real-estate-autos-research

Researches homes and used cars via the Crawlora API — Zillow and Redfin property search/estimates/market trends, plus CarMax, Autotrader, and Cars.com vehicle search and dealer/listing detail — returning clean JSON. Use when the user wants to search homes or cars, get a property estimate or a region's market trend, or look up a specific listing/vehicle/dealer.

Real estate & auto research

Search homes and used cars, and pull property/vehicle detail, across five platforms as normalized JSON from the Crawlora API — no scraping listing pages.

When to use this skill

• "Find homes for sale in " / "what's this property worth?" (Zillow, Redfin)
• "What are home prices doing in this region?" (Redfin market trends)
• "Find similar properties" for comparison.
• "Find <make/model> for sale near " (CarMax, Autotrader, Cars.com)
• "Look up this vehicle listing / dealer."

Setup (one-time)

• Get a free Crawlora API key (2,000 credits/mo, no card) at https://crawlora.net.
• export CRAWLORA_API_KEY=sk_your_key_here
• All requests: x-api-key: $CRAWLORA_API_KEY against https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1. Missing/invalid key → 401.

How it works

1. Zillow — /zillow/search needs more than a location string: resolve /zillow/autocomplete (query) first to get a region_id (and map bounds north/south/east/west when available), then pass location+region_id (+ region_type if returned) to /zillow/search; /zillow/property/{zpid} for detail.
2. Redfin — /redfin/search (location or region_id+region_type, plus filters like min_beds/max_price) for listings; /redfin/property (by property_id or url) for detail; /redfin/estimate (property_id) for a Redfin Estimate; /redfin/similar for comparable properties; /redfin/region-trends (region_id+region_type) for a market's historical trend.
3. CarMax — /carmax/search (filters: make, model, zip, min_price/max_price, min_year/max_year); /carmax/vehicle/{stock_number} for detail (+ /recommendations); /carmax/stores//carmax/store/{id} for dealer locations.
4. Autotrader — /autotrader/search (filters: make, model, zip, radius, price/year/mileage bounds, condition); /autotrader/vehicle/{id} for detail; /autotrader/dealer/{id} for the seller.
5. Cars.com — /carsdotcom/search (zip, radius, stock_type); /carsdotcom/vehicle/{listing_id} for detail.

Full endpoint list, methods, and params: reference/endpoints.md.

Calling the API

sh

# Homes (resolve region_id first, Zillow search needs more than a location string):
scripts/crawlora.sh /zillow/autocomplete query="Austin, TX" | jq '.results[0]'
scripts/crawlora.sh /zillow/search location="Austin, TX" region_id=10221 | jq '.'
scripts/crawlora.sh /redfin/region-trends region_id=30818 region_type=city | jq '.'

# Cars:
scripts/crawlora.sh /carmax/search make=Toyota model=RAV4 zip=94103 | jq '.'
scripts/crawlora.sh /autotrader/search make=Honda model=Civic zip=94103 radius=50 | jq '.'

Raw curl fallback:

sh

curl -fsS -H "x-api-key: $CRAWLORA_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1/carsdotcom/search?zip=94103&radius=50" | jq '.'

Endpoint reference

See reference/endpoints.md for every Zillow, Redfin, CarMax, Autotrader, and Cars.com endpoint this skill uses.

Examples

• Home-buying research: /zillow/search + /redfin/search for the same area, cross-check price/sqft, then /redfin/region-trends for whether the market is heating up or cooling.
• Property valuation sanity-check: /redfin/estimate alongside /redfin/similar (comps) for one address.
• Car-shopping compare: /carmax/search, /autotrader/search, and /carsdotcom/search for the same make/model/zip, diff price and mileage across all three.

Notes & limits

• Credits / pay-on-success: billed only on 2xx; free tier 2,000 credits/mo. Key at https://crawlora.net.
• Public data only — public listing/estimate pages; not a real-estate or financial advisor.
• Security: key lives in CRAWLORA_API_KEY only — never hardcode, query-param, or commit it.
• Redfin's region ids are platform-specific — resolve via /redfin/search results (which include region_id) before calling /redfin/region-trends cold.
• Zillow search requires a region_id (from /zillow/autocomplete), not just a location string — a bare location will 400.
• Search endpoints are paginated (page) — walk pages for full coverage.