From a public-records property API like Realie you get parcel identity and geometry, ownership, assessment and tax records, sale and transfer history, mortgage and lien records, structural characteristics, and zoning or land-use codes — sourced from county assessor and recorder offices across 3,100+ counties and normalized into one schema.
It helps to think in terms of what the county actually records, because that is the boundary of what a public-records API can return. Counties record who owns a parcel, where the parcel is, what is built on it, what it is assessed at, what taxes are owed, what has been recorded against it, and how it may be used. They do not record what a property is listed for, who the listing agent is, or how many days it has been on the market — that lives in the MLS, which is a separate licensing world. Knowing which side of that line your use case falls on is the single most useful thing to establish before you evaluate vendors.
Parcel identity and geometry: county parcel or APN identifiers, normalized parcel IDs, boundary polygons, lot size, and geographic coordinates. Ownership: owner of record and owner mailing address as published by the county, plus ownership history and transfer dates.
Assessment and tax: assessed value, market value where published, land and improvement splits, tax year, and amounts. Transactions: sale dates, sale prices, and deed records. Encumbrances: mortgage records, lien records, and chain of title. Characteristics: building square footage, bedroom and bathroom counts, year built, and property or land-use classification. Regulatory: zoning code and description, sourced to the jurisdiction that set it.
Active listing data — list price, listing status, days on market, listing photographs, and agent contacts — comes from the MLS, not from county records. Realie does not provide these.
Neighborhood overlays such as school ratings, crime statistics, and walkability scores are also separate products, usually licensed from specialist vendors. And note that an assessed value is not a market valuation: it is the figure the county uses for taxation, which frequently diverges from what a property would sell for. If you need a market estimate, that is a valuation model built on top of records, not a recorded field.