Many New York City property owners are so bold as to buy their pads sight unseen.
And even those lucky enough to tour the apartments they end up buying may lack important information that could inform their decisions.
To arm prospective buyers and renters with as much information as possible about properties on the market, startup Localize.city is launching a new platform that allows users to look at each apartment along with a deluge of accompanying data points.
It’s possible to see highly specific details for a single unit, from how many hours of sunlight a unit gets at different times of the year to whether planned new construction will block any views.
Localize.city’s team of more than 150 data scientists spent more than three years compiling information about every address and home in the city.
Their findings include noise levels, elevator function, housing violations, parks, crime rates, air quality, parking ticket frequency, subway station access, commute length and reliability and school quality.
Users who pull up the listing for a particular apartment will be able to see how it stacks up on all of those metrics and more.
The new platform also makes it easy to find “comps” — a k a closings near the apartment in question — which help inform buyers whether an asking price is too high, just right or a real bargain they must snatch up.
Happy hunting!