Introduction
Cotality is a property data and analytics company with a data history spanning over 50 years. Formally known as CoreLogic, the company maintains coverage of 99.9% of U.S. properties and serves mortgage lenders, insurance companies, real estate professionals, and government agencies. The platform aggregates ownership records, tax assessments, deed records, mortgage data, automated valuations, flood and climate risk scores, and MLS information into a centralized database.
For real estate investors, proptech developers, and data professionals, Cotality functions as a source for consolidated property intelligence at scale. The company operates across both residential and commercial real estate sectors, with platform infrastructure designed to support analytics, underwriting, portfolio monitoring, and market research workflows.
What Cotality Sells
Cotality provides comprehensive property data and analytics through three main delivery channels: a SaaS dashboard platform called Araya, custom APIs for integration into existing systems, and bulk data export options. The core offering is property intelligence covering over 5.5 billion records with detailed information on ownership, sales history, valuations, physical characteristics, legal status, tax data, and environmental risk.
Key Features
Data Coverage and Freshness
Cotality covers 99.99% of U.S. parcels (152 million properties). MLS data coverage reaches 94% across residential markets. The company states it maintains a 99.5% accuracy standard on its property records. Data is sourced from public records, county assessors, MLS boards, and proprietary databases and is updated daily. For commercial properties, the platform refreshes data within 24 hours for API deliveries.
Data Types and Attributes
The platform provides physical characteristics, legal ownership information, sales and transaction history, parcel and assessment data, deed records, mortgage information, building permits, condition and quality ratings, flood risk, climate and weather hazard assessments, automated valuation models (AVMs), neighborhood demographics, crime statistics, and school information. The company also offers MLS listing data and engagement tools for real estate agents.
Delivery Methods and Integrations
Data is available through the Araya web-based dashboard, custom REST API connections, cloud integrations with Databricks, Google Cloud, and Snowflake, FTP file exports, and bulk data downloads. The platform integrates with Salesforce for direct access within that CRM. API support includes RESO 2.0 certification and OAuth 2.0 authentication. The company offers a property identifier called CLIP (Cotality Location Intelligence Platform) that consolidates hundreds of data sources into a single machine-learning-based record lookup.
Platform Capabilities
Araya provides property search by address, owner, APN, or CLIP number with interactive mapping at multiple zoom levels. The platform includes a dedicated tool for climate and natural hazard risk assessment with multiple risk measures, average annual loss calculations, and probabilistic loss modeling. Cotality offers specialized tax solutions through a platform called taxQ that automates tax assessment tracking, delinquent status reporting, and compliance workflows. The company also provides home price indices and case-shiller data using 50+ years of repeat sales information.
For mortgage lending, Cotality offers Total Home ValueX (THVx), an AVM delivered through cloud technology with daily updates and four tuning options for marketing, risk management, originations, and HELOC workflows. Commercial real estate professionals have access to commercial property data, lease expiry tracking, and comparable sales analysis through a dedicated Commercial API.
Pricing and Tiers
When searching their website to write this article, we could not find a comprehensive public pricing schedule. Some product pages mention that pricing varies by geography and customer requirements. For example, Cotality Property List starts at a minimum cost of $1,188 over 12 months billed monthly. Commercial tax solutions and enterprise data access appear to use custom pricing. The company indicates it offers scalable pricing models and includes onboarding and training with professional services. Potential customers are directed to contact the sales team for detailed pricing and quotes.
Pros and Cons
Strengths
- Extensive historical data spanning 50+ years and deep coverage of U.S. properties at 99.99%
- Multiple delivery options (dashboard, API, cloud integrations, bulk export) accommodate varied technical environments
- Dedicated tools for climate risk, tax tracking, and valuation support multiple use cases beyond generic property lookup
- Real-time or near-daily data refresh reduces staleness in fast-moving markets
- Established relationships with government agencies and major financial institutions signal long-term reliability
Weaknesses
- Pricing is not transparent and requires contacting sales, making cost comparison difficult for smaller organizations
- Broad platform with many product modules may create complexity for users needing only specific datasets
- High incumbent position may mean limited incentive for rapid feature iteration or pricing innovation
- Focuses primarily on U.S. market (with Australia and UK operations under separate brands), limiting usefulness for international investors
- Custom API implementation may require technical resources and longer onboarding
Alternatives
- Dwellsy IQ sells unit-level rental data sourced directly from property management software, covering single-family and multifamily properties across residential and commercial segments. The data supports pricing engines, AVMs, embedded analytics, and portfolio monitoring across markets, serving tech platforms, investors, banks, appraisers, and researchers.
- Black Knight and ICE Mortgage Technology provide mortgage and real estate technology platforms with heavy emphasis on loan origination, servicing, and compliance workflows, primarily serving the mortgage banking vertical rather than general real estate investment or analytics.
- First American Data Tree is a property data provider offering AVM solutions, tax and assessment data, flood and hazard information, and bulk property records services, competing directly on similar data types though with different API approaches and customer bases.
- ATTOM Data Solutions provides public records data, property valuations, and risk analytics across deed, mortgage, foreclosure, and tax assessment information. The platform emphasizes volume data delivery and market analytics rather than individual property research dashboards.
- CoStar (now part of Anaplan) offers commercial real estate data, valuations, and market analytics platforms for the commercial segment, with deeper specialization in office, retail, industrial, and apartment asset classes compared to Cotality’s broader residential-commercial mix.
- Zillow Data operates a separate B2B data division providing home value estimates (Zestimate), comparable market analysis, rent estimates, and bulk data feeds drawn from Zillow’s listing and user activity data, competing on breadth of consumer-sourced information though with less legal or tax record depth.
FAQ
Does Cotality provide API access, or only a dashboard?
Cotality offers both. The Araya dashboard is a web interface for property research and analysis. For integration into third-party systems, the company provides custom REST APIs including the Trestle API for MLS data and a dedicated Commercial API. APIs support bulk queries and real-time lookups depending on the data type.
How current is the property data, and how often is it updated?
Most U.S. property record data in Cotality is updated daily, sourced directly from county records and public sources. MLS data integrations may vary by board. Climate and risk data on Araya is continuously refreshed. Commercial property data via API updates within 24 hours. Specific update frequencies for specialty products like tax data and valuations may differ by module.
Can smaller investors or developers access Cotality data affordably?
Cotality does not publish a clear tiered pricing model for smaller users. Property List, a lead generation tool, starts at $1,188 annually. The platform appears primarily oriented toward institutional clients, mortgage lenders, and insurers. Smaller users may find the pricing structure and minimum commitments less favorable than smaller-scale competitors.
Does Cotality cover property types beyond residential single-family homes?
Yes. Cotality serves both residential (single-family, multifamily) and commercial real estate (office, retail, industrial) through Araya and dedicated commercial data products. International operations cover Australia and the United Kingdom through separate regional platforms (RP Data for Australia). The U.S. platform emphasizes residential and commercial property equally.
What is CLIP, and why does it matter?
CLIP (Cotality Location Intelligence Platform) is a proprietary property identifier that uses machine learning to consolidate multiple data sources and uniquely identify properties across disparate datasets. It allows users to match ownership records, tax data, MLS listings, and valuations to a single property even if data comes from different sources or contains variations in address formatting. This unified identifier reduces data fragmentation in workflows involving multiple datasets.
