Australian property company Domain Group has announced the public launch of an open application programming interface (API), which will allow property developers, real estate agents and startups to tap into the company’s expansive property data and service Australia’s never-ending hunger for everything property.
Through leveraging the API to develop a new product or by integrating it into an existing application, businesses will be able to harness the property data collected on the Domain platform and use it to empower their solutions.
Domain Group’s Simon Farrugia, a senior product manager on platforms and API, said the launch was a first of its kind for the Australian property space, adding that opening the API publically would lead to the development of new innovative property-based solutions.
“To date, it has been timely and costly for a startup or established business to quickly move on an idea. It typically involves filling out forms, signing an NDA, and agreeing to contracts. The delivery often involves working with manual data exchanges which is error prone and inefficient. We are removing the barriers and democratising our property data, and encouraging innovation,” he said.
“This is an exciting move for Domain Group and a huge step forward for the property sector as a whole.”
Discussing what type of data businesses would be able to tap into, Domain Group’s CTO Mark Cohen said the API is currently offering access to listing and agencies data, property content information, and property locations.
For Domain Group, Cohen added that the API would help the company strengthen its partner relationships and cement Domain’s position in the industry.
“The wealth of data Domain Group holds provides enormous value to the Australian property industry and we look forward to seeing what innovations eventuate from this,” he said.
This data will be available on a free ‘innovation tier’, with access to further data to be paid and decided on an individual basis.
While the API will allow new and existing businesses an easier way to integrate property data, a number of local startups in the property space have been working to integrate property data from various sources on their platforms.
The process often involves tapping into government databases that have become available to the public through opening data initiatives, allowing startups to access information such as property locations.
Amongst the startups which navigated the lack of public APIs is Western Australian-based Languide, an online platform which combines data from the WA government’s Landgate website with a developer’s personal masterplans, sales lists, pint of interests, and sales collateral, before displaying the information visually.
Another startup, Landchecker, integrates data from the Victorian government’s property database to help buyers quickly find out what zone a property is in and whether the space has any type of restrictions.
Meanwhile, Sydney startup BeforeYouBid looked to leverage Google Maps’ API to allow customers to search for a property address and visualise what locations have property reports, such as strata, available.
You can find more about the Domain Group API here.
Image: Domain Group CEO Antony Catalano. Source: Elite Agent.
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