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Web GIS Applications in Real Estate
Internet GIS as marketing tool
The real estate industry has just begun to implement Internet-enabled GIS systems as marketing tools. These applications typically feature free public access to a county's parcel ownership data and maps with a gateway to a fee-for-services section. Many times the lack of a nearby school or proximity to a busy road/highway will disqualify the property before it can be shown. Conversely, proximity to a park, greenbelt, or entertainment facilities may practically pre sell a property. Presentation of listings on a map is also an excellent way to gracefully introduce the subject of disclosure into the transaction. WGIS facilitates these benefits of GIS and Internet to a wider audience in a much simpler manner. Internet GIS prototype for the property business One such prototype for the real estate industry is the Town Council and planning division, The ‘X’ company helps the realtor locate the matching house/building based on the criterion specified by the user and reserve the current plot as an online transaction. The company ‘X’ is a leading master-planner, developer and manager of high quality industrial facilities and business parks. It is also the master developer for one-north at Buona Vista - a 200 hectare development for research and development and entrepreneurial activities. Besides listing the property, the transaction executive helps the user to locate the following.
All of the geospatial data were Web-enabled with ArcIMS and ArcSDE. The WGIS system helps the visitors and realtors to locate property by defining a query or graphically drawing the rectangle on the map. The user also has the provision to locate the property by buffering around a known feature like the Bus Stop, Road or Rail network. The resultant property displayed, shall help the user to view the floor plan, dimension info and also reserve the property. After confirming the reservation details, the realtor would take the print out of the plot and the floor plan to be forwarded for processing. The existing computing facilities of the Corporate include Windows NT application servers running NT 3.51, NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. The database servers are MS SQL Servers 6.0/6.5/7.0/2000. The Corporation also has about 900 desktop PCs and 300 notebooks. The client operating systems are Microsoft Windows 9X, Windows NT 4, Windows 2000 and Windows XP Professional. The standard software for desktop are Microsoft Office 97, McAfee Anti-virus, Internet Explorer 5.5 and higher and Domino R5 mail. All users logon to Windows 2000 Active Directory/ Domain. The existing GIS application system includes a stand-alone SQL server and VB based Land and Building System (LABS). Land and Building System (LABS) has information on the Corporation's products, companies, applications received and all lease management processes. The proposed system e.CREAM, Customer, Real Estate & Marketing System, shall replace the exiting LABS system by providing a solution that shall span across the organization and integrate various sub systems, e.CREAM consist of an integrated operational database and is developed using Microsoft.Net with MS SQL Server 2000. The GIS and spatial part of the site shall be implemented using ArcIMS, MoJava and ArcSDE. This system was designed to cater to the needs of three groups of users, namely the LRP (Land Resource and planning Dept.), SVD (Survey Dept.) and the Business Planning Group (BPG) or the corporate user group. The corporate has a wide range of properties/products constituting of land and/or structure components. Land products are alienated, parcelised and created as an allocable and marketable product unit. WGIS system shall provide spatial and aspatial query functions and analysis tools for the production, printing of customised maps, charts and reports. The WGIS shall allow LRP users to edit, store and perform map digitising of key spatial data layers including infrastructure and services information, and corporate graphical, planning, survey and engineering information in a centralise WGIS database. The WGIS shall provide spatial and aspatial query functions and analysis tools and the generation, production and printing of customised maps, charts and reports on both the desktop and the Intranet Web for the LRP users and the Corporate users respectively. The proposed system is based on an n-Tier architecture with external and internal interfaces interacting with the main sub-system. The presentation tier responsible for creating dynamic views and manage user authentications & validation. The Business logic tier manages the different logics of the application and effectively interacts with the Enterprise information system. The Enterprise information system shall be responsible for managing the spatial and attribute data, performing versions and taking frequent backups of the data.  Fig 1.0 Context diagram |