HELP COMPARING REAL ESTATE PROPERTY DATA FROM PROP APPRAISERS OFFI

[Coastal Studies]

I spend a lot of time working with property data from different counties.
1. There are usually multiple sales of the same property (same parcel ID)
that I want to combine.
2. The MLS has additional info for the same address but does not contain the
parcel ID. I want to combine the info from the MLS to the info from the
property appraiser's office. Both sets of data have the following similarity:
a. the same site address
b. similar sale date (sometimes listed 3-7 days different)
c. similar sale amount (sometimes a few dollars to a few thousand off)

I update this info monthly and use it to make charts and comparisons. How
can I make it easier on myself by using Access?

 

[John Vinson]

I spend a lot of time working with property data from different counties.
1. There are usually multiple sales of the same property (same parcel ID)
that I want to combine.
2. The MLS has additional info for the same address but does not contain the
parcel ID. I want to combine the info from the MLS to the info from the
property appraiser's office. Both sets of data have the following similarity:
a. the same site address
b. similar sale date (sometimes listed 3-7 days different)
c. similar sale amount (sometimes a few dollars to a few thousand off)

I update this info monthly and use it to make charts and comparisons. How
can I make it easier on myself by using Access?

Normalize your data, for starters. You don't say how your tables are
structured, so you may be OK already, I just don't know; but you
should certainly have separate tables for Properties (with ParcelID as
the Primary Key, I'd guess) and for Sales (with ParcelID as a foreign
key).

I have no trace of an idea what an MLS might be. You should be able to
create a query joining the MLS table with the table of properties, and
join that to the table of sales, joining by Address; the "fuzzy" joins
on sale dates and amounts could be handled by criteria such as

BETWEEN DateAdd("d", -7, [SaleDate]) AND DateAdd("d", 7, [SaleDate])

on the MLS date, and

BETWEEN [Sales].[SalePrice] - 5000 AND [Sales].[SalePrice] + 5000

to limit the choices, should that be necessary.

John W. Vinson[MVP]

 

[Coastal Studies]

Thanks John. Guess I need to be more specific. MLS is short for Multiple
Listling Service and is the web-based database for real estate listings and
sales for realtors.

I am really a beginner, but I have someone who will help me get it into
Access. I am moderately proficient in Excel, but I have only dabbled in
Access.

Everything is in Excel right now, but we are importing it into Access. So
when I import, you are saying that I need separate tables for the different
types of IDs?

How will this help me to combine the 2 sets of information?

I spend a lot of time working with property data from different counties.
1. There are usually multiple sales of the same property (same parcel ID)
that I want to combine.
2. The MLS has additional info for the same address but does not contain the
parcel ID. I want to combine the info from the MLS to the info from the
property appraiser's office. Both sets of data have the following similarity:
a. the same site address
b. similar sale date (sometimes listed 3-7 days different)
c. similar sale amount (sometimes a few dollars to a few thousand off)

I update this info monthly and use it to make charts and comparisons. How
can I make it easier on myself by using Access?

Normalize your data, for starters. You don't say how your tables are
structured, so you may be OK already, I just don't know; but you
should certainly have separate tables for Properties (with ParcelID as
the Primary Key, I'd guess) and for Sales (with ParcelID as a foreign
key).

I have no trace of an idea what an MLS might be. You should be able to
create a query joining the MLS table with the table of properties, and
join that to the table of sales, joining by Address; the "fuzzy" joins
on sale dates and amounts could be handled by criteria such as

BETWEEN DateAdd("d", -7, [SaleDate]) AND DateAdd("d", 7, [SaleDate])

on the MLS date, and

BETWEEN [Sales].[SalePrice] - 5000 AND [Sales].[SalePrice] + 5000

to limit the choices, should that be necessary.

John W. Vinson[MVP]

 

[John Vinson]

Thanks John. Guess I need to be more specific. MLS is short for Multiple
Listling Service and is the web-based database for real estate listings and
sales for realtors.

I am really a beginner, but I have someone who will help me get it into
Access. I am moderately proficient in Excel, but I have only dabbled in
Access.

Everything is in Excel right now, but we are importing it into Access. So
when I import, you are saying that I need separate tables for the different
types of IDs?

How will this help me to combine the 2 sets of information?

Excel is a spreadsheet. Access is a relational database. THEY ARE VERY
DIFFERENT! Though a table datasheet looks like a spreadsheet, it works
very differently!

You need a different Table for each type of "Entity" - real-life
person, thing, or event - of importance to your application. A
property is an entity; a sale is a different KIND of entity. As you
said, in different words, there is a one to many relationship between
Properties and Sales.

If the MLS data is "keyed" (imperfectly, I fear :-{( ) by address,
then you will be obliged to link the (imported, not sure how you'll do
that) MLS data to your listings data by address.

You may want to read up on some of the principles of relational
database design to see what you're getting into. Jeff Conrad's
resources website is a great place to start:

http://home.bendbroadband.com/conradsystems/accessjunkie/resources.html


John W. Vinson[MVP]

 

[DAVID KANG]

I spend a lot of time working with property data from different counties.
1. There are usually multiple sales of the same property (same parcel ID)
that I want to combine.
2. The MLS has additional info for the same address but does not contain the
parcel ID. I want to combine the info from the MLS to the info from the
property appraiser's office. Both sets of data have the following similarity:
a. the same site address
b. similar sale date (sometimes listed 3-7 days different)
c. similar sale amount (sometimes a few dollars to a few thousand off)

I update this info monthly and use it to make charts and comparisons. How
can I make it easier on myself by using Access?

 

[Bob Miller]

You can also run into the problem of having the property listed as 123 S
Newton St. in one db/table and 123 S. Newton St in another. They are
not the same address to Access and thus will not link the info for
each.
If a property is sold more than once, different Realtors (or even the
same) might list the same property differently as the two above
addresses, thus adding more problems.
The best thing IMHO would be to use something constant for each
property such as a plat # or legal description.