The Five criteria to evaluate Real Estate APIs

When evaluating real estate software solutions, from PMS to single-point solutions, one critical element of consideration is the ability to connect programmatically with other applications and software solutions. Many technologies facilitate programmatic communications, from Database connectivity like ODBC and JDBC, SOAP (this is a predecessor to restful APIs), SDKs (software development kits), and others, including the more modern APIs (application program interfaces).?

The objective of this article is not to discuss the merits or drawbacks of each technology but rather to explore some of the features that any API or equivalent should have so you can assess how much control and freedom you have over your data.?

Below is a set of features you should consider when evaluating what data is shared with you and how:

1. Granularity

Other than direct Database connectivity, APIs and other connectivity options can expose all of your Database, parts of it, or some processed information, obfuscating the system's raw data. Any system that only exports processed data like reports or similar gives little to no control and freedom since that data would not allow you to start from scratch somewhere else, and any analysis you want to run on your data would be downstream from this processed data. So, the first and most crucial requirement is getting all your data.?

?

2. History

Systems that provide full granularity can still limit how far back they will share it. For example, they may provide granularity, but only daily. If you have your warehousing solution or use a trustworthy partner, you can start storing data moving forward, but the past might be lost. Without past data, you are also limited in your movement and the types of analysis you can do. So, ideally, you want granular and historical data.?

3. Consistency

There are three main reasons why data coming from your systems may be inconsistent:?

1. There was a human error in inputting the data
2. There was an API error in transmitting the data
3. There was a core system error in storing the data

If a system unreliably stores data, you have a much bigger problem than data control and freedom; you have a system that does not work.The other two issues, however—human and API errors—are unfortunately all too common and unavoidable. This is not as bad as it sounds, because the right tools and partners can help you manage them, provided the API has the right features.?So, what features should your API have to deal with these errors?

The first feature is version control, or change logs. A great system tracks and shares changes made to data points over time. The other feature of an API is proper error messages. If it fails, you want to know when, for how long, and what error is produced. Without this information, you or your trusted data solution provider must build systems to track changes and errors to ensure the data's trustworthiness. This is often a critical part of your data strategy, ensuring you get the right data from your APIs.

4. Latency

Not all APIs provide data in real-time. You may or may not need real-time data, and?even if it is nice to have, it might not be worth the extra effort and cost on your side to consume a real-time data feed.

The key is to figure out what level of latency is acceptable to you and ensure the API supports that. You can likely tolerate some latency (often in Real Estate, this can go from minutes to, at most, a day), which, if not met, will hinder your ability to monitor and analyze your business.?

5. Cost

Cost is not a technical limitation but is at the crux of data control and freedom. Imagine, if you will, an API that is perfect in all the ways described above but costs one thousand dollars for every call you make. That would be prohibitively expensive, rendering the API non-existent for all intents and purposes.?

Software providers can reasonably charge for API access; it is a feature, after all, and like anything else they offer, it has a market value.

However, there is a bit of a game theory dilemma with API pricing. Software companies want to keep prices high enough so you don’t send the data elsewhere, and so they can sell you additional product (now or in the future). On the other hand, if their API prices are too much higher than the market, they will lose all customers who care about control and freedom to access and use their data.

?The market price equilibrium for APIs will depend on competition, how short/long-term these companies are, their growth prospects, the perceived challenge of new entrants, and many other aspects.?

As you decide which systems to use, API costs are a critical feature to understand and compare, if not more important, than the core use case for which you are acquiring the software. The API cost is the price you pay to control your data.?

UDP and APIs

UDP is a unified data platform that connects all your systems via API and other methods. It normalizes and warehouses the data, making it accessible and ready for reporting, monitoring, and analysis.?

UDP ensures you get as much data as possible, validates data feeds, and helps you achieve a one-and-done solution to API integrations, reducing cost and increasing speed for future integrations.?

?