeking accuracy, consistency and confidence at scale.
Complete and Searchable
First American has invested heavily in proprietary Optical Character Recognition (OCR), machine learning and AI technology that has enabled us to scale our data acquisitions and automated data extraction. Our technology, which has earned 41 patents, identifies, extracts and contextualizes information from recorded document images. It understands the structure and semantics of documents regardless of the format, jurisdiction and in some cases, the condition of documents. This enables us to ingest more than one million documents per month from more than 2,000 U.S. counties. As a result, we have been able to collect and validate more than 8.6 billion property and legal records and images to date.
While most data providers capture only a small subset of the data on a document, our technology captures more than 450 elements on more than 1,100 different types of documents, which can all be easily searched.
For example, an associate at a law firm trying to trace the ownership of specific property held by an LLC only has to type the address of a property to see the current owner and get access to the recorded deed document that reveals the principals of the corporation. A solar installation company can build a marketing list of properties that are suitable for panels by including homes that face a specific direction, don’t already have solar, and have funds to pay. A utility company or local government that wants to purchase a property can see the value of different parcels that fit their criteria and then access the mailing address of the owner, who may not currently occupy the property.
To make this vast data universe truly actionable, First American developed FlexSearch®, a powerful, flexible search technology that ties together all of our structured and unstructured data. FlexSearch makes it possible to query across billions of property and legal records in ways that were previously impractical or impossible, delivering comprehensive results with speed and precision. Whether clients are tracing ownership histories, uncovering hidden relationships or searching across disparate data sets, FlexSearch provides the connective tissue that empowers them to leverage the full breadth of First American Data & Analytics’ property intelligence.
Currency is Critical
Given our company’s roots in the title industry and our position as the leading data provider to the title industry, we have great incentive to ensure that our property and ownership data is always the most current. A two- or three-week lag in reporting, for example, can create a significant problem for title underwriters. In fact, our own parent bets its balance on the accuracy and currency of our data every day. We apply this same rigor to all of our data collection efforts.
Our data is usually available for most big counties within a number of days, and in some cases weeks, before our competitors.’ In a large county, like Los Angeles for example, being four days ahead of the competition might produce thousands of additional leads for a big box retailer marketing to new homeowners and could result in hundreds of more sales.
Matching Datasets
Because our data is standardized and curated it can be easily matched with other First American datasets or with proprietary client data. Using our data, clients are able to identify:
- Property owners with a propensity to sell.
- Prospects for home equity products, solar installations, swimming pools, ADUs, etc.
- New homeowners in the market for big box appliances, carpeting and furniture.
- HOAs looking for landscaping, legal, security or maintenance services.
- High-traffic locations from retailers and restaurant owners.
- Buildable lots and fix and flip properties for developers and real estate investors.
Seeing the Whole Ground Truth
Almost every industry that relies on public record property data—government, transportation, public safety, oil and gas, financial services, property services, investors, retail and marketing—can benefit from pairing tabular data with parcel boundaries. Tabular data is data that is in columns or tables that has a distinct field for every data element, like a spreadsheet. Parcel boundaries are data that defines a shape and needs to be plotted on a map. This allows the user to visualize and analyze that data in ways that isn’t possible with tabular data alone.
However, users can encounter challenges when they attempt to match spatial data with other types of property data because there isn’t always a straightforward one-to-one relationship between parcel boundaries and tax assessment, addresses and building outline boundary data entities.
Our advanced data schema captures these relationships to accurately depict “ground truth” and is one of our important differentiators with our spatial data.
While most vendors operate under the assumption of one-to-one relationships, First American houses the data in a highly relational database schema that takes into account complex entity relationships.
This can be critical in integrating tabular and geometric data for:
- Condos and large multifamily complexes.
- Annexations.
- Split parcels.
- Merged parcels.
- Right-of-way changes that impact parcel shape.
Access Data Your Way
All of our datasets are available and searchable on DataTree, our web-based platform that gives clients total access to the industry’s largest property data repository.
First American Data & Analytics offers some of the most flexible and customizable approaches to large-scale data delivery. Clients have a broad range of options in selecting what they need, how often they need it (daily, weekly, quarterly) and how they would like to consume it.
Options include:
- User Interfaces and other workflow platforms for intuitive property research and decision support.
- Bulk licensing for large-scale enterprise integration.
- Cloud access via FTP and Snowflake for scalable, automated delivery.
- API connections for real-time, embedded access to property data.
- Custom match and append services to enrich client datasets with First American intelligence.
For professionals and organizations that rely on U.S. geospatial intelligence for decision making, First American Data & Analytics’ spatially enabled parcel and property datasets are now available on the Esri® ArcGIS® Living Atlas of the World. Having access to the right property data—accurate, current, complete and searchable—isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s mission-critical. Whether you’re identifying investment opportunities, uncovering homeowner intent, or connecting the dots between spatial and tabular datasets, the ability to act on intelligence in real time is what separates the leaders from the laggards.
First American Data & Analytics doesn’t just provide data, we deliver clarity, context and confidence. With the industry’s most complete repository of property data, powerful search tools, flexible access options and a commitment to accuracy honed by more than a century in the title industry, we help clients move faster, market smarter and make better decisions.
Data isn’t just our business. It’s our foundation, our differentiator and our clients’ advantage.
Call 866.377.3369 to learn more
Or Visit: https://dna.firstam.com/contact-speak-to-sales