Domain launches open APIs for third-party developers

Property services group Domain has thrown open the doors to a range of its data, allowing third-party developers access via a series of open APIs.  

The company has launched a developer portal and is offering access to data across three key categories.

Domain’s Agencies & Listings API provides access to its database of residential, commercial and business real-estate agencies and agents, as well as on-market and off-market listings of properties for sale and rent.  

A Properties & Locations API allows an application to look up and validate an address as well as access property and sales data, and suburb demographics.  

Another API provides access to Domain’s editorial content.  

“We really wanted to make this data available to help fuel a wave of innovation and openness in the Australian property ecosystem,” Simon Farrugia, Domain Group senior product manager, platforms & API, told Computerworld.  

“One of the things we really wanted to do was create a modern self-service experience that allows people to get started with very low barriers to entry. There is a completely free tier that is available and that provides you with access to a lot of the public domain data that we already have out there.”

“We do have some commercial tiers that are in play if someone is looking for certain data that perhaps is a little more restricted,” he added

The APIs are part of Domain expanding beyond that core property discovery and search experience to embrace the end-to-end property lifecycle, Farrugia said. He cited as other examples the launch of Domain Home Price Guide and Domain’s investments in companies such as Oneflare and utilities connection services such as Compare & Connect and Beevo.

“What you see is us trying to really diversify around this property ecosystem and this is another piece of product capability we’re putting out into market that keys into that — so really moving from this view that most people would have of Domain as a property portal to viewing Domain as a property platform.”

Domain will release additional public APIs, he added.

“This is a core focus area for Domain to expand the way it interacts across the property lifecycle and through the property ecosystem.”

Although today makes a formal public launch for the APIs, a number of third-party developers have already been utilising them.

“It’s been fantastic to really see companies just organically find our developer portal and start to engage and interact,” Farrugia said. “We’ve got a range of use cases out there right now, both in terms of diversity and in terms of maturity.”

“We have one partner that’s built an application on top of our APIs that enables real estate agents to develop brochures when engaging with vendors,” Farrugia said.

Another developer is looking at surfacing Domain listings on a global property search website, he added. “Really taking our listings beyond our traditional audience and being able to grow our audience, which is super-valuable to us,” Farrugia said.

He said there have also been examples of people experimenting with property search to create optimised property search offerings that cater to particular audiences.

“We’ve got one developer that’s looking at creating a property search experience optimised around travel time to work,” Farrugia said. “We’ve got various people playing around with property search experiences based around different affordability vectors, based on my deposit or perhaps what I can afford in terms of weekly repayments and where I want to live and surfacing things in that way.

“That’s kind of intriguing because we have our core property search experience and we focus in on the broader Australian population and creating something great for as big a range of people as we can — but there’s these niche use cases for property search which we’re really starting to see people engage around.”

Another group using the APIs has been people building community websites that seek to integrate suburb data, including demographics or data about property valuation.

Details of the Domain APIs are available from its developer portal.