Deed activity by ZIP — what aggregated transfers tell you about market trends

What's in deed records

Grantor (seller), grantee (buyer), parcel ID, transfer instrument type (warranty deed, quitclaim, trustee's deed, sheriff's deed), transfer date, recording date.

Sale price (where required by state stamp-tax statutes).

Mortgage instruments (mortgage, deed of trust, satisfaction, release).

Why ZIP rollups matter

Individual records expose private data — owner names, signatures, addresses. Republishing those is privacy-hostile and in some states (CA, IL) limited by statute.

Aggregated to ZIP-level counts (transfers per quarter, ratio of warranty vs. trustee deeds, median time-on-market), the data tells a real-estate trend story without exposing individuals.

An uptick in trustee deeds (foreclosure auctions) is an early signal of distress before MLS-level inventory data confirms it. A spike in quitclaim deeds correlates with divorce + estate-settlement activity.

What zipradar shows

Per ZIP: rolling 12-month deed transfer count, deed-type mix (warranty / quitclaim / trustee / other), and a normalized turnover rate (transfers per parcel per year).

Top-50 metros covered in v1; rolling out to top 100 by Q3. Smaller markets where county recorders publish via PDF only are flagged with 'data not yet ingested'.

What zipradar will NEVER show

Owner names. Buyer names. Sale prices below ZIP-level median. Specific parcel addresses unless the user has searched for an address (where we link out to the recorder for parcel-specific lookups).

Cached snapshots of recorder records — only fresh aggregations.

This is locked into our llms.txt + /api/manifest.json do-not-cache list.