ListSource experiences, because mine was just horrible?

Question

Hey all,

I am curious to hear experiences with ListSource, which is a CoreLogic company.  ListSource, like some other places, sells information (and, thus, potential leads).  As a test run on multifamily homes, I ran a search in 13 counties in NJ, with a set of list criteria.  ListSource/CoreLogic's list in response only covered 2 of the 13 counties.  The 11 missing counties have some of the higher concentrations of multifamily homes in NJ.  So the list was already useless and not something I am willing to pay for.

Just for grins and giggles, I looked at the first property on google and it wasn't multifamily home - it was a motel. The second property I looked at was a pure commercial shop.  Then I started looking at quadruplexes.  Every one that I've looked at so far is a small single family property and the furthest thing in the world from quadruplexes.  Basically, 90% of the properties I viewed on google failed to meet criteria.

Needless to say, I am very unhappy with ListSource/Corelogic over this data dump (pun intended).  I reached out yesterday to their contact email and was told I would hear back with 24 hours.  The 24 hour mark is up in 30 minutes, give or take.

Given this really bad and, frankly, wholly unprofessional experience with ListSource/Corelogic, I am curious to see if there have been other successes with them.

Thanks in advance.

Sean OToole · Answer

@Jonathan Wishnia With regards to the data itself you aren't likely to see much difference between Listsource and AgentPro247. Especially for fields like property type where they both get that data from the county - and that is likely where the problem resides. Sometimes that isn't the case, as depending on the county, its possible one vendor may have mapped the use code to a property type incorrectly, and the other got it right. But unlikely. Most of the problems people have with public records data come from 1) bad data at the county or 2) their own expectations of the data are misplaced.

Whenever working with public records - whether directly from the government or through a vendor - I always recommend doing some back testing. By this I mean find a handful of properties that you know to be what you are looking for. Then look those properties up and see what they have in common in public records. Then take those things and search for others that match, and once again verify they are what you want. Being a bit methodical you can likely find what you want with any source, and you'll more quickly understand the benefits of one source via another.

Here are a couple examples of the kinds of thing you will find with apartments:

1. Properties built before a certain date don't have number of units, ones built after that date have number of units.

2. Property was originally built as hotel, but was converted later to apartment - still shows as hotel. Same happens with condos - both converted from apartment to condo, and back.

3. You try to search for properties with multiple units, and you get back a bunch of single unit condos, because the county put the number of units in the complex on each condo record.

Why does this happen? Well it's not super important to county staff to keep these things up to date, or go back and figure these things out for properties after the fact, or think at all about how you might want to use it. So public records are messy. For those who understand, expect and even embrace that, they offer and incredible tool for finding off-market deals.

Jonathan Wishnia · Answer

@Sean OToole Thank you very, very much. This is really helpful!

Jonathan Wishnia · Answer

@Whitney Hill thank you very much!

@Lee Ripma Sorry to hear it but I'm not surprised.  I plan to have some unpleasant conversations with them and I do not intend to be pushed around by them.

Whitney Hill · Answer

Hi Jonathan. I can't comment on ListSource as I haven't used it, but wanted to mention that NJ property tax lists are readily available online here for download. The files are by county and contain property locations and zoning codes, owner addresses, tax assessment for the land and improvement, and even things like the number of units (data quality varies by township). To read the data, you'll need to invest in understanding the codes used etc, but that's all listed online for free as well. Good luck to you!

ListSource experiences, because mine was just horrible?

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