| Real Estate/GIS Special
ATechnology is helping consumers buy property intelligently and efficiently, giving
a whole new menaing to the standard "private tour" procedure.
By Mary Jo Wagner The last time you ventured out to buy a home, what was it like? Did your real estate agent call you incessantly about this house and that house and drag you to endless private viewings and open houses for weeks on end in the hope that you'd be able to find at least one home to your satisfaction? Are you starting to break out in a sweat at the memory? Yup. That's understandable.
But what if the process of buying a home could be made easier and possibly more enjoyable? What if your real estate agent took the private viewing concept to a television or computer screen and allowed you to browse through 40-50 pictures of homes that meet your requirements while you lounge on a comfortable couch? (Popcorn may or may not be included.) And then from that viewing, what if you could select only those homes you'd like to see in person and your real estate agent would then promptly escort you to your prospective dream home?
Are you thinking, "That's a lot of 'What if's'?" Yup. That's also understandable. But the reality is, buying a home in some parts of the country is as intuitive and intelligent as the scenario stated above. Clients of real estate broker Mark Minchew of the RE/MAX Austin Associates in Austin, Texas have been viewing potential homes on TV prior to personally visiting them for the past three years.
Through the Internet, Minchew downloads directly from his local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) the photos of the houses that meet his client's criteria. Depending on the client's preference, Minchew either saves the visual files on a diskette or transfers them to a videotape for viewing on a VCR. Armed with the relevant characteristics specific to each house, customers can either look through one-dimensional frontal views of the selected homes in the comfort of their own home or in the "viewing" theater of the Austin office. Once they've chosen the houses they'd like to see in person, Minchew gives them private "live" tours.
Using a software mapping tool Minchew can also identify the homes on a citywide map, which helps clients understand where the homes are in relationship to their issues of concern, such as where the nearest school is.
Minchew says the vast majority of his customers buy a home from the group they viewed and often within a few days of initially narrowing their search. The new home owners credit Minchew's use of technology for the efficiency of the process and they are appreciative of the time and effort he saved them, he says.
"The automated home search makes my clients much more comfortable with the process," Minchew says. "They did the search themselves, so they know they've seen everything that fits their criteria. There's no lingering doubt or worry that we missed a house they would have loved. I've had a lot of people tell me they wouldn't want to look at homes any other way." Recognizing the Technological Trend
However, of the approximately 720,000 realtors in the nation, those such as Minchew are few and far between. Indeed, the majority of prospective home buyers still play telephone tag with their realtors, still pore over hundreds of ads, and still attend countless showings to find their house, just as interested buyers have done for the last 50 years.
But the idea that real estate brokers and agents of today can continue to sell property in the same manner as the professionals of yesteryear have, is changing.
"Technology has indeed hit the real estate industry like a tidal waveÉ We're in a conservative business [that has been] slow to enter the computer age. The average age of realtors continues to rise, distancing us more and more from our younger, more technologically-attuned customers. The NAR (National Association of Realtors) reported that in 1993 the average broker/owner was 50-years-old and the average agent 46. Our average customer is 36-years-old. Last year, 47.5 percent of homes sold in the US were to first-time buyers, who tend to be more sophisticated and more computer literate than earlier generations of buyers and sellers. Aware of these consumer changes, today's real estate people are desperately trying to 'keep up with technology.'"
So stated Dave Liniger, chairman and co-founder of the RE/MAX national real estate brokerage in a January 1996 editorial in the Real Estate Professional magazine. A statement such as Liniger's could be construed as a wake-up call to his professional colleagues to go beyond their pagers and cellular phones and embrace the technology that's available.
And what a load of technology there is - digital cameras, aerial imagery, digital orthophotos, GIS, site selection and evaluation tools, and Internet search and mapping tools. There is indeed a tsunami of technology. Aerial Photography and Orthophotos
As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. In real estate, where the potential for a sale rides on a client's visual appeal curve, a picture is worth much more.
VARGIS LLC, in Herndon, Va. has been offering various industries off-the-shelf digital orthophoto products for two years. When the company launched its VARDOQ and VARBASE orthophoto product line in 1995, VARGIS' president, Greg Tilley, thought the real estate industry would be a good candidate to target. In fact, his vision for how real estate professionals could use his products is a direct mirror of what Minchew offers his clients today: very precise digital maps coupled with digital camera frontal views of particular properties.
The VARDOQ product is a color infrared digital orthophoto with a map scale of 1:12,000 and a ground resolution of 1 meter. Each image covers the area of one quarter of a USGS 7.5' quad map. As VARDOQ scenes are ready-made, clients can receive the product overnight on CD-ROM or 8 mm tape.
The VARBASE orthophotos are created in natural color and have a map scale of 1:1,000. They have a ground resolution of .2 meters (7 inches) with a tile size of 800 x 800 meters. Similar to the VARDOQ products, VARBASE scenes are also delivered on CD-ROM or 8 mm tape.
Last February, VARGIS expanded the scope of the VARBASE product and developed a new land title survey product for commercial realtors. Agents can order a land title survey and through the collaboration of Autometric Inc., in Herndon, Va., Autometric technicians take the survey and superimpose it on the corresponding VARBASE scene. John Veatch of VARGIS says these title surveys are also available now for the residential realtors as well.
Tilley says these orthophotos not only serve to provide agents like Minchew the efficiency and accuracy to sell property, but they could even take Minchew's technique one step further. "Once clients have selected a home, agents could satisfy all the requirements for a land title survey by overlaying an aerial-derived floodplain map, a wetlands map and natural hazards map."
A more recent newcomer to the aerial photography and orthophotography arena is Image Scans in Wheat Ridge, Colo. Featured as a product of the popular GEMI Store, Image Scans began deviating from their primary focus of providing photogrammetric quality scanning about one year ago to offer two aerial imagery products.
Earthquick scenes are digital black and white aerial photos that are simple-rectified to a 1:24,000 national map accuracy with ground resolutions ranging from 1 meter to 6 inches. Available for anywhere in North America, Earthquick is delivered on CD-ROM, it's fully compatible with any GIS or desktop mapping system and clients can purchase as little as 1 square mile of imagery.
City Scenes are off-the-shelf, digitally orthorectified aerial imagery with a .5 meter ground resolution. Using photogrammetric techniques and differential GPS ground control points, the aerial photos are orthorectified based on 2 meter Digital Elevation Models. Image Scans presently has coverage for 12 U.S. cities including Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle and Miami. Future city coverage will include New York, Las Vegas and Orlando.
Michael O'Connell, vice president of sales and marketing for Image Scans, says both products are of benefit to the real estate industry. "Normally, when people want imagery, they want it now. As City Scenes is an off-the-shelf product, it satisfies their need of immediacy. Earthquick is also popular because it's more ubiquitous and very accurate.
"Both products can be sales tools for the agents because with some very simple programs, they can show important features such as the boundaries of the school district, the nearest shopping center, and the access to the nearest highway," he adds. "That map can be printed out for the customer to show them where their house is in relation to those features. That's impressive to homebuyers." A Commercial Crystal Ball
But there is more to the real estate industry than just the residential aspect of buying and selling homes. The commercial side of the market is a big technology contender as well and both Tilley and O'Connell say that's the sector within this "Goliath" industry that has the most potential.
Scott MacComb, manager of information systems at the real estate consulting firm, Castillo Company Inc., agrees. "Our products are geared toward the real estate and store planning departments of retail organizations," he says. "Our tools allow retailers to evaluate site selection and strategic planning initiatives throughout the organization."
The Arizona-based company has developed a software suite of site selection and predictive modeling tools called SLAM 3.0 which, simply put, help retailers choose commercial property wisely. For example, based on several criteria supplied by the client and research information, the software can not only indicate where the most lucrative spot for a restaurant would be, but it can also indicate how competitors may be affected if the client changes some aspect of the restaurant.
More specifically, the predictive modeling tool surveys all the players in a particular marketplace and allows users to understand how well an individual outlet will do based on various "what-if" scenarios. The site selection and evaluation tools give clients the opportunity to position their outlet in a particular site and define a trade area by drive distance or other means. From the location of the site to the specified drive distance, the software calculates the potential demand for that service based on several criteria such as the number of people in the trade area and the amount of traffic. Going "Netty"
No technology story would be complete without discussing the Internet. An e-mail address, states Liniger in his editorial, "is certain to impress the new wave of computer-literate buyers ... It tells others that the addressee is technologically literate, professionally progressive."
But the Net offers much more than just e-mail. In fact, there may be no other medium or technological advancement that offers more potential success for both real estate agents and customers than the Internet. It's immediate, it's inexpensive, it's intuitive and it's increasingly harder to find someone who hasn't "surfed" the Net at least once.
Today's homebuyer is acutely aware of the Internet and how it can be used. In the words of Minchew, "We're starting to see more buyers using the Internet and I think that will continue to grow. I think 50 percent of my clients would love for me to send them information through e-mail or the Net."
Using the Net to provide realtors and interested homebuyers visual aids and information is exactly what AZhomes.com in Phoenix, Ariz. is doing. Developed by Voice Activated Computing Inc., a provider of Internet services to the real estate community, the AZhomes Web site allows users to search and find their dream homes in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
The site combines up-to-date real estate information with Etak Inc.'s digital map data, simplifying the process of finding a home. Users can perform basic searches based on city, price and number of bedrooms and bathrooms, or they can perform more detailed searches that also include square footage, pool, school district and zip code. Customers can also search using a MLS number or address.
The houses that match the user's criteria will immediately appear on the screen in the form of an address. Clicking on the address will produce a photo of the house, along with the contact information of the real estate agent and the option to see the house on a digital map supplied by Etak.
Located in Menlo Park, Calif., Etak is a worldwide publisher of high-quality digital maps. Last year the company launched a suite of Internet mapping products and services that allow users to easily create custom-made maps to suit their needs and make those maps available to the public instantaneously.
So when prospective homebuyers browsing AZhomes.com want to see any selected house on a map, Etak's EZ-Map service provides a detailed, street-level digital map displaying the home's location, address and surrounding neighborhood.
"The use of Etak digital maps within AZhomes.com provides a rich, more realistic geographic view of a particular home, which can help buyers make better decisions, based on more complete information," says Bill Gresser, Jr., president of VAC. Bringing it Home
But surprisingly, the majority of the over 4000 realtors who have Web sites haven't translated the success of their sites to their individual daily operations. Agents like Minchew are in the minority. "And that's frustrating," says O'Connell. "With the technology that's available, the process of buying a home could be much more pleasant. And I think there will become a pressure from the marketplace on real estate agents to become technically adroit or they may lose clients because the most technically savvy saves the consumer the most time."
Minchew is not completely convinced that it will take pressure from consumers to create change, but he does feel change is inevitable. "Let me tell you when they [agents] get sold on technology," he says. "It's when they lose a listing to me because I walk in and put a full presentation from my computer on a consumer's TV.
"The real estate industry is becoming more automated every day," he adds. "Agents need to get educated and comfortable with computers right now. If they wait it may simply be too late."
Yup. That's understandable. About the Author:
Mary Jo Wagner is a freelance writer, specializing in the GeoTechnologies. She can be reached by phone or fax at: 715-235-9839; or e-mail: [email protected] Back |
