As if the U.S. weren’t polarized enough, a new real estate app promises Americans the opportunity to retreat even further into politically siloed communities by screening their potential neighbors for unwanted party affiliations. The Oyssey app, which bills itself as a “real estate search management platform,” includes a feature that allows would-be homebuyers to assess the political leanings of their potential neighbors before moving in.
“Beyond standard search filters, Oyssey pioneers never before available block-by-block social and political data,” the app’s website reads. The platform sources that information from “election results and campaign contributions, along with housing trends and other social data,” the New York Post writes.
“It’s about getting buyers homes that they love,” Oyssey’s CEO, Huw Nierenberg told Axios, which wrote about the app’s unique feature. Nierenberg has also said he’s on a mission to “democratize home search data.”
Oyssey, which is a fairly new company and only recently soft launched in South Florida and New York City this October, also provides users with a host of other local demographic data, including information on the age, education, and income of potential neighbors.
One of the more intriguing data points Oyssey offers is the ability to tell how many dogs live in your neighborhood. If you live in a place like New York City, this is genuinely useful information. Either A) you like dogs, and you want to know where you can see as many as possible, or B), you dislike having to sidestep dog crap whenever you leave your apartment and would like to know where they are least likely to reside. Overall, a good feature.
When it comes to the political screening element of Oyssey’s offerings, there is obviously more to be worried about. On the one hand, you can see why homebuyers would want this kind of information. Who doesn’t want to know who their neighbors are? On the other hand, it might not be such a great idea to incentivize people to only live with people who are already like them. Plus, in a place like New York City, I don’t think you’re going to be getting a whole lot of political variety, anyway.
Gizmodo reached out to Oyssey for a more detailed picture of where it gets all its data.
