Tuesday, December 29, 2015

City's Open Data portal releases trove of real estate info



The general public can now more easily access a trove of Philadelphia real estate information through the city's OpenData.org portal.

Mayor Nutter's Office announced Monday the release includes property tax balances, part of 38 real estate related datasets that also cover vacant lot cleanups, violations, and even a list of an RSS feed of all housing classifieds offered on the Philadelphia Craigslist site.

The city pointed out the dataset holds records for more than 96,000 properties that owe back taxes and another 40,000 that have overpaid.


“Expanding access to property tax balance information allows users to understand the scale and detail of delinquency,” said Revenue Commissioner and Chief Collections Officer Clarena I. W. Tolson. “More than $100 million in delinquent Real Estate Tax was collected last year to support Philadelphia schools and services; the tool will give users a new way to understand what remains outstanding."

While publicly available previously, the information is the first time records related to Philadelphia's real estate can all be found in one location online.

“Transparency through Open Data releases is helping Philadelphia become one of the most ethically-run, accessible cities in America,” said Mayor Michael Nutter in a statement. “This release joins a growing list of more than 230 open data sets that help inform citizens and strengthen trust in government.”

Containing land records dating back to 1972, the portal will be updated on a weekly basis.

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