The broker/agent of the future has to be smart and very capable of using technology… You have to keep up with your clients who are extremely savvy. They have more information now than they did in the past. And it’s harder for a broker/agent to be successful when their clients are smarter than they are.

by Pam Liebman, CEO, Corcoran Group

That future is now.

If there’s one thing that has changed the way real estate is being sold and bought today, it is the reliance of both buyers and sellers on technology, the internet particularly.

Bill Gates on business

Bill Gates of Microsoft ones said that – “If you have a business and your business is not in the internet, then, you are not in business.”

Hundreds of real estate brokers and agents have embraced this dictum that many have created their own websites or blogs to market real estate. This is good for both buyers and sellers because technology has eliminated a few of the processes involved before a buyer arrives at a decision.

A prospective buyer can simply go online to examine potential properties before actually going out to look for one. A broker/agent, on the other hand, can make a preliminary presentation (even while he’s asleep) by giving his client information about a property through his website. Technology, therefore, has enabled both buyers and sellers to save time and effort before they actually meet up or go on a “tripping” to the development site.

What’s lacking among all local real estate websites

The common denominator among all local real estate websites is their dependence on static vicinity maps provided by developers. Below are typical examples.

On the left is Discovery Primea, a 64-story condominium that will rise on the former site of Gilarmi Apartments along Ayala Avenue. Next to it is Belton Place along Don Chino Roces Avenue (formerly Pasong Tamo) near Gil Puyat.

While they show the exact locations of the projects, they don’t show other information that are equally, if not more, important to a prospective home buyer:

• The various points of interest (POI’s) – institutional, commercial and office establishments – within and outside the vicinity of the project
• The distance from the project to the various points of interest

Enter Wikimapia wherein various POI’s, especially in Metro Manila, have already been tagged

Wikimapia is an online, human-editable interactive map that offers several useful functions and above are just two of them.

It’s a powerful tool but requires some learning to be really useful. The following are some notes on its features and what can and cannot be done with it.

Let’s take for example Discovery Primea.

• What you see is the default map of Wikimapia called the Satellite view. Discovery Primea is at the center of your screen with the “+” sign on it. Mouse over it and it will light up in yellow. Click on it and a box that gives its short description will appear. You can do the same with the other buildings nearby. The satellite view, though, doesn’t show the streets.
• To see the streets, choose Google hybrid. This time, though, the buildings that are clickable in the satellite view no longer appear.
• When tagging a building, the outline (polygons) of its roof (the walls should never be included) is drawn and then dragged to its base. This is especially important for tall buildings to keep them from “crossing” the streets that bound them. Just imagine if the outline of nearby buildings, The Ritz Towers and the Pacific Plaza Condominium, are placed on their roofs.
• Zooming out will give you a larger view of the map giving you several points of interest that conventional static maps cannot provide.
• To move around the map (and to see other POI’s), hold down the left mouse button and drag the map to the left or right and up or down.
• This is very important. Wikimapia is provided for everyone to use free of charge, but should never be used for advertising. Brokers or agents can do their selling anywhere they want, but never inside Wikimapia. Those who refuse to heed this rule risk being banned in Wikimapia.

Wikimapia provides a distance measuring tool

Let’s assume for a while that you are eyeing Discovery Primea and you have a daughter who’s studying in De La Salle-Taft. How far is the school from Primea?

Wikimapia provides a function that allows measuring of distance from point A to B, regardless of how far they are from each other.

This is best done in Google hybrid.

Newbies are best advised to practice with short distances like our example. You may zoom out as high as possible until you see both POI’s – Discovery Primea and De La Salle-Taft. The + sign will remain on Discovery Primea as you zoom out.

Click the Distance Measuring Tool icon, shown in the picture above, and you will be shown something like this:

The Distance Measure box will appear on the right of the screen and will shift the map to the left. The + sign will remain on Discovery Primea but will remove De La Salle-Taft from the screen. Remember where Primea is then drag the map to the right to make De La Salle visible again.

You’re cursor will now have a bold red cross on its tip. Use the red cross to lay down waypoints along the route between our two POI’s.

Start by clicking in front of Discovery Primea to lay down the first waypoint. Lay down several waypoints along the route until you reach De La Salle-Taft. The distance between each pair of waypoints is given and the total distance is indicated after you have laid down your last waypoint. The distance from Primea to De La Salle is 5.2 kilometers.

Note that total distance is a close approximation and is affected by how accurately you have laid down the waypoints. But I know of no other online tool that can offer this kind of functionality. I guess the next best thing is to use the trip meter of your car to measure the distance between two POI’s : )

If you want to go someplace else, you can use the search bar on the upper right portion of your screen and type in the name of the place you want to go to. For example, you may type in Bonifacio Global City, Rockwell Center or Nuvali and you will be given a search result list like the way Google does.

You may even type in specific properties like Essensa or Arya Residences in Global City, Edades Tower in Rockwell Center and many more.

Online mapping is a new technology that both home buyers and sellers should take advantage of

Online mapping technology was available exclusively for military use. Only recently has it been made available to the public and it’s a very young technology and fast evolving.

Home buyers are best advised to use this technology if they want to save time, effort and, therefore, money when looking for their dream house. For real estate brokers and agents, this tool will enable you to make powerful and professional presentations that will answer many of your clients’ questions that your static maps cannot.

Obviously, Wikimapia cannot and should not replace the process of actually bringing a client to the development site. But it is a great tool to qualify what property a client may or may not need.

It’s like bringing your client to the project and surveying its vicinity in a helicopter.

Thank you so much.