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Data on Mortgages, Deeds, Sheriff’s Deeds, Property Types, etc. at Your Fingertips: Philly LandStat Released to the Public

Vol. 4 Issue 3, July 2009

"The Philadelphia Department of Records has released LandStat to the public, allowing anyone to access more than 650,000 individual pieces of property transaction data within the city. "

Have you ever wondered which zip codes in your city have the most real estate transactions? Or maybe you’ve wanted to know which city council district has the most vacant land? Whether you are a city planner, a real estate investor, or a curious citizen, The Philadelphia Department of Records‘ ‘Philly LandStat ‘ website allows you to access more than 650,000 individual pieces of property transaction data within the city. When we first announced the application in October 2008, it was only accessible from the City’s internal network. The Department of Records has recently released the application (which has just been updated with the latest real estate data) to the public.

LandStat incorporates information on property transactions from the Department of Records’ ParcelExplorer and PhilaDox applications and presents it in an interactive web application. Individual records from those applications were placed into ZIP Codes, City Council districts, wards, U.S. Census tracts, and blockgroups using the Unified Land Records System (ULRS) — winner of the Public Technology Institute 2008 Technology Solutions Award (Web & EGovernment category). Once aggregated to these districts, the resulting dataset could then be fed into Azavea’s Kaleidocade Indicators Framework (KIF) software for publication and analysis over the web, covering such categories as mortgages, deeds, condominiums, the Real Estate Transfer Tax, and property type.

2008 Residential Parcels in Philadelphia’s City
Council District #10.

Kaleidocade enables the end user to create thematic maps, chart trends over time, get detailed reports on specific geographic areas of interest, and perform complex analysis through a straightforward interface using only a web browser. Releasing the property data through KIF, rather than as a flat text file or raw database, gives those interested a set of easy-to-use tools to quickly and easily visualize the various datasets. Users can focus their queries on individual geographic areas or specific types of transactions, or take a step back and look at the data in a larger context, depending on what types of questions they’re trying to answer. It’s the hope of the project that as those answers are sought, a level of knowledge is gained that otherwise might not have been possible by simply looking at a listing of the facts and figures on their own.

To try LandStat, just point your browser to: http://www.phillylandstat.com. Registration is free, and will create an account where all of your searches and reports will be saved so that you can return to them later, but it’s not a requirement.

For more information on Kaleidocade, please contact Chip Hitchens at chitchens@azavea.com.

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Azavea Newsletter Puzzle: Philadelphia Public LandStat Application

By Deb Boyer Published in

Vol. 4 Issue 3, July 2009

Map generated in the LandStat application

We’re excited to help make Philadelphia land records information available through the newly public LandStat application. Want to learn more about LandStat? Head to http://www.phillylandstat.com to check out the database and find the answers to this month’s puzzle.

On the welcome page click ‘Mapping and Analysis’ (click on ‘Register’ only if you want to save your work). In Step 1: ‘Select a Geographic Area,’ select ‘All Ward’ from the menu. In Step 2: ‘Create a Project,’ select ‘Property Type’ in the drop down menu under ‘Select a Category.’ A list of available indicators will appear. Select ‘Parcels, Residential, Count’ and click ‘Add.’ Then select ‘Parcels, Commercial, Count’ and click ‘Add.’ In Step 3: ‘Name the Project,’ give your project a name and click ‘Save’ to view the results. The resulting information can be viewed in five ways: map, table, statistics, scatter, or rank.

1. Click ‘Map’ to view the number of residential parcels displayed by city ward. In the mapping features on the left, click on ‘Search’ and enter 340 N. 12th Street (Azavea’s office address) into the box and click ‘Find.’ Then click on the ‘Map Breaks and Colors’ menu located in the same column. What is the range of residential parcels for the ward in which Azavea is located? Hint: It is the smallest range.

2. Click on the ‘Statistics’ tab to view a variety of statistics related to residential and commercial parcels in your project. You can now compare the two indicators you chose for your project: select ‘Parcels, Commercial, Count, 2008′ from the ‘Indicator 2′ drop-down menu. What is the minimum number of commercial parcels in any ward?

3. Click on the ‘Table’ tab to view the number of residential and commercial parcels in each ward. In Ward 15, what is the number of commercial parcels and the number of residential parcels?

Again, be the first to send in all 3 correct answers and receive a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble! Send your answers to info@azavea.com

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LandStat Helps Philadelphia’s Department of Records Get the Big Picture on Real Estate Transactions

By Chip Hitchens Published in

Vol. 3 Issue 5, October 2008

"[The] new application...helps city staff visualize and interpret Philadelphia property information"

Continuing our commitment to the Philadelphia Department of Records, we have recently rolled out a new application to help city staff visualize and interpret Philadelphia property information. The new application, called LandStat, is powered by the Kaleidocade Indicators Framework (KIF) to represent aggregated data on such topics as mortgages, deeds, foreclosures, real estate transfer tax, condominium declarations, and property types. By counting, averaging, or adding up records in a particular ZIP Code or census tract, areas can be compared to each other at a glance.

Map describing mortgages in Philadelphia in 2007.

The data used in LandStat has quite a lineage. Azavea previously worked with the Department of Records on the ParcelExplorer application, which combines property transaction and other information from the City’s PhilaDox document recording system with parcel-level data from other agencies as well as a series of historic and contemporary maps. Using the Philadelphia Department of Technology’s Unified Land Records System (ULRS), also developed by Azavea, we were able to enhance the real estate transaction data by performing a series of “point in polygon” operations to determine in which ZIP Code, City Council District, ward, US Census tract or blockgroup each document and property was located. In order to convert that data to something compatible with KIF, we then created an aggregating tool which took the sum, count, or average of each indicator in each of the different geographies and created a KIF database.

Block group report generated by LandStat.

As with other applications using Kaleidocade, LandStat’s data can be viewed in a map, with geographic areas color-coded to indicate different ranges of values. Being able to see hot spots or areas of inactivity quickly and easily can inform decisions and inspire ways of thinking that might not have been possible by viewing the same data in a spreadsheet. LandStat also enables users to create scatter plots, view a statistical analysis, create tables with specific ranges of data, or rank top and bottom locations for a particular indicator. Detailed reports can also be created for an area of interest. LandStat will round out the city’s already advanced suite of land analysis applications.

LandStat is currently available from the City of Philadelphia’s internal network, although the Department of Records may elect to make it available to the public at some point in the future. Please contact Chip Hitchens for more information on LandStat or KIF.