2021-11-08 Deprecation Notice - locality_id attribute in Locality Summary API response

Timeline for switchover

SANDBOX: TBC
PROD: Monday Dec 6, 2021 at 11am AEST

Current state

locality_id is an alphanumeric identifier that is always included as part of the Locality Summary API response. This value is NOT used when interacting with any other IDS APIs.

Example Locality Summary API response , which includes the locality_id:

{
    "locality_id": "NSW3029",
    "locality": "NORTH PARRAMATTA",
    "postcode": "2151",
    "state": "NSW",
    "location": {
        "lat": -33.7953,
        "long": 151.0122
    },
    "last_12_mnths_locality_data_similar_properties": {
        "property_type": "Unit",
        "bedrooms": 3,
        "sales": 60,
        "median_price": 718000,
        "high_price": 1010000,
        "low_price": 500000,
        "number_similar_properties": 1548,
        "mean_percent_return": 3.1,
        "mean_percent_rental_yield": 4.1,
        "mean_days_on_market": 62,
        "percent_vendor_expectation_error": -1.6
    }
}

Future state

In the near future, IDS intends to remove the locality_id attribute entirely from the Locality Summary response. (Additional notice will be provided before this occurs)

However, as a first step:

The locality_id field will continue to be returned by the API.
The type of the field, i.e. string, will remain unchanged
The value of the field WILL change, but will continue to be unique.
- The new value will conform to the following format: DEPRECATED_<unique_id>
References to locality_id will be removed from our API Documentation and OpenAPI specification

Rationale

The origins of the locality_id value stems from an upstream provider, in which a recent change has triggered all locality_ids to be modified.
As IDS transparently forwards this data to its clients, this change would also affect them.
However, because locality_id is not used when interacting with other parts of the IDS API, we have decided the best course of action is to deprecate the attribute instead, with the intention of shielding clients from the effects of future upstream changes.

Who is impacted?

This change will impact clients who:

expect the locality_id attribute to be part of the Locality Summary API
store and/or makes use of the locality_id attribute as an internal reference