In The News: Free Real Estate Information Hits the Masses  - May 2005 "Inman News"

A data services company is offering free information about home values and neighborhood statistics. Melissa Data’s Online Lookups can provide statistics based in ZIP Codes, including school demographics, crime statistics, traffic safety, street names, climate averages and population, among other features. This free resource will allow the savvy home buyer or agent to search across dozens of unique databases to make informed purchase decisions, Melissa Data announced, and more than 200,000 subscribers have used the Lookups tool since its launch. “Our 20 years of experience in the data quality industry have made us experts in sorting and parsing data and presenting it to the consumer in a manner that breathes life into what would otherwise be mundane numbers and figures,” said Ray Melissa, president of Melissa Data. Online Lookups are free up to 10 lookups per day. Registered users will get 50 free per day, and a subscription is available for high-volume users that allows up to 500 lookups per day for $10 per month or $50 per year. To use the new search tools, consumers can visit: http://www.melissadata.com/lookups/house. Melissa Data specializes in ZIP Code-related data. The company’s Online Lookup site features 32 specialty databases to search. Visitors can also use this site to verify mailing addresses, check phone numbers and access demographics on states, cities and counties. Melissa Data provides solutions for address and phone number validation, postal coding, data enhancements and sales leads. Every day more than 70,000 people visit the company’s Web site, the company announced.