Tag Archives: Mapping

Where in the World?

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Since last September, I’ve been using a free stat program that maps the visitors to Rain City Guide. Last time I logged into the site, I notice that they’ve added a new toy (a poll feature) that has inspired me to ask a question I’ve wondered for quite some time…

The “cool” part about the poll is that the results will be mapped out based on where you are when you click “Add my Vote”! To see the map, just click on the “Show Results” link (or click here!)

How does it know where you are? The results are based on the IP address you use to access the internet. Big brotherish? Maybe… But that’s the reality when you surf the web, so it is probably best you’re aware of it!

The Joys of Geocoding

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In my last post, I was asked what the accuracy of the locations in our generated Google Earth files are. Before I divulge that information, I’d like to explain some of the challenges of getting accurately geocoded data. (I’ll get on my soapbox and complain about the state of NWMLS data in my next post).

GPS Signal WiggleNow, in partial defense of realtors and the MLS, it is unrealistic to expect perfect data. For example, consumer-level GPS receivers aren’t always as accurate as one might think. This weekend I loaded up Microsoft Streets & Tips 2006 on my desktop computer, hooked up my GPS receiver, turned on GPS tracking , created a GPS trail, and walked away for an hour. An hour later, my map had a line drawing that resembled the type my 3 year old son likes to create. So even if a realtor was to use a GPS receiver, to get a latitude & longitude reading, it’s entirely possible that the measurement would be off by a house or two (or four).

Another problem, is that most digital maps are created with data sold by companies like TeleAtlas or NavTeq. The companies compile their data by driving around previously unknown streets & neighborhoods, with computers & GPS receivers (kinda like how that annoying guy in the Verizon ads, test their network). I should note that in-vehicle navigation systems are more accurate than GPS receivers alone, because the vehicle’s navigation system can also use the vehicle’s steeling wheel position and the speedometer to determine what your location is.

Unfortunately, by the time the Microsoft’s, Yahoo’s and Google’s of the world get their hands on the data, it is at least 3-6 months out of date (and probably closer to 12-18 months out of date by the time it gets on the web or published on a CD). This is a problem because about 25% of the properties in the NWMLS are new construction (where new construction is defined as a property that was built in 2005 or later). Since new construction is often located near new roads, the giants of digital mapping may be unable to help and are always in a position of playing catch up.

Then when the companies convert the raw data into digital maps, they end up using multiple sources of data, and interpolating it into one set of data they are going to use for a map. However, the data sources don’t always agree on where a point of interest is.

For example, Google Earth thinks the top of the Seattle Space Needle is at 47.620367° north latitude & 122.349005° west longitude. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, seems to think it’s located at 47.620336° north latitude & 122.348515° west longitude. Now, a few ten thousand-enths of a degree means the difference between the tip of the needle & one of the air conditioning units on the roof (a few yards). But if they can’t agree on where the top of the Space Needle is, it’s likely they aren’t going to agree on where 742 Evergreen Terrace is either. However, a few yards of error is better than a few miles of error (which is what can happen when I use raw NWMLS data)

Because of this, I have to geocode every single property in the database because I don’t trust the NWMLS data. So I to call Yahoo! Maps Web Services – Geocoding API to get a latitude & longitude for everything. Although Yahoo is far from perfect, at least it’s free and try’s harder than the MLS. So without further delay, here is the current geocoding precision of the points on our generated maps.

Geocoding Precision No. of properties Percentage
address 16341 80.20
street 1975 9.69
zip+4 43 .21
zip+2 343 1.68
zip 1644 8.07
city 25 .12
state 5 .02

In closing, I’d like to ask real estate professionals to be as complete and as accurate as possible when submitting listing data to their local MLS. I’d also like to state even if the MLS was accurate, it’s unrealistic to expect prefect geo-coding from imperfect data. If digital mapping companies and GPS technology can’t get it exactly right, a house or two off, is probably as accurate as you can realistically hope for given the current state of the art.

Robbie
Caffeinated Software

The Future of MLS search is coming to Rain City Guide

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Greetings fellow Rain City Readers! I’m a software engineer that has been working with Dustin to develop a better MLS search. Before I get started into what I’m doing, I thought I’d discuss the why I’m doing it…

My saga began when I had the opportunity to develop an NWMLS search web site for a local realtor. After spending several weeks, cutting red tape, determining what forms I needed to fill out, figuring out whom at my realtor’s broker I needed to bother, signing my life away and finally getting access to an NWMLS database, I was at the point where I could get real work done. Anyway, after I had spent over 40 hours developing standard search features (search summary with thumbnails, property detail page) and a few interesting ones (like customized HTML e-mail with property photos, customizable photo not available photos on search results), I sent her my bill.

Then things went south. Despite the fact that my client was warned ahead of time that my time isn’t free, she apparently expected that I would be price competitive with “canned” solutions such as those offered by iHouse & Superlative. On the one hand, I can’t blame her. A consultant can’t compete with a commercial product, because a commercial product has a lot more customers to help finance its development than a lone consultant does. Just because those companies sell solutions for $50/month doesn’t mean it only costs them $50 to design, develop & test the software! It still costs those organizations thousands of dollars (or more) to bring these products to market! However, if you plan on distributing software to 1,000 customers, you can charge a lot less per customer, than if you are only distributing it to one.

Anyway, after this failed business opportunity, I decided to contact Dustin and regroup. I wanted to develop a unique MLS service that would’ve given my client a competitive advantage (and she was more interested in price than value) and after reading Rain City Guide it became obvious that Dustin would see the value in what I could do. Besides, I’d rather continue to improve the code I was working on than send it to the hard drive in the sky.

Dustin & I, both share the belief that the real estate industry is in for some very interesting times as the reverberations of the internet revolution continue to change our society and business models. Dustin’s enthusiasm for the ideas I’m trying implement is contagious and we essentially worked out a deal in which I’ll continue to develop compelling MLS technology in my spare time, I’ll use him and his Rain City readers as a sounding board for ideas and beta testers (both marketing & development feedback), and in a few months time, ideally, I would have developed a really unique service that technology savvy realtors would be willing to pay for.

One of the cooler things I’ve done is turn MLS search results in to Google Earth files. Just download the Google Earth application, visit our BETA listings search page, click on the Google Earth icon, and see your search results on a 3D globe. Eventually, we’ll do similar stuff with AJAX style Mapping (although, right now I’m focusing more on things that haven’t been done yet) and other applications.

Google Earth Application

Most realtors have “me too” & “same old thing” web sites. One of the things I want to do, is give realtors the ability of exploiting the MLS data in way that is valuable and compelling to their clients and strengthens & reinforces their name/brand to their prospects. Having customized RSS feeds of MLS data, having proximity searches to points of interest (how far is this house away from a gas station?), and take advantage of all the cool location/mapping technology that the 3 giants of the internet are developing (Microsoft, Google & Yahoo), are just some of the things that could be done, but aren’t really done yet.

One of the reasons for this state of affairs is that currently only software engineers with access to MLS data can do these things. Unfortunately, we live in world in which most realtors don’t have the skills & knowledge that software engineers have and most software engineers don’t have free access to the raw MLS data that most realtors do, so things are moving slower than they otherwise might be. Obviously, waiting for the HouseValue’s of the world to develop this technology is an option. However, their business model seems to be marginalizing the value of a realtor instead of enhancing it. I’d rather take the opposite tack, since I suspect that my future customers would prefer to use technology to improve their competitive advantage against all comers rather than having it used against them and risk turning themselves into a bunch of “me-too” commodity realtors paying somebody else for random sales leads. (which is probably one of the reasons you blog!)

Right now, you can take a gander at the humble beginnings of our grand vision at http://listings.raincityguide.com/search.aspx. Granted we still have a few bugs that need to be fixed, and many, many more features need to get implemented. However, it’s my goal to turn this into something that would provide a compelling value for my future clients (realtors & their customers) and I welcome any comments that would help me, help you.

Robbie
Caffeinated Software

Seattle's jogging routes

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I like this site, although I really wish I could hit a “show all routes in my area” button. Still, if you’re looking for a new jogging route, take a look. Furthermore, if you’re wondering how to follow through on your “exercise more” resolution, this might be a good starting point.

Here are Seattle’s routes. Add your own if you are so inclined.

Galen
ShackPrices.com

Seattle running routes

Swiss Real Estate Map Search Tool

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I really like some of the search options available on Immobilien-Suche, a Swiss mapping site.

Granted, I speak no Swiss whatsoever, (Now we need a universal translator!), but this site is quite easy to figure out.

Swiss Real Estate Search

So here are some of the things I really like:

  • Sliders
  • Sliders for Price, Rooms, and Size
  • Sliders with Statistics for Price, Rooms, and Size

Sliders, sliders, sliders! They are so easy to use! I wish more real estate search sites had them!

Ajaxian and Gregor Rothfuss have some more highlights of the search tool including:

  • tighter integration between list view and map (just mousing over a list item to show it’s location)
  • histograms for the search terms to give you a quick idea what the spread in prices is, for instance
  • shows matches in context (public transport, shopping etc)
  • leverages the superior map quality from endoxon
  • allows you to take notes for each object
  • shows you new matches for your search since your last visit

ShackPrices Gets an Upgrade

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It looks like ShackPrices just had their first major update.

ShackPrices is a Seattle-based outfit that focuses on helping sellers value (or “appraise”) their homes.

The new layout is clean and very straightforward. If you’re a King County resident curious to find out what homes in your area are selling for, then using their site will be a breeze. In addition, they have some nice goodies like a direct link from each home to King County Records (and bus stops!).

ShackPrices Screenshot

For what they are trying to do (provide information for home sellers), they do it really well… But it seems pretty obvious that ShackPrices will need to expand into helping home buyers at some point. The obvious missing ingredient is real-time MLS data.

With that in mind, I think the hardest part for them will be creating something that is not easily duplicable. Their interface is easy to use, but at it’s current state, a similar functionality is available to King County residents through Redfin. (and even more data is available without the mapping interface through Property Shark). In addition, Redfin is a few steps ahead in that they already have the infrastructure to display MLS data and to incorporate user/agent data.

Republicans in Seattle?

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Everyone knows that Seattle is a Democrat town… So when I threw my zip code into this handy google map hack that maps political contributions, I expected to see a lot of blue markers:

Conclusion: Despite what you may have thought, there ARE some Republicans in Seattle. 😉

And for those of you who are building innovative real estate search sites, you should definitely include political contribution information! It would be a fun way to test neighborhood compatibility!

Republicans in Seattle?

iGenHome…

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iGenHomeAn article from the Silicon Beat says that iGenHome is attempting to add a strong technology backend to the standard real estate agency. I’d imagine that just about anyone reading this blog knows that the real estate industry is set for some major technological changes in the near future and that I enjoy watching where the different players take it. I’ll be following this site and maybe have a full review in the near future… (Thanks Venture Blog for point out this article!)

It may sound too techy, but the first thing I look for in a new tech site is their support of RSS. (Scobleizer would understand!) So, I was disappointed to see no obvious RSS feeds available on their site. Even if you don’t know what they are, I’m of the opinion that you will be using them in the near future!

Here’s one example of how RSS feeds could be useful… I’ve begun presenting the “Latest Seattle Listings” here on my sidebar (if you’re reading this via a reader software, come check it out on the site!). This is just a little test of some RSS feed technology that I’ve been working on with Robbie Paplin of Caffeinated Software. We’ve got some other things up our sleeves that I find real interesting and I look forward to presenting more in the near future! By the way, is there a feed of Seattle home-data that you’d be interested in subscribing to? Let me know and I can probably make it happen for you!

List of the Most innovative Search Sites

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Innovative Real Estate TechnologiesThere are so many interesting real estate search sites that are pop up every day, and in the process of trying to cover all of them in a blog format, I think things have gotten a little too scattered. So I took a little time this evening and put all of the sites that I’m aware of on one page along with a few notes about them. Check it out at:

At this point, I’ve broken all of the sites into four categories:

  • National Sites: major MLS and FSBO sites
  • Regional Sites: smaller data sets that are yet to go national
  • Specialty Sites: sold data, property information, etc.
  • Vaporware: still waiting for a product…

This beauty of making this list on a webpage instead of a blog post is that it will be much more fluid. I always feel awkward about updating a blog entry after I’ve posted it, but I’ll feel no qualms about updating this list on a regular basis. Along those lines, if you know of an innovative real estate tool that I’ve missed, please let me know!

Where the Streets Have No Name…

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Grand View
Part I: Background
Just when I thought I was getting a handle on the players in the future of real estate search, today’s news unleashes a whole new set of opportunities! “Homestore, Inc., the leading provider of real estate media and technology solutions, today announced that Elevation Partners, a private equity firm, has agreed to invest $100 million in Homestore…”

Since I’ve been covering real estate search, I’ve had numerous emails, chats, conversations, etc. from real estate agents who think that I should highlight more of the companies that are working to improve the MLS instead of the companies that are looking to replace it!

More than anyone else, Homestore represents the hope that someone will provide an awesome, nationwide, competitive real estate search based on the current MLS system.

Why? Homestore already operates the largest real estate database, i.e.the database that operates Realtor.com.

Now mix together (1) the only complete nationwide MLS database (that I’m aware of), (2) $100M to improve operations, and (3) some VERY accomplished tech visionaries, and I’d imagine that expectations are set very high.

For Homestore, Elevation Partners brings a former Apple star, a former Electronic Arts star, a Silicon Valley star, and of course, a rock star… There are enough opportunities to make one’s head buzz… I’m thinking:

  • Real estate listings on my iPod
  • Simcity interface for home search
  • Home listing videos done MTV-style

Okay, so maybe my head started spinning a little too much! Back on planet earth, I’d say that all the players (Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, Google, etc.) building innovative home search tools should keep a close eye on Homestore. They already “own” a complete and nationwide set of real estate data (ownership in the sense that they have “possession”!). Should they start putting together some innovative tools, they have leverage that others are going to find hard to beat!

Part II: Where the Streets have No Name
I want to run
I want to hide
I want to tear down the walls
That hold me inside
I want to reach out
And touch the flame
Where the streets have no name

Part III: Your Mission Should you Wish to Accept It
Imagine that you’ve been invited to 2800 Sand Hill Road to discuss the future of real estate with Roger McNamee, Fred Anderson, Bono, John Riccitiello, John Doerr, and Joe Hanauer.

What do you tell them? What features do you want to see in real estate search? If you are an agent, what is the biggest pain that someone could fix with a technical solution? If you are a buyer, what are the major gaps you see in the current system? What information do you wish you had?

I know that some of my readers have some great ideas. Please share as much as you’re willing. Remember that these guys want to work “within” the current system (i.e. cooperate with real estate agents!), and, most importantly, these people are thinking huge… $100M huge!