Intermediate4 steps

How to Scrape Real Estate Listings

Real estate listing pages are dynamically rendered with extensive JavaScript and include map-based interfaces, filter states, and paginated listing grids. Extracting property data reliably requires handling all these layers consistently.

Step-by-Step Guide

1

Identify the listing page URL pattern

Real estate sites often use search result pages with filter parameters in the URL. Construct a search URL that targets your desired location and property type.

2

Fetch the listing page with JavaScript rendering

Send the search URL to AlterLab with render_js enabled. This ensures map-based listing counts and dynamically loaded property cards are included.

3

Extract individual listing data

Parse property cards from the returned HTML — extract address, price, bedrooms, bathrooms, and square footage using CSS selectors specific to the target site.

4

Follow pagination to collect all listings

Extract the next-page URL from pagination controls and repeat until all listing pages are collected.

Code Example

Python
import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

def scrape_listings(search_url: str, api_key: str) -> list[dict]:
    response = requests.post(
        "https://alterlab.io/api/v1/scrape",
        headers={"X-API-Key": api_key, "Content-Type": "application/json"},
        json={"url": search_url, "render_js": True},
    )
    html = response.json().get("html", "")
    soup = BeautifulSoup(html, "html.parser")

    listings = []
    for card in soup.select(".listing-card"):
        listings.append({
            "address": card.select_one(".address")?.get_text(strip=True),
            "price": card.select_one(".price")?.get_text(strip=True),
            "beds": card.select_one(".beds")?.get_text(strip=True),
        })
    return listings

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your key from the . No credit card required.

Try this yourself with AlterLab

Run this tutorial on live websites with AlterLab's API. Free tier includes 5,000 requests — no credit card required.

View API docs

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I scrape specific property detail pages as well?

Yes. After collecting listing URLs from search results, send each detail page URL to AlterLab separately to extract full property specifications, description, photos list, and agent contact information.

Responsible Use

AlterLab is designed for extracting publicly available data. Always review the terms of service for any website you access, respect robots.txt directives, and ensure your use case complies with applicable laws in your jurisdiction.

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$1 free credit — up to 5,000 scrapes. No credit card.Just a POST request.

terminal
curl -X POST https://api.alterlab.io/v1/scrape \
-H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"url": "https://example.com", "formats": ["markdown"]}'

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