| A Welcome Site for Weary Home Seekers
By Laura Lang Two years ago, as David Rubin and his wife prepared to relocate from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas, the tech-savvy couple turned to the Internet for online information about communities and available homes. Although they were fairly familiar with the Austin area, they were sorely disappointed in the Internet sites they found that discussed its housing market. Geared to real estate professionals, these sites primarily offered textual information from the region's Multiple Listings Services (MLSs), along with a few grainy photos.
 Every listing at www.homecity.com includes a front view (shown) as well as a virtual tour of the outside of the house. Some listings also include interior shots or virtual tours of major rooms. "Only about half of the listings had pictures, very few offered virtual tours, and not one took a holistic approach on how homes and communities fit together," recalled Rubin.
This experience provided him with insight as to how much the industry's mantra of "location, location, location" needed to change to "content, content, content" for it to enjoy any measure of success on the Internet. It also provided Rubin - who directed his first Internet startup, BITSource, to a successful acquisition by Intraware Inc. in October 1999 - with an idea for his next venture. Taking Action
In February 2000, Rubin partnered with Phil Williams to create HomeCity Inc., a Web-based real estate site featuring virtual tours and aerial photographs of every home above the average price.
"We reviewed one real estate Web site after another, finding them clumsy, inefficient, and devoid of visual content. They relied solely on the same old text-based MLS data rather than delivering a visual experience through aerial photographs and virtual tours," said company co-founder Phil Williams.
Along with private investors, Castletop Capital provided the company with its initial funding. Castletop is a leading venture capital firm co-founded by Mort Topfer - the former vice chairman of Dell Computer Corp. - along with Alan Topfer and Richard Topfer. The goal of the new company was the creation of a unique content platform to provide graphically rich relocation information to home seekers, leaving them with a high level of comfort in homes and communities they had selected.
"Our research showed that the average employee has 13 days to accept an offer, and 25 days to report to work in this new location," explained Rubin, now president and CEO of HomeCity. "Basically, in a couple of weekends, he or she has to search for and purchase a new home in a city they may barely know well enough to navigate," he added.
Because of Austin's central location and the rapid growth of its high-tech companies, it was selected as the company's pilot city. Rubin felt that Austin-bound high-tech job seekers would be comfortable using the Internet to research homes and neighborhoods, and local employers could offer HomeCity's end-to-end realty services as a recruitment benefit.
Once the idea was set, all they needed to do was build the content and the delivery systems. If You Build It...
Andy Bury was hired as the company's GIS manager, tasked with developing the spatial content with digital photography and GIS tools. GIS and geospatial products from ESRI (Redlands, Calif.) and ERDAS (Atlanta, Ga.) were selected to create the site content.
Using digital color orthophotos from Phoenix-based AirPhotoUSA, GIS staff built a base content of aerial photos, roads and parcels. AirPhotoUSA provides seamless, digital aerial photography of much of the United States and had coverage available for Austin, which ultimately saved the company time and money compared to acquiring aerial imagery on its own.
This orthographic imagery was exported into ERDAS IMAGINE Advantage where it was enhanced for display purposes, used for control in the rectification of plat maps, and used to correct the location of existing parcel boundaries and roads. IMAGINE Advantage analyzes data from imagery via mosaicking, surface interpolation, advanced image interpretation, and by employing ortho-rectification tools. "This was a very cost-effective and efficient way to create the base data sets we'd need," said Bury.
The GIS team added other data to the database as well, including ZIP code boundaries, parks, school districts, and hydrography. Because these elements were not always spatially accurate, HomeCity used the digital orthophotos to adjust their locations.
Parcel boundaries, considered to be a key component of the system, were particularly important. However, existing parcel boundaries were either spatially inaccurate or else non-existent. To correct their placement and create an up-to-date parcel file, the GIS staff rectified scanned plat maps with IMAGINE Advantage, finally digitizing parcels directly from the rectified maps.
All of the geospatial data were Web-enabled with yet another ESRI product, ArcIMS. By using this link, visitors at the Web site were able to click on an address to zoom in and out on aerial photos or map-views of a home, with parcel lines and other features clearly indicated.
As a final step to building its database, HomeCity required a phalanx of photographers to provide frontal views and virtual tours of new listings, pictures that are updated daily. These images are designed to convey "curb appeal" and other amenities to potential buyers as they browse the site. Because thousands of homes needed photographing, the company developed a custom routing application to efficiently send photographers from one property to the next.
When photographers return to the HomeCity office, their images are uploaded into the system for display on the Web site. Some homes also have tours of the main rooms inside. By previewing these slide shows, buyers can determine if the architecture is appealing and if the rooms will suit their needs. They can quickly narrow the search for a new home by previewing available models from the city's top builders. These presentations can also include floor plans and elevations. "Within 48 hours of the home being listed, we have all of this content online," said Bury.
One key component of HomeCity is its proprietary system that processes thousands of homes quickly and efficiently. This system automates the processing of new homes from the moment they come on the market to the time they appear on the Web site at www.homecity.com. This system automatically downloads homes from the MLS as soon as they are posted, finds the location of the home in the GIS database, generates aerial views and maps of the home, and routes a photographer to the home to take frontal views, and create slide shows and virtual tours. Photos are uploaded to the system and linked with the GIS aerials and maps to create a multi-media experience. Going Live
The pilot system that featured data for Austin went live in May 2001. This site includes virtual tours and aerial photographs of every listed home in Austin that exceeds the average price. The site has thousands of zoomable aerial and map views overlaid with property lines, slide shows, and high-impact virtual tours to allow a visual assessment of property characteristics. These visuals help buyers address questions such as "How large is the backyard?" or "How are neighboring properties and community amenities situated?"
Because potential buyers are able to preview properties in ways never before possible, they can eliminate homes from their selection list and concentrate on those most likely to meet their needs. Explained Rubin, "Most sites have, on average, one virtual tour for every 100 homes. At a minimum, HomeCity has an exterior virtual tour for every single property, regardless of the listing agent. This is thousands more homes than any other site. These tours help relocating homebuyers more quickly explore a greater number of available properties."
The Web site also features a virtual advisor. This application allows registered clients to narrow the scope of the search based upon a customized analysis of their lifestyle and personal preferences. The advisor indicates how well a given area might, or might not, fit a client's needs from a perspective only an insider can provide, as well as giving real-time property availability and pricing information for each area. For example, the user can limit a search to areas that display convenient commuting times to Austin's downtown, the airport, or to a specific employer's address. "This feature saves relocating employees a considerable amount of time in selecting which homes to visit," said Rubin.
The site also features general items of interest to homebuyers plus news about residential real estate, commercial real estate, market trends, and emerging technologies from content partner Inman News.
While the HomeCity online resources and applications support a considerable part of the process, the company also offers a full-service real estate brokerage to give clients a personal touch and executive-like treatment.
"We want our clients to have the best of the best - in other words, unrivaled, executive-level treatment and access to the most effective, cutting-edge technology available," said Williams. "Our top-tier real estate agents smoothly facilitate all aspects of the home buying process. They are locally knowledgeable and tech-savvy." Tasting Success
During its first few months of operation, HomeCity successfully aligned itself with local high-tech companies and offered turnkey real estate services to relocating executives. The site listed more than 30 homes during its first 90 days of operation and sold more than $5 million in real estate. Said Rubin, "I believe our initial figures supported our thinking that we have a content platform that attracts customers, and a strong relocation model that makes sense for our corporate partners."
HomeCity continues to track the use of its site - especially among corporate partners and their employees - to help the company evaluate markets for purposes of expansion. A prime consideration, said Bury, will include researching what data are currently available for each city and the cost of massaging that data for use by HomeCity. As the analysis nears completion, this clicks-and-mortar company will most likely expand into additional markets.
Beginning in the first quarter of 2002, the company hopes to offer this service in additional cities, eventually serving home seekers nationwide. According to Rubin, "Our goal is to build the ultimate Web site with leading-edge technologies to serve busy, time-constrained homebuyers."
Rubin furthermore speaks from personal experience when he says, "I know just how valuable a site like this can be when you're relocating to a new city. I'm proud of how far we've come and look forward to expanding the service next year to many more areas." About the Author:
Laura Lang is employed by KeatingLang, a creative marketing firm specializing in technology-driven products and services. She is the author of three books on GIS applications and hundreds of articles covering GIS and related technologies. Back |
