If you’ve ever been in the market to buy a house, and especially if you're an Estate Agent, you've heard the phrase 'location, location, location'.
Location is indeed one of the deciding reasons when buying a property. When it comes to listings properties on the internet, there are 2 main factors that need to be taken into account in the context of “location” or geography.
The seller/agent want their properties to be represented in the most relevant area, which includes geography and demographics. The buyer wants to be able to see properties relevant to an area without being bombarded by clutter.
We realize that there is a massive need to be more responsive and approachable when it comes to our suburb data, and who better to guide us than the sellers, buyers and agents working and living in the areas.
We believe that we are going to solve our “location” issues with what we call our “Geo-spatial Mapper”. What is it? Basically, we have separated all of the suburbs and areas in South Africa into shapes or “cut-outs”, which can be manipulated or altered by adding them together or cutting them into smaller shapes. We call these shapes polygons.
If you are thinking that pirates and 16th century explorers should be the only people who should get excited about maps, and you cannot see what we are on about, maybe this will help. Once we have mapped a property it will now fit into its relevant “cut-out” or polygon. If that polygon gets cut into 2 new suburbs the property will automatically appear in the correct area. This creates relationships between properties and areas. Another use for this would be to search for properties by drawing a search area on a map.
We're planning on launching this new feature at the end of November, and we're madly working on it in the background. If you'd like to get involved, or have any suggestions about your particular suburbs or areas, please email us at suburbs@privateproperty.co.za.