Best Market Research Proxies for Real Estate Agents

TL;DR: Comparing the Best Market Research Proxies for Real Estate

If you’re short on time, here’s a quick comparison of the best proxy providers for real estate market research:

Want to learn more about what these providers have to offer? Keep reading!

Challenges of Scraping Real Estate Sites at Scale

Real estate platforms commonly employ several methods to prevent unauthorized scraping. These include:

• IP Rate Limiting: Platforms track how often requests come from the same IP address. If too many are made too quickly, the IP can be temporarily or permanently banned.
• CAPTCHAs: To ensure requests are coming from humans, CAPTCHAs are used as a roadblock for bots.
• Advanced Anti-Bot Systems: Tools like DataDome use machine learning to analyze traffic and detect suspicious patterns, blocking requests based on behavioral cues.

Related: How to bypass DataDome-protected sites.

These defenses are more sophisticated for platforms like Zillow, making it difficult to scrape consistently without hitting CAPTCHA challenges or having your IP blocked. But don’t worry; there are ways to work around these obstacles.

This is where premium proxies come into play.

Why are Proxies Crucial for Real Estate Data Collection?

To avoid detection and blocking, using residential and mobile proxies is essential. Unlike datacenter proxies, which are often flagged as suspicious, the great thing about these proxies is they give you IP addresses that look like real users, so you’re far less likely to hit roadblocks.

• Residential Proxies: These proxies are tied to real residential IP addresses, giving them the appearance of genuine user activity. This makes them much harder for anti-bot systems to detect and block.
• Mobile Proxies: Mobile IPs are dynamically assigned by mobile network providers and frequently rotated, making them even more challenging for detection systems to track. This constant rotation adds an extra layer of anonymity.

By rotating between a large pool of residential or mobile proxies, scrapers can mimic legitimate user behavior from different geographic locations, significantly reducing the chances of being blocked.

However, some platforms, like Zillow and Idealista, have implemented advanced defenses, such as DataDome, which rely on behavioral patterns and IP reputation to block scraping attempts. For these situations, you’ll need more than just proxies—you’ll need a comprehensive scraping solution.

This is where a full scraping service like ScraperAPI excels. Unlike traditional proxy providers, ScraperAPI automates much of the process involved in bypassing anti-bot systems:

• Automated Proxy Rotation: ScraperAPI rotates proxies automatically to reduce the risk of bans.
• CAPTCHA Handling: It handles CAPTCHA challenges and retries failed requests without manual intervention.
• Smart Request Management: Using machine learning, ScraperAPI optimizes each request by selecting the best combination of proxy, headers, and timing to maximize success rates.

Top 7 Proxy Providers for Real Estate Market Research

1. ScraperAPI [Best Overall for Real Estate Data Scraping]

ScraperAPI goes beyond a typical proxy provider—it’s a full-service scraping solution that automates proxy rotation, CAPTCHA solving, and anti-bot bypassing, letting you focus on gathering data.

Whether you’re scraping platforms like Zillow, Idealista, or Redfin, ScraperAPI can handle any request volume with the highest success rate, ensuring your data collection runs smoothly and efficiently, even at scale.

What makes ScraperAPI stand out from the competition is its unique smart proxy rotation system.

Using machine learning and statistical analysis, ScraperAPI is able to choose the best proxy-header combination and generate cookies dynamically to mimic real user traffic. This system allows it to use a healthy mix of datacenter proxies, automatically retrying requests using residential and mobile proxies as a default, passing the cost savings on to you.

Why ScraperAPI Works for Real Estate

Real estate platforms are tough to scrape due to their strict anti-bot measures. ScraperAPI makes this process easier with built-in CAPTCHA handling and smart proxy management. By rotating proxies from a pool of over 40 million IPs, ScraperAPI reduces the risk of getting blocked, so you can gather data from thousands of property listings reliably.

In addition, ScraperAPI’s team is constantly working on building and maintaining automated solutions to handle bot blockers’ (like DataDome, PerimeterX, Akamai, etc.) challenges in the background, letting your team focus on what matters: business insights.

Pricing

ScraperAPI offers flexible pricing starting at $49 per month for 100,000 API credits. This would let you scrape 100,000 URLs or up to 3,000 heavily protected pages.

Whether you’re working on small-scale projects or need enterprise-level scraping across regions, ScraperAPI scales to your needs.

Key Features

• Automatic Proxy Rotation: With over 40 million IPs, ScraperAPI keeps your requests flowing without blocks or rate limits.
• CAPTCHA Solving: Automatically solves millions of CAPTCHA challenges per day, ensuring smooth data collection.
• Anti-Bot Bypassing: Uses machine learning to mimic legitimate user behavior, helping you avoid detection from anti-scraping systems.
• Supports Residential and Mobile Proxies: Residential and mobile IPs make your traffic look like real users, improving scraping success.
• Built-in Scheduler: Using DataPipeline, you can automate and manage recurrent scraping tasks using dedicated DataPipeline endpoints or its visual interface.
• Asynchronous Scraping: ScraperAPI also allows you to submit thousands of scraping jobs to its Async Scraper. It handles the entire web scraping process asynchronously, including retries, and sends the data via a custom Webhook.

If you’re looking to scrape real estate data at scale without the hassle of managing proxies or CAPTCHAs, ScraperAPI is a reliable, efficient solution. With its automation, you can focus on what matters—analyzing the data.

Related: Learn how ScraperAPI compares against traditional proxy providers.

2. Oxylabs [City-Level Geotargeting]

Oxylabs is a top player in the proxy market, with a massive pool of over 102 million IPs. Its advanced geo-targeting and extensive proxy options make it a go-to for businesses that need to scrape property listings from multiple regions.

With residential, mobile, and datacenter proxies, Oxylabs offers high reliability and success rates, even when collecting large amounts of real estate data.

Why It’s Great for Real Estate

Oxylabs’ geo-targeting lets you zero in on specific cities or regions, ensuring accurate data collection, which is ideal for real estate market research.

Pricing

Oxylabs come with a higher price point, which can be a deterrent for most businesses. Still, if you need to scrape data at city level, it can be a great option.

It uses a result-based pricing structure, which is equivalent to receiving a 200 or 404 status code from your request. Either way, it is considered to be a “result” as a page has been returned. So, keeping an eye on 404 statuses is a must.

Key Features

• Advanced Geo-Targeting: Perfect for scraping data from specific locations.
• Huge Proxy Pool: Over 102 million IPs for high-volume requests.
• API Integration: Seamless integration with enterprise systems for efficient data collection.

3. BrightData [Best for High Precision Geo-Targeting]

BrightData (formerly Luminati) boasts one of the largest proxy pools, with over 72 million residential, mobile, and data center IPs. It’s a great choice for real estate scraping that requires precise geo-targeting, like gathering property listings from specific neighborhoods. Bright Data also supports ASN targeting, giving you granular control over proxy locations.

Why It’s Great for Real Estate

BrightData’s geo-targeting down to the city or even neighborhood level helps you collect the most accurate, localized data for real estate market research.

Pricing

BrightData is on the pricier side, starting at $499/month (up to 69GBs) for residential proxies with a per-GB pricing structure.

However, what makes it stand out is its dataset offering. Instead of using BrightData proxies and tools to build your scrapers, you can buy pre-built datasets. Of course, due to its high cost, this last option is better suited for teams with large budgets and no technical skills.

Key Features

• Precise Geo-Targeting: Perfect for neighborhood-level data collection.
• Large Proxy Pool: Over 72 million IPs for reliable access.
• Supports Residential, Mobile, and Datacenter Proxies: Versatile for a range of scraping needs.

4. Smartproxy [Best Value for Small Real Estate Projects]

Smartproxy strikes a perfect balance between cost and performance, making it ideal for smaller real estate projects. With over 40 million IPs, including residential and datacenter proxies, Smartproxy is known for its easy setup and automatic proxy rotation. It’s a great choice for real estate agents or small firms needing to analyze local markets without breaking the bank.

Why It’s Great for Real Estate

Affordable and user-friendly, Smartproxy is perfect for small firms or agents looking to efficiently scrape local real estate data.

Pricing

Starts at $15 per month, offering a budget-friendly option for small-scale data scraping.

Key Features

• Rotating Proxies: Ensures uninterrupted data collection.
• Easy-to-Use Dashboard: Simple setup and management.
• Strong Customer Support: Reliable help when needed.

5. Zyte [AI-Driven Proxy Rotation]

Zyte (Crawlera) simplifies scraping by automating proxy rotation and managing anti-bot defenses. It allows you to easily scrape real estate platforms like Zillow and Redfin without worrying about IP bans or CAPTCHA challenges. With pay-per-request pricing, it’s a flexible solution for developers and analysts who need efficiency without committing to large-scale bandwidth.

Why It’s Great for Real Estate

Zyte takes care of the technical hurdles like automating proxies and handling CAPTCHAs, so you can focus on gathering the data you need.

Pricing

Flexible, pay-per-use pricing (up to $25/month) that adapts to your specific scraping needs.

However, its major drawback is its complex pricing structure, which relies on a combination of proxy type, CPU usage, JS rendering, and other factors to value the cost of each request.

Due to the complexity of sites like Zillow and Idealista, we assume you’ll land between tier 4 and 5. Plus the rendering fee as most real estate sites uses JavaScript to inject property listings.

Key Features

• CAPTCHA Handling: Automatically solves CAPTCHAs for uninterrupted scraping.
• Smart Proxy Rotation: Ensures continuous, seamless data collection.
• Built-In Retry System: Automatically retries failed requests, improving success rates.

6. Storm Proxies [Best Budget Option for Small Real Estate Projects]

Storm Proxies is an affordable, no-frills option designed for small-scale scraping tasks. With rotating residential proxies and plans starting at just $50 per month for 5 ports, it’s ideal for real estate professionals looking to scrape smaller datasets. While it lacks advanced features like CAPTCHA handling, its simplicity and low cost make it perfect for those on a budget.

Why It’s Great for Real Estate

Storm Proxies is affordable and straightforward, making it a great choice for scraping basic real estate data on a smaller scale.

Pricing

Starts at $50/month for 5 ports, making it one of the most affordable options for small projects.

Key Features

• Rotating Proxies: Automatic IP rotation for uninterrupted scraping.
• Quick Setup: Easy to get started, with no complex configurations.
• Budget-Friendly: Ideal for users who need a low-cost, straightforward solution.

7. IPRoyal [Ethically Sourced Residential Proxies]

IPRoyal is known for its ethically sourced residential proxies, providing a global pool of reliable IPs. With rotating proxies, IPRoyal helps you scrape real estate platforms like Zillow and Redfin without worrying about IP bans.

It’s ideal for collecting data from specific regions, and its flexible pricing makes it accessible to both small businesses and individual professionals.

Why It’s Great for Real Estate

IPRoyal’s ethically sourced residential proxies give you reliable, legitimate IP addresses, reducing the risk of bans and ensuring consistent data collection.

Pricing

Plans start at $245/month for 50GB of residential proxy bandwidth, offering flexibility for various project sizes.

Key Features

• Ethically Sourced Proxies: Better IP reputation with a lower risk of being blocked.
• Rotating Residential Proxies: Fresh IPs for targeted, location-specific scraping.
• Easy Integration: Simple setup with scraping tools, perfect for quick deployment.

These proxy providers offer powerful solutions for real estate professionals and developers who need to scrape data from platforms like Zillow, Idealista, and Redfin. Whether you’re after the all-in-one functionality of ScraperAPI or the cost-effectiveness of Storm Proxies, there’s a tool here to fit your needs and budget.

With the right proxy, you can gather real estate data quickly, reliably, and without the frustration of IP blocks or CAPTCHAs.

Want to learn more? Dive deeper with our Zillow Scraping Tutorial, or explore our Idealista Scraping Guide for step-by-step tips.

What to Consider When Choosing Real Estate Proxies

Choosing the right proxy for scraping real estate platforms isn’t just about grabbing the first option you see. You need to weigh several factors to ensure smooth, reliable data collection.

Here’s what to keep in mind:

1. Price

Cost is always a big factor, especially for long-term projects. Residential proxies—often the most reliable for real estate scraping—tend to be pricier than datacenter proxies. Look for flexible pricing models that fit your project’s size and budget, whether you’re pulling data for a local neighborhood analysis or scraping listings across the country.

Also, check the proxy provider’s documentation to better understand their pricing structure and avoid surprises.

Related: Understanding web scraping pricing.

2. Performance & Reliability

Think of proxies like tools—you wouldn’t use a flimsy hammer to drive in a nail, and you definitely don’t want a slow or unreliable proxy when scraping data. The right proxy should offer high success rates, fast response times, and seamless handling of CAPTCHAs and anti-bot measures. Look for providers that offer automatic proxy rotation and large IP pools to ensure your scraping doesn’t hit roadblocks, especially if you’re working at scale.

3. Scalability

As your real estate scraping needs grow, your proxy provider should be able to keep up. Whether you’re gathering data from multiple regions or countries, make sure your proxy can handle thousands of requests per minute without a hitch. Proxies with automatic rotation and access to large pools of residential and mobile IPs will help you scale without sacrificing performance.

4. Legal Considerations

Even though web scraping can be legal, some platforms may have terms of service that restrict or outright ban it. Proxies can help anonymize your requests, but it’s still important to stay within the legal boundaries. Make sure you’re up to date with each platform’s guidelines to avoid any legal issues.

Related: Choosing the right web scraping solution for your project.

Why ScraperAPI Stands Out for Real Estate Scraping

When it comes to choosing a proxy solution, ScraperAPI checks all the right boxes; it isn’t just a proxy provider, it’s a full-featured scraping tool that automates the entire process, so you can focus on what really matters: gathering data.

Here’s why it’s a game-changer for real estate professionals:

A Complete Scraping Solution

Unlike traditional proxy services that only give you access to their proxy pool, ScraperAPI takes care of the entire scraping workflow for you. This means you don’t need to worry about managing proxy rotation, solving CAPTCHAs, handling headers, or bypassing anti-bot systems—ScraperAPI automates it all. You’re not just getting proxies; you’re getting a tool that’s built to navigate all the complexities of scraping high-security sites like Zillow, Idealista, or Redfin.

Advanced Machine Learning for Smarter Scraping

ScraperAPI uses machine learning and statistical analysis to optimize every request you make. It dynamically chooses the best combination of proxies, headers, and timing, ensuring a higher chance of bypassing anti-scraping defenses. This isn’t just about rotating proxies—ScraperAPI intelligently adjusts based on the specific challenges posed by each platform, like CAPTCHAs and interactive bot checks.

Consistently High Success Rates

ScraperAPI’s automation isn’t just convenient—it’s effective. By combining intelligent proxy rotation with advanced anti-bot bypassing techniques, ScraperAPI achieves a +90% success rate for requests. This is crucial when scraping data from platforms that deploy advanced anti-scraping technologies, ensuring that you get the data you need without constantly battling IP bans and blocks.

No Infrastructure Hassles

If you were to use a regular proxy provider, you’d still need to build the infrastructure to manage proxies, rotate them, handle retries, and solve CAPTCHAs. ScraperAPI removes all of those headaches by automating every step of the process.

It handles CAPTCHA challenges, retries failed requests and ensures your scraping sessions remain uninterrupted. This saves you time, money, and the complexity of managing a full scraping setup on your own.

Optimized for Real Estate Data at Scale

When you need to scrape thousands of property listings or monitor market trends across regions, ScraperAPI is built to scale effortlessly. It handles thousands of requests per minute and rotates between residential and mobile proxies, making it ideal for large-scale data collection across multiple geographies.

Beyond Proxies—Complete Anti-Scraping Defense

Proxies are only part of the puzzle when scraping platforms like Zillow or Idealista. These sites use advanced anti-scraping techniques that go beyond basic IP blocking. ScraperAPI’s advanced bypassing strategies ensure that your scraping efforts can handle interactive challenges and behavioral detection, giving you a significant advantage over simple proxy services.

Flexible Pricing to Match Your Needs

ScraperAPI’s pricing is as flexible as its capabilities. Starting at $49 per month, you get access to its full scraping infrastructure, with plans that scale as your data needs grow. This makes it accessible to everyone, from individual real estate agents to large development firms working on nationwide data analysis.

Example Snippet: Scraping Zillow with ScraperAPI

Here’s a simple example demonstrating how to use ScraperAPI to scrape a Zillow property page:

import requests

# Your ScraperAPI key
api_key = 'your_scraperapi_key'

# Zillow URL of the page you want to scrape
zillow_url = 'https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/972-Belmont-Rd-West-Hants-NS-B0N-2A0/440257676_zpid/'

# ScraperAPI endpoint to fetch the page
params = { 'api_key': api_key, 'url': zillow_url, 'render': 'true' }

scraperapi_url = 'http://api.scraperapi.com'

# Sending the request through ScraperAPI
response = requests.get(scraperapi_url, params=params)

# Check if the request was successful
if response.status_code == 200:
    # Print the scraped page content
    print(response.text)
else:
    print(f'Failed to scrape page. Status code: {response.status_code}')

• The api_key is used to authenticate your request.
• The render=true parameter ensures JavaScript-rendered pages are processed correctly.

Note: We’d suggest you try your request without render=true to check if your success rates drop. You can save even more of your budget by disabling JS rendering if they don’t.

Conclusion

And there you have it—some of the top proxy options for real estate data scraping. The provider you choose will significantly impact the success, efficiency, and ease of your scraping projects.

Each solution offers unique advantages, so it’s all about picking the one that fits your needs. Whether you’re a small firm looking for a budget-friendly option or an enterprise handling large-scale data extraction, ScraperAPI shines by fully automating proxy management and overcoming anti-bot challenges with ease.

Want to know more? Check out ScraperAPI vs Traditional Proxy Providers to see how it stacks up, or explore the 10 Best Rotating Proxy Services to find the perfect fit for your needs.

Skip the manual headaches and start streamlining your real estate scraping today with ScraperAPI.