RFI - Real Estate Data.pdf

Federal Housing Finance Agency Constitution Center

400 7th Street, S.W.

Washington, D.C. 20219

Telephone: (202) 649-3800 Facsimile: (202) 649-1071 www.fhfa.gov

CONTROLLED

Request for Information (RFI) Transmitted via e-Mail

I am requesting information from interested sources on behalf of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). The request is for information only, and your response is neither an offer nor a quote. This request for information does not commit the FHFA to pay any costs incurred in the preparation and submission to this RFI. Also, this RFI does not obligate FHFA to contract for a data license or guarantee any respondent inclusion on a potential solicitation mailing list.

FHFA anticipates, if this develops into a firm requirement, a solicitation may be issued March 2023.

Purpose FHFA is conducting market research to gain an understanding on the possibility to obtain a data license in accordance with the draft statement of work (SOW). Based on market research results, FHFA may formulate a subsequent procurement strategy and solicitation.

FHFA is seeking to obtain historical, current, and ongoing property transactions data to evaluate real estate market price and volume trends for homes with alternative types of financing. For historical transactions, FHFA is seeking transactions from January 1, 1990, and continuing to the present. A longer range is preferred when and where available.

Additionally, FHFA is seeking data that may be used to improve the existing and future FHFA House Price Index® (FHFA HPI®) methodology, evaluating home price trends in different market segments, analyzing transactional issues related to home equity, and conducting research related to housing or mortgage finance. FHFA assumes such data may come from property tax assessor’s offices, recorder files, tax records, or real estate listings

Finally, FHFA is seeking data to support numerous areas of ongoing research, including research into the impacts of climate and natural disaster risk.

The specific purpose of this request is to accomplish the following:

1. Gauge overall vendor interest in this FHFA requirement.

2. Identify the capabilities and strategies of potential vendors in meeting FHFA’s objectives and requirements including related experience and past performance.

3. Verify that the work requirements and objectives are clear, reasonable, and attainable.

4. Gather information that could be used to inform, formulate, and enhance a potential procurement strategy and solicitation.

Please see the attached DRAFT statement of work for more details. Information provided is for illustrative purposes and must be taken in the context they may not be representative of future requirements.

Information and Input Requested

• A letter of interest, including a point of contact, phone number, and email.

• A brief overview of your firm's capabilities that addresses the above listed potential requirements, historical data support, and relevant clients.

• Your firm’s size status for North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) number:

519290. If you are uncertain of your size status, please see the Small Business Administration’s site for more details: http://www.sba.gov/content/table-small-business-size-standards

• Please include a rough order of magnitude price associated with the requirement.

• Suggested evaluation criteria to assess the best quote or proposal.

• A list of clients or experience in these areas with a client point of contact, name, phone number, and email.

• Please do not exceed twenty pages. However, your firm may submit any pre-created marketing literature to supplement the requirement.

• Is your firm a GSA schedule holder or Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC)? If so, include contract number, and Government POC name, phone, and email.

• Provide any comments in Track/Edit to the attached DRAFT statement of work. When making comments, please consider addressing the following areas:

• Address areas within the data requirements that are not clear.

• Address additional information your firm would require to successfully respond to a formal solicitation such as specific historical data.

• Propose alternative language that may improve clarity or better communicate requirements that align with industry practices.

• Suggest ways to make requirements clearer or better defined if you believe the requirements are too broad.

General questions

• Do you provide a “perpetual license” for your data? This means that any data delivery received during a particular year may be used in that year and all subsequent years.

• Are there any restrictions for using the data to produce aggregated indexes or statistical measures that could be released publicly?

• Are there any restrictions for using the data to produce analyses or research projects that could be released publicly?

• What is the frequency of the data?

• What is the average length of lag in reporting?

• Do you provide a unique “linkage” key to merge property level records across data deliveries of different types or vintages? The purpose of the key is to allow for merging with observations across historical years as well as observations presented in other data bundles.

o Does the key track the parcel or the transaction?

o Does the key facilitate tracking of splits, joins, or other changes over time?

o Are there multiple keys that are provided by the vendor or public sources (like assessor parcel number, property identifier, or tax number)?

• What are the available delivery formats or file types for tabular data?

• What are the available delivery methods?

• Do you have sample code to facilitate importing or using the data?

Coverage details

For a county to be considered “covered,” the dataset shall include sale/purchase date, sale/purchase price, property address and property type for a reasonably complete census of all property transactions that take place in the county.

For counties that have sub-county jurisdictions (e.g., townships), the county shall be considered “covered” if transactions data are available for at least one sub-county jurisdiction.

• In general, FHFA is interested in single family, residential properties that have transacted between January 1, 1990, and present.

o By county, detail your coverage for January1, 1990 to present.

• A longer range is preferred when and where available. For periods prior to 1990, describe your coverage.

o What is the earliest period you have reliable recorded data?

o Describe any known shortcomings with data prior to 1990.

• Identify the counties for which there is complete coverage (i.e., the dataset includes a reasonably complete census for all sales/purchases).

• Provide details for geographic coverage.

o Begin date for each county (the begin date shall reflect the first date on which the dataset incorporates a reasonably complete census of all property sales/purchases occurring in the county).

o Provide data update frequency o Provide average length of lag for each county. Alternatively, the latest date of transactions captured in each county at given points in time.

o Submissions should provide an overall summary showing their coverage levels.

The information should list coverage percentage as requested above for single-family residential stock for consistent comparisons across vendors.

o For other statewide comparisons, additional columns should convey the number of parcels (not percentages) with information available for major property types like single-family residential, multifamily, commercial (office, retail, hotel), industrial (manufacturing, warehouse), and vacant land.

o Use discretion about how to report mixed-use (i.e., by parcel or units) but describe your choice.

Calculations may be provided on a county-wide basis, but a summary table should present results to compare coverage across states.

Geospatial layers

• What format or file types are available for geospatial data, e.g., geodatabases, shapefiles, open standard format?

• How many parcels are there in the USA?

o How many parcels do you have in your data?

o How many parcels in your data are single family residential?

• Is Puerto Rican urbanization name available?

Multiple Listing Service Data

• Indicate whether data delivery is available as originally collected in MLS submissions or as vendor-standardized values.

• Indicate if data represent a “current view” or a “complete history” (denoting all changes that have been made since a property was listed originally) of listings.

• MLS listings may be revised by the submitting entity(sometimes multiple revisions).

o How are those histories linkable across monthly deliveries?

Property data

• For property transaction types, specify what types of transactions are available.

o Only single-family or all land uses and types?

o Cash or financed?

o Purchase or refinance?

o Some data sources might list if it is an MLS or 3rd party sale.

o Is it an eClosing, hybrid, or remote notarization?

o How do you identify a transfer between parties like a married couple setting up a trust?

o How might you identify when a property owner moves from one owner-occupied home to another purchased property?

o How do you identify investors (including distinctions for their size) and their financing sources (if available)?

• How do you identify structural features?

o Mobile home/modular home indicator, including designation as single or double-wide o Accessory dwelling unit

• Convey the number of parcels (not percentages) with information available for major property types like single-family residential, multifamily, commercial (office, retail, hotel), industrial (manufacturing, warehouse), and vacant land.

• How do you report mixed-use properties (i.e., by parcel or units)?

o Describe your choice.

o How many mixed-use properties do you report?

o Provide a summary table to compare coverage across states but calculations may be provided on a county-wide basis

Reports and data quality

• Data may represent compilations from public assessor databases, listing services, or appraisals.

o Describe the original sources and how the underlying data are obtained o Describe any standardizations applied to the data o Describe any known shortcomings.

• Describe the frequency of reporting updates. For example, some counties may only provide annual data updates that must be obtained in-person while other counties may offer weekly automated feeds.

• Describe how internal data quality checks are conducted. For example, if fields are blank or may represent questionable standardization then the discussion should note the shortcomings and any potential remedies.

• What reports or documents validating the data quality and reporting with other third-party sources are available? For example, if the U.S. Census indicates an area has a certain number of single-family homes, then a comparison could verify how close a produced number would be if the supplied data provided a replication exercise. As another example, the data might be compared to other public or private data sources to verify similar or better coverage levels or quality.

• Describe how disruptions to the data collection process are handled. For example, when the COVID-19 pandemic closed many local government offices, to what extent could public records still be obtained?

o Were there particular challenges or gaps from March through June 2020?

o How would such disruptions impact data deliveries to FHFA?

If this does become a firm requirement, and the FHFA decides to request a proposal or quote from your firm, you will be advised.

Please do NOT include any non-disclosure restrictions; state your submission is for evaluation purposes only; or submit other similar restrictions. FHFA is conducting market research and may share your inputs with others to develop a potential, future solicitation. Such restrictions eliminate that utility.

Please submit a response to this RFI by 11:00 am Eastern Time on March 3, 2023.

Questions or requests for clarification may be made to me via email at Jennifer.Sellers@fhfa.gov.

Sincerely, Jennifer T. Sellers/Contracting Officer

Attachments – Draft Statement of Work