Patent ID: 6985902

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of managing listing information, relating to at least one property, for a real estate database, the method comprising: at said property, entering property specific information into a portable computing device; communicating said the property specific information from said portable computing device to a server computer system; and adding, on said computer system, said property specific information as new records in a table having a plurality of records, each of said plurality of records including an address field and a descriptor; and controlling the entry of said new records in said table so that said address fields for all of said plurality of records define a hierarchical structure among said plurality of records in said table; wherein: said address field comprises a hierarchically ordered set of identifiers; said controlling of said entry of said new records includes, for each said property: providing a highest level record defined within said table descriptive of a property attribute; providing a second highest level record defined within said table containing a plurality of attributes depending from said property attribute of said highest level record, said attributes being descriptive of a structure; and for each given record of said plurality of records other than ones having said highest level, the semantic meaning of said descriptor is based on a set of records in said table semantically above said given record; and providing a third highest level record defined within said table containing a plurality of attributes depending from said structure attribute of said second highest level record, said attributes being descriptive of a room attribute providing a highest level record in said table; a particular record is a member of said set of records hierarchically defined above said given record when all of said identifiers of said particular record appear identically in the same positions in said address field of said given record but said given record has at least one identifier not appearing identically in the same position in said address field of said particular record.