URL Load To Get Data from another website based on Textblaze field

Questions and Help
1

Hi TB Community,

My Use Case: Using Snippets to actively run the numbers on a property to see if it is worth investing in (as a rental property)

Is it possible to have the URL Load function - grab tax data from any of the large "home" websites -- Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com ? And then load that tax data into my snippet ?

I am hoping to be able to put the property address into a text field within my snippet and then have it automatically "pull up / load" one of those websites (and go to the property specific webpage) in the background (?) and then read the annual tax amount for the specific property

I'm not sure if this is possible but just wanted to ask :slight_smile:

Thank you!

2

Hello,

Based on some reading, it seems those sites offer an API, which you can then use to get some of the data you need.

However, it seems like none of them offer a simple way to get the exact tax data. You may need to get the total value of the house and then calculate the tax based on the county the house is on, which means you'd need the tax rates for that county.

You may be better off using a different API tailed for this. A search showed me this or this. However, those APIs are likely to be paid.

1 Like
3

Thanks Obed! So just to confirm - there is no way to "load' the property specific webpage - based on URL manipulation (like inserting the address at the end of the URL , in the right way of course) and then using REGEX to grab the tax data from the right spot on the website?

Thanks again sir

4

Sorry for the late reply @ajduna7.

Getting the content of the site and then using Regex to get the values is a potential alternative to using an API, however, getting data from HTML via regex is usually complex and very error prone. I'd recommend trying to use our {site} command instead.

For the {site} command to work, the page needs to be open, so maybe something like this would work for you. Below is an example using Zillow:

URL: {formtext: name=url; default=}

{link: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/{=url}; window=new}House{endlink}

{site: text; page=https://www.zillow.com/*; selector=[data-testid="macro-data-view"] > :nth-child(20)}

If you specify the URL, for example "1284-Swancy-Ct-Dunwoody-GA-30338/440620728_zpid", then you'd get a URL that you can open, and then the site command will pull the tax info.

In a more complex snippet, you may be able to use the Zillow API to get the full URL of the house via its address.

1 Like
5

Thanks Obed! I looked it up and apparently the zillow API is free for certain uses - I just posted another forum post asking about how I would set this up - Thank you

1 Like