Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Why the hubbub?

There's too much interest in real estate solutions that apply clever mapping techniques like craigslist + google (which is an interesting derivative/synthetic application) or redfin. Don't get me wrong, I think these applications are clever and interesting, but IMO they don't do much to advance the state of the art for buying or selling real estate. They basically just automate a formerly manual process with some wizzy technology. I can buy a paper map and plot real estate listings on it. Having either solution does little to inform me as a customer (or even agent) of real estate services. I hope that next generation real estate solutions will focus on leveraging data in better ways to better inform the customer instead of rehashing mapping/GIS applications.

3 comments:

  1. what I would want, would be the mapping, then have spiffy overlays showing me zoning, water pipelines, elec lines etc, and things like proposed council hospitals/freeways.. which would mean an untold level of integration :) but out here in the h'burg they are building a new hospital.. and I bet the folks around it were not happy.. means roads have to be widened, some things demolished, etc...

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  2. Agreed! That would be very cool. However, ultimately that is DATA which is really what I want to make decisions. A home is no less an investment than anything else you might buy, but these sites are giving you the analog of "revenue" to an equity. No good investor would buy stock in a company off "revenue" only. They want P/E, management bios, industry trends, %ROI on invested Capital, pre-tax profit, etc.
    As for the hospital.. I live pretty much right across the street from the new hospital, and I think it's only going to increase my property value as it drags the city and businesses (and hence investment dollars) towards my property.

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  3. we live round the corner from where it will be built.. always driving past the little fire hose shed thing... (where in massanetta springs road near the lake)...
    i dont think i would want to live as close as to being next to it... hospitals are 24hr noise!

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