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

PythonGet free API key →
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 dashboard. No credit card required.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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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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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    How to Scrape Real Estate Listings | AlterLab | AlterLab