CoreLogic SSJ.pdf

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

FOR FEDERAL PROCUREMENTS UNDER SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITION THRESHOLD (< $250,000)

1. Describe the requirement, as well as the total estimated dollar value. Please note that the requirement is the minimum acceptable specification or capability, and is not necessarily the best in the industry:

The data should contain public record data from county property tax and deed records for all private residential, agricultural, and commercial properties in the United States, for the period from 2005 to present should include for each property for the period specified:

• Property tax roll information of the property:

o a unique parcel identification number which can be used to link the property tax data to the deed data, o the physical location of the property (address including zip code, latitude and longitude coordinates), o the mailing address of the property owner(s) (at least the zip code), o property value information, such as: assessed value, appraised value, and estimated market value, o lot/land information (square footage or acreage of lot or land), o building information for all buildings on the parcel (such as year built, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, square footage of building), and o land use and zoning information (to indicate details about type of residential, commercial, or agricultural property and changes in zoning).

• Deed information:

o a unique parcel identification number which can be used to link the property tax data to the deed data, o historical sales and/or transfer information (including sale date(s) and price(s)), and o type of sale or transfer (such as arms‐length transaction, new construction, interfamily, foreclosure).

The datasets should have commonly accepted structures and formats. The contractor shall provide technical assistance for data‐related questions for a period of three years from the date the contract is executed.

2. List the proposed vendor and contact information.

POC Name: CoreLogic/John Principi

Address: 40 Pacifica, Suite 900, Irvine, CA 92618

Phone/Email: jprincipi@corelogic.com 800.447.9959

3. Describe why the proposed vendor is the only vendor from which the requirement can be obtained. Examples of acceptable justifications include but are not limited to: sole manufacturer and seller, adherence to warranty provisions, urgency, etc. If other vendors can provide similar products or services, describe why they cannot meet our particular requirement.

CoreLogic is the market leader in providing U.S. property tax and deed information, with more than 50 years of experience. CoreLogic has unique data, data collection, and quality control processes that have been developed over this long experience, including

• Historical property tax data for all counties dating back to 2005 and beyond which is unavailable from competing vendors;

mailto:jprincipi@corelogic.com

• Perpetual usage of the dataset;

• curating and aggregating data from thousands of sources (e.g., county and local governments, public records, appraisers, multiple listing services, and Federal agencies);

• up‐to‐date unmodeled data products (including deed transactions and annual property tax data); using multiple data sources to validate the data; standardizing the data for consistent meaning across more than 3,100 counties using numerous proprietary algorithms;

• generating several standardized variables that are essential for the ERS analysis (e.g., latitude and longitude coordinates of the property centroid, a unique identifier code for each property that can be linked between deed and property tax records and over time, standard land use types and property types, and the type of deed transaction such as whether it was an arms‐length sale or another type of transfer); and

• cleaning the data to ensure consistent spelling of addresses and other fields; and other data checking, validation, and cleaning processes.

These data will support several areas of priority research for ERS, including research assessing impacts of access to infrastructure (broadband, water and sewer infrastructure, hospitals and other health care facilities) on residential property values, research on impacts of farm subsidy programs and access to groundwater on farmland values, and other studies of impacts of policies, programs, access to resources, and economic changes on property values. These data are collected from public property tax and deed records and detail the property ownership and all transactions associated with ownership of the property during the time frame of the data. The data include all types of properties including agricultural, residential, and commercial for the period specified.

Pursuing a purchase with CoreLogic avoids the uncertainties and high costs to ERS of attempting to backwards match the existing property data that ERS has already acquired for the period of 2005 to March 2020 with property data for an additional year from another vendor. It is imperative that there is no downtime that could impact project timetables. We estimate it would take 200‐240 workhours of a senior researcher to make a competitor dataset workable. This cost could increase as we try to update existing studies and datasets with new information that has different variables and formats. Having existing knowledge of datasets and their metadata is critical in maintaining continuity and supporting the overall goals of the agency in the area of rural economic development and farmland value research.

The primary competitor to CoreLogic is providing access to their data via an online platform. While the online platform is optional right now, they could make usage mandatory in the future. This could require ERS to work within the vendor’s platform to link data with confidential ERS data and thus subject ERS research to monitoring or other data security vulnerabilities. As it stands, this vendor is unable to provide the depth of data that ERS requires. Considering that plus the unknowns of their use of an online platform, we believe there are too many risks with using this particular vendor.

We were unable to find other competitors for providing the required datasets. We looked at publicly available data but only found datasets at such highly aggregated levels that it makes them unsuitable for ERS research. In addition, the workhours associated with collecting, processing, and formatting the data from over 3100 counties and local governments ourselves far exceed the contract cost of procuring the data from CoreLogic.

For these reasons we believe that sole sourcing to CoreLogic is the only manner that the government can obtain the needed data while also being the is the most cost‐effective and productive option for the government.

FAR Authority:

6.302‐1 Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.

4. Certification:

I hereby certify that the data provided above is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Signature of Technical Representative

5. CO Certification:

I hereby determine that the circumstances of this procurement action deem only one source reasonably available. Also, the quoted price is determined to be fair and reasonable as documented on the SAP e‐File Checklist and Award Summary.

Signature of Contracting Officer

Reviewed By:

Signature of Business Service Center (Team Lead/ Chief)