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Trulia API now open to the world!

As you know, Trulia started as one of the early real estate mash-ups on the Web 2.0 scene. We thought it was only right (and about time) that we gave a little back to the developer community by providing access to otherwise private data from Trulia.com through the Trulia API.

What’s in the Trulia API?

The Trulia API provides access to two primary types of information for every state, county, city, ZIP code and neighborhood across the US, including:

1) Local real estate price trends - Average list price of homes for sale on Trulia, available from national down to the neighborhood level. Data available by number of bedrooms, dating back to November 2006.

2) Real estate search behavior online - Search traffic from national down to the neighborhood level, dating back to June 2006. Data is expressed as a percentage of traffic.

So with the Trulia API you can find out information like:

  • “What was the average price of a 2-bedroom home in ZIP 94002 on the week of 11/27/2006?” (Answer: $809,533)
  • “Which neighborhood was the biggest winner/loser in Manhattan over the past 6 months in terms of search traffic?” (Answer: winner=Flatiron District, loser=Battery Park City)
  • We also have “helper data,” listing of all the cities/counties/ZIPs in every state, as well the longitude and latitude info for any of these locations.

You can use the Trulia API data to build a host of applications–from your own spin on our Heat Map, to home price forecasting tools, to mashups of Trulia’s data with…really any other source of data.

Can’t wait to get started? We couldn’t either.

A week ago we held a hackfest at good ‘ole 500 Treat Avenue to separate the cubs from the bears and illustrate the (infinite) possibilities of the Trulia API. The office was broken up into groups, and we all had 24-hours to brainstorm, design and build our hacks. We came up with more ideas than I will document here, but here are the winners, ready (or not) for public consumption:

Plot or Not

PlotorNot merges average list price data for cities across the US with a diverse group of demographic variables to answer questions such as: “Do people pay more to live in cities with more women in New York state?” and “Do people flee the rain in Washington state?“  Data sources: Trulia API, US Census Bureau, flickr and public data sources. Credit to Roger and his entourage for gifting us with plotornot.
Truliaholic
Truliaholic helps users visualize the differences in average list prices and search popularity for any city or county in the US. Data source: Trulia API. Credit goes to Erica and her crack team for their mastery of data visualization.

For developers: to learn more about the data made available by the Trulia API, head to our developer pages for full documentation, a forum and blog specifically to ask questions and discuss the API. As you build cool tools, let us know and we’ll add your apps to the application gallery to show off to the world!

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36 Responses so far »

  1. 1

    Trulia and Mashery Launch Real Estate Search API said,

    February 20, 2007 @ 10:01 am

    […] Real estate search company Trulia announced the availability of its new API this morning as well as two interesting mashup examples made possible by that API.  Outside developers will now have access to the company’s real estate data and aggregate user search data. […]

  2. 2

    Blog Mirrors » Trulia and Mashery Launch Real Estate Search API said,

    February 20, 2007 @ 10:17 am

    […] Real estate search company Trulia announced the availability of its new API this morning as well as two interesting mashup examples made possible by that API.  Outside developers will now have access to the company’s real estate data and aggregate user search data. To demonstrate the types of things made possible by the API, the Trulia team made available two interesting mashups they built themselves.  Plotornot (a play on HotorNot) correlates a variety of demographic information like gender, marital and income data for any state in the US.  TruliaHolic (presumably a play on Alexaholic given the similarities) provides visualization of the differences in average list prices and search popularity for any city or county in the US.  Real estate use of new web services is hot so I expect we’ll see any number of interesting uses of the new API on other sites.   […]

  3. 3

    immobilienportale.com - Immobilien Blog » trulia.com gibt API frei said,

    February 20, 2007 @ 10:36 am

    […] trulia.com, eins der ersten Immobilien-Mashups im Web2.0 Style, bietet nun via API Zugriff auf die Daten zu lokalen Preisentwicklungen und dem Suchverhalten von Immobilieninteressenten. Konkurrent zillow.com hatte bereits im Oktober 2006 eine API veröffentlicht und Entwicklern damit den Weg zu interessanten Mashups freigemacht. […]

  4. 4

    Global Nerdy :: Trulia Announces Their API for Creating Real Estate Mashups said,

    February 20, 2007 @ 11:05 am

    […] Trulia, the real estate search site that lets you search for homes for sale and look at housing price trends across the USA, has opened its API. If you’ve got the programming chops and an idea, you can use the Trulia API to get: […]

  5. 5

    Kevin Boer said,

    February 20, 2007 @ 11:17 am

    This looks very, very cool! Can’t wait to check it out!

  6. 6

    maria said,

    February 20, 2007 @ 12:45 pm

    super awesome!

  7. 7

    ResourceShelf » Briefs: Trulia Launches API; Yahoo! Search Gadget for Vista said,

    February 20, 2007 @ 5:04 pm

    […] + Trulia API now open to the world! (via Trulia Blog) […]

  8. 8

    Multimedias.mobi » Trulia and Mashery Launch Real Estate Search API said,

    February 20, 2007 @ 5:04 pm

    […] Real estate search company Trulia announced the availability of its new API this morning as well as two interesting mashup examples made possible by that API.  Outside developers will now have access to the company’s real estate data and aggregate user search data. […]

  9. 9

    TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » Trulia、Masheryと不動産検索APIをスタート said,

    February 20, 2007 @ 5:08 pm

    […] 不動産検索企業Truliaは、新APIの公開を今朝(米国時間2/20)発表するとともに、同APIを利用した興味深いマッシュアップのサンプル2例を公開した。外部ディベロッパーたちも同社の不動産データにアクセス、ユーザーサーチデータをアグリゲート可能になる。 […]

  10. 10

    ProgrammableWeb.com » Blog Archive » Trulia Launches New API with Mashery said,

    February 20, 2007 @ 11:59 pm

    […] Yesterday, Trulia, the real estate search startup, and one of the oldest mashups on this site, just announced their new API. This REST-based API provides access to two primary types of data: local real estate price trends and real estate search behavior online. It should lead to some very interesting mashups. […]

  11. 11

    Rich Hodge said,

    February 21, 2007 @ 1:07 am

    Looks fantastic! Can’t wait to build something with it :)

  12. 12

    Bert Lamb » links for 2007-02-21 said,

    February 21, 2007 @ 2:23 am

    […] Trulia Blog » Trulia API now open to the world! This API + me moving soon + me being a dork = me spending time making a mashup for myself (tags: housing mashups) […]

  13. 13

    Prudential Locations said,

    February 21, 2007 @ 12:14 pm

    What an incredible opportunity for brokers and realtors to utilize data and technology from one of the leading real estate portals on the web today. It’s hard to believe this kind of service exists at all, let alone for Trulia to be giving it away for free. Kudos to Trulia for being a forward think company!

  14. 14

    Matt Goyer’s Real Estate Blog » Blog Archive » Trulia has an API said,

    February 21, 2007 @ 2:38 pm

    […] Trulia API now open to the world! Time for Redfin to get cranking on an API! […]

  15. 15

    Joatmon’s Rants » Blog Archive » Another project for when I have time . . . said,

    February 23, 2007 @ 11:32 am

    […] Trulia API now open to the world! As you know, Trulia started as one of the early real estate mash-ups on the Web 2.0 scene. We thought it was only right (and about time) that we gave a little back to the developer community by providing access to otherwise private data from Trulia.com through the Trulia API. […]

  16. 16

    ::lemonup:: - News, Technology, sports, cars, movie, video, blog, travel, mp3, picture, computer, notebook » Trulia and Mashery Launch Real Estate Search API said,

    March 1, 2007 @ 2:48 am

    […] Trulia and Mashery Launch Real Estate Search API By Real estate search company Trulia announced the availability of its new API this morning as well as two interesting mashup examples made possible by that API.  Outside developers will now have access to the company’s real estate data and aggregate user search data. […]

  17. 17

    Ed Oswald said,

    March 9, 2007 @ 1:46 pm

    would like to know how we can get our listings on this site?
    Susan Oswald
    Ed Oswald Real Estate, Inc.

  18. 18

    Richard Tharp said,

    March 10, 2007 @ 7:05 am

    Hi,
    I am a Sr. Independent Software Developer creating at present some add ons to Google’s, ‘Google Earth’. Prior to the recent introduction of Trulia’s new API suite, I had been creating an add on to ‘Google Earth’, to assist, by providing a dynamic ( Fly-To ) of a Trulia Real Estate property for an active user with the Google Earth’s internal browser. I am just curious if this add on will benefit developers building with Trulia’s new API suite.

    Scenario:
    A user while visiting a Trulia real estate property would simply double-click on the viewed web page. They then, will be immediately ( Flown-To ) that property location within ‘Google Earth’. This action allows the user the benefits of the ( Layer Sections ) of ‘Google Earth’. Layer Sections provide to the user various entities of insight full information’s to make ( His/Her ) property choice.

    Benefit:
    I believe that this will reduces the amount of Network Linkage overhead that is at present. Bandwidth is a precious commodity still to many. It is required of the user to download a new KMZ’s or KML’s property locations when discovering new additional properties during a browsing session from Trulia’s website. This add on will lessen the co-dependency of activation required of the user. Currently, from Trulia, a user must first activate the ( Places ) Placemarks of ‘Google Earth’. Secondly, it is required of the user to launch the ( Placemark’s Ballon ) just to get the data that is visible in a Trulia’s website property listing.

    This is a beta project I’ve been working on for browser interaction with ‘Google Earth’.

    This is NOT currently available to the public at this time.

    Any comments or suggestions ?

    Regards,
    Richard Tharp

  19. 19

    T.D. Stevens said,

    March 21, 2007 @ 10:32 am

    Is this Tulia, Texas 79088 ?

    Where is Truila ?

  20. 20

    Lawrence said,

    March 21, 2007 @ 4:28 pm

    Hi Richard,

    It appears that what you are asking for is an API which exposes individual listings. At the current time, we are offering aggregated statistics about properties and not the data for any individual property. If I understand correctly, this will not help your project. However, if there is anything we can do to help you out, feel free to email us at developer@trulia.com and contact the API team directly.

    Thanks!

    Lawrence
    Software Developer - Trulia

  21. 21

    for sale by owner center said,

    March 22, 2007 @ 5:12 pm

    Great stuff guys, can’t wait to see what else you come up with!
    The charting stuff is really useful.

    Richard, we already did that over a year ago on all of our listings.

    Jessie B.
    ForSalebyOwnerCenter.com

  22. 22

    Richard Tharp said,

    March 25, 2007 @ 4:12 pm

    Sorry for the confusing !

    What I am trying to convey is I’ve created an add on that allows an user of Google Earth, using the internal web browser ( ON ), to tour the Trulia.com website and to be immediately ( FLOWN-TO ) in Google Earth to the prospective property. This is without the effort for the user to looking for the Google Earth on Trulia.com of that said property or wait for a download of KML files. By the way, the Google Earth that you show on Trulia.com is depreciated for the user viewing proximity to area Schools, Grocery Stores, Gas Stations, Dining, Pharmacies, Churches and Hospitals with many other additional Google Earth’s Layered information’s.

    And,
    Jessie B.
    ForSalebyOwnerCenter.com

    There is not a Single Forum on Google Earth that promotes that you’ve done ANY work as for as an add on to Google Earth that provides this type of intervention to aid the user of Google Earth to dynamically FLY-TO locations of properties other than your company supplying the necessary KML files to foster this effort. After a user has populated the Placemarkers in PLACES in Google Earth, it becomes WAY to cumbersome and blurred with to many entry.

    Regards,
    Richard Tharp

  23. 23

    Janice Hayden said,

    April 2, 2007 @ 2:36 pm

    Hi,

    I am a realtor in Westhampton Beach, New York.
    How do I go about getting my real estate listings on your site?

    Regards,

    Janice Hayden
    631-255-9160

  24. 24

    Ryan Ward said,

    April 12, 2007 @ 4:46 pm

    Can you provide any information on the accuracy provided by this tool. I believe the tool could be interesting, however, if it is like the tools on Zillow, I would caution its use before there is enough datat to actually be able to help the consumer.

  25. 25

    Lawrence said,

    April 12, 2007 @ 5:06 pm

    Hi Ryan,

    Our API uses the same data as is used by our heat maps - meaning it compiles the data from actual Trulia traffic and for sale listings. As you probably know, this is different than Zillow’s approach, as they only provide data from their Zestimates. Hopefully you find this useful - if you don’t, feel free to offer any suggestions either here or by contacting developers@trulia.com

    Thanks!

    Lawrence
    Software Developer - Trulia

  26. 26

    Trulia Blog » Trulia at Web 2.0 Expo said,

    April 19, 2007 @ 7:40 am

    […] There is no shortage of ideas in the Web 2.0 world; it seems as though everyone is trying to solve problems in new and creative ways. More and more companies want to take advantage of these good ideas by making APIs available for developer-strangers to build upon (see Trulia API now open to the world!). So what is the biggest impediment to building rich Internet applications? It’s (unfortunately not that) simple: the implementation of these ideas. […]

  27. 27

    leonardo said,

    April 21, 2007 @ 3:41 pm

    Trulia has introduced a great new concept on real estate search engines by not
    only displaying the listings but also an array of other important information
    tied to the listing pages. The interactive heat maps and design just shows
    how creative and eye catching trulia is!

  28. 28

    James Boyer said,

    July 28, 2007 @ 2:29 pm

    To all you people who seem to be posting to this blog for links, Trulia is using
    NO-FOLLOW tags on the links that you place here. Making any links that you place totally usless as far as search engine improvment. So don’t post just looking
    for good links.

  29. 29

    techcrunch » Blog Archive » Trulia and Mashery Launch Real Estate Search API said,

    August 14, 2007 @ 4:56 am

    […] Real estate search company Trulia announced the availability of its new API this morning as well as two interesting mashup examples made possible by that API.  Outside developers will now have access to the company’s real estate data and aggregate user search data. […]

  30. 30

    The Cotton Club » Blog Archive » Trulia API said,

    September 27, 2007 @ 3:30 pm

    […] Link to Trulia Blog » Trulia API now open to the world! Social Networks: […]

  31. 31

    Whatever-ishere said,

    November 21, 2007 @ 8:22 am

    thanks for the GREAT post! Very useful…

  32. 32

    Sangesh said,

    February 5, 2008 @ 2:50 am

    This is quite awesome!

  33. 33

    Philippos said,

    February 5, 2008 @ 6:17 am

    Cool!

  34. 34

    home rental agent said,

    February 16, 2008 @ 1:36 am

    Rental review should aim for

    Rental review should aim for balanced protectionEasier (press release),UK-7 hours agoIn the meantime, landlords and tenants should use only reputable,

  35. 35

    atlanta apartments said,

    February 23, 2008 @ 12:48 am

    Happy Anniversary to the API’s. Loving em. Great work.

  36. 36

    Medical Coding said,

    May 1, 2008 @ 7:37 am

    Found a sweet Trulia API demo:

    http://www.goondocks.com/projects/Trulia_API_Demo.aspx

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