What can GIS do for Real Estate Industry?
By: Swapnil Jadhav
Tags: Real Estate, Gisapplications, Gis For Real Estate, GIS, Gis Web

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are all around us in daily life. From searching and getting directions for the nearest gas station on your Apple Maps to checking into a restaurant to share with your friends on social media, we are consistently using GIS technology. GIS is used in many industries by many different types of professionals, but in the land industry, GIS serves as a tool to better help land agents find that perfect property for a client.

Successfully selling real estate requires more than simply driving a client around to look at various properties. Real estate agents must have excessive knowledge of the market, research properties and gather information about each property that the client needs to know, and have strong negotiation ability to make a sale.

Today’s land buyers know exactly what they want. They have specific requirements and goals they want to achieve with their property. Any client today is very specific of what he/she needs to buy 1-acre land in downtown with commercial offices nearby, parking available on the road, etc and other such parameters.

GIS technology is used for property research, site selection, strategic planning, portfolio analysis, competitive market analysis, spatial analysis, etc. It is a valuable tool to visualize, analyze and select better-performing properties. GIS is one of the smart technologies that offer a competitive advantage to a real estate firm, bring value to the organization and improve its bottom line. GIS adds spatial intelligence, a true source of sustainable competitive advantage, to any organization.

There are many GIS platforms available globally, both open source and commercial. The most popular among the open source GIS platforms are QGIS, GRASS GIS, and PostGIS. Among the commercially available GIS platforms, ESRI ArcGIS and MapInfo are the most popular ones. Most of these platforms find their use in the real estate field. Esri’s combination of software, data, web services, and industry expertise allows real estate companies to meet the diverse and evolving needs of both their customers and their internal organization. Companies like Hardcastle and ESRI also have special GIS focused GIS Solutions. Esri provides solutions and capabilities that range from ad hoc, occasional, or specialized projects to Internet publishing and home finder services to dedicated applications across the enterprise.

Determine Precise Property Locations

Understand Property Ownership

Identify Land Use & Zoning Data

Evaluate Property Characteristics

Determine Accurate Property Values

Use Case:

A Real Estate developer can find another successful location.

An Analyst can find a location for your new Retail Store using an application like Franchise Planner

Help your team identifies the best site for new development

Some Simple Use Case Examples:

• GIS transforms a simple spreadsheet into a data-driven map which simplifies the decision of a buyer as it maximizes the site selection, marketing, and tenant management returns.

• GIS applications instantly understand market opportunities and offer an advantage from such opportunities. Dynamic features, such as mapping and spatial analysis are amplified which is brilliant to understand consumer’s buying decisions.

• GIS also helps to develop interesting and beautiful graphics on the realtor’s websites that increase the interaction of the buyers and differentiate the websites from its competition.

• Real estate portals are not as advanced as GIS as this new application allows and improves collaborations across the real estate business. As this step improves, there are the best and most profitable business decisions taking place.

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