Watch for a slew of online real estate search tools to add yet another layer of precision to their search capabilities.
Maponics, the leading provider of neighborhood boundaries to real estate search websites, has or is in the process of rolling out data products that will make it possible to sort listings based on subdivisions or homeowner’s associations, or proximity to “social objects,” such as hospitals and school grounds.
Consumers could use search tools powered by such data to discover listings within a five-minute walk of a dog-friendly park that’s big enough for a dog to run in, Maponics CEO Dan Adams told Inman.
The data sets could also make it easier to discover how much more or less a home should be valued based on its proximity to a school or military base, which might help increase the accuracy of some automated valuation models.
The goal is to take real estate search beyond neighborhood boundaries, which are often arbitrary and can lump together enclaves that meaningfully differ from each other.
URBAN4M has tried to achieve the same objective by designing “aboutPLACE,” a data product that could make it possible for people to search listings based on criteria including safety, school quality, demographic composition, and proximity to businesses and public transit.
Maponics cited Trulia, Redfin, Century 21 and Realtors Property Resource among clients that it’s permitted to name.
Some are already in the process of implementing “+Residential,” — a data set that maps smaller areas than neighborhoods, such as subdivisions and homeowner’s associations — into their applications, according to Maponics.
The company claims the first of them to go live with “+Residential,” which Maponics released last summer, “will have a distinct advantage over their competitors by presenting listings in a much more targeted way.”
Maponics just released “Hospitals,” which maps the boundaries of hospitals, and is gearing up to unveil “+School Grounds,” among other data sets.
The latter will show the boundaries of school properties, not attendance zones or school districts, which Maponics has offered for some time.
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