All New: LandVision for Commercial Real Estate

March 19, 2013 Annie Schwab, Vice President, Marketing No comments

LandVision Commercial Demographic Visual AnalysisWith our latest version of LandVision™ Commercial Real Estate edition released, the solution is revolutionizing the way brokers, analysts and researchers find properties to better understand their markets and therefore close more opportunities. Successful commercial real estate decisions require capitalizing on the intersection of data and location. LandVision™ Commercial helps you do just that, providing a single system to research properties, collect and manage data, and analyze markets and opportunities.

Underlying the Commercial edition is access to essential data sets required to fully understand properties, their surrounding locations, and the larger market. Demographic data, points of interest, and foreclosures are included in addition to the standard LandVision™ layers of property records, parcel boundaries, aerial imagery, and environmental hazards.

Going further, LandVision™ Commercial makes finding information quick and easy with one click searches for property owner portfolios and key market players. Users can master their market dynamics with trade area analysis, market activity alerts and advanced data styling options for visual analysis. LandVision™ Commercial even streamlines the management of market intelligence with its custom property database layer, capturing broker knowledge on sites, buildings, contacts, owners and projects and location enabling it.

Digital Map Products is excited to have had the opportunity to develop a solution specifically tailored to the real estate community. LandVision™ Commercial includes all the robust data, search and visualization features of LandVision™ Enterprise Edition but goes much further with data and tools geared to the unique needs of commercial real estate. Thousands of LandVision™ users have discovered the mapping advantage.

To learn more about LandVision™, the new Commercial edition, and to register for a complimentary trial, visit: www.digmap.com/campaigns/LandVisionCommercialLaunchBlog.html.

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Cracking the Land Acquisition Code: How Land Acquisition Has Changed & How to Succeed

November 20, 2012 Christina Coggins, Marketing Manager No comments

We recently hosted a webinar about the changes occurring in land acquisition and offered some ideas on how builders and developers can leverage location technologies to succeed in the land game. The webinar was a great success and so we thought our blog readers might enjoy learning some of the valuable tips too.

As most people know by now, the hay-day of fringe development is over and the focus has shifted to infill, transit oriented and multifamily development. Yet, parcels suited for these types of development are in short supply, and as a result competition among builders and developers is fierce. In addition, consumer expectations for housing are shifting. As the era of one-size-fits all housing comes to a close builders and developers need to realize the new housing consumer expects options for multigenerational living, close proximity to job centers and public transportation, and access to great schools, nightlife, and walkable neighborhoods.

So what can builders and developers do to get back in the land game and flourish among these changes? Below are some best practices tips you can get started utilizing right away that will keep you on the top of your land game:

1) Know the Supply – It’s no longer enough to just track new home sales, instead you need to think outside the box and consider other key market drivers like resale listings, rentals, underwater properties, and foreclosures.

2) Know the Demand – Utilize demographics and cross tab analysis to locate your optimal target segments. Correlate these metrics with available supply to identify unmet demand. Make sure to pay close attention to factors that influence consumer housing demand like the health of local employers and recreational amenities.

3) Embrace Mapping – Mapping is a great way to familiarize yourself with your market’s landscape. Use mapping to conduct searches and hone in on viable parcels for development. Mapping can also help you target buyers, analyze market health and spot trends.

4) Track Key Metrics – Tracking key metrics such as transaction volume, absorption, active key players and more will raise your market awareness and enable you to react quickly to opportunities.

5) Import & Leverage Your Data – Your own data is a great source of information. Data that you’ve hidden away in spreadsheets comes to life when displayed on a map. In addition, you can also leverage data from outside information sources like local government, regional transportation, and real estate market data sets.

Embracing technology and using it to overcome the challenges in land acquisition today will help you succeed. In particular, online mapping lets you reach the property for location data for more thorough development analyses. Maps provide the ideal medium for displaying large amounts of information, and make it easy for you to explore your data to find patterns and trends. With the right mapping solution you can implement the best practice tips mentioned above to begin finding great land deals! Click here to view the complete Cracking the Land Acquisition Code webinar.

Learn more about real estate & mapping best practices:

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LandVision Version 8.18 Has Arrived!

November 15, 2012 Christina Coggins, Marketing Manager No comments

LandVision Version 8.18We’ve been busy at Digital Map Products getting together the newest release of LandVision™, Version 8.18. This new version includes several usability enhancements, as well as some great new features and is the result of our customers’ valuable feedback.

With this latest version of LandVision™ users will now be able to more easily add and work with their data with the new Add Notes and Attach Documents features which let users link unique comments, information and related files directly to a parcel in LandVision™. These useful features are guaranteed to save users time and make collaboration a breeze.

We’ve also provided more search and display options with the Advanced Property Search filter which lets users search by more specific criteria like land use, location, and owner occupied status. Updates to our Inclusion/Exclusion feature let users define a custom search area or exclude an area so they can easily hone in on target markets. You can even link out to Google Earth™ from LandVision™ to evaluate a property of interest from a street level or terrain perspective.

Finally, we’ve made using LandVision™ even more convenient because Version 8.18 is now supported by additional browsers including Mozilla Firefox® and Internet Explorer® 8. We’ve also expanded our in-product help and feature documentation to ensure you get off to the right start with Version 8.18.

We’re excited about the new features available in LandVision™ Version 8.18 and hope you’ll find them to be useful for your real estate research, analysis and decision making! Not a LandVision™ user yet? Why not give it a try with a complimentary trial
http://www.digmap.com/Campaigns/LandVisionVersion8.18.html

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Real Estate Mapping Faux Pas #7: Mapping Hieroglyphics

August 8, 2012 Christina Coggins, Marketing Manager No comments
Mapping Hieroglyphics

Real Estate Mapping Faux Pas #7 brings us to our last and final mapping faux pas in this series. Yet, this is not to say this faux pas is insignificant by any means, in fact this faux pas is quite possibly the most important! Real Estate Mapping Faux Pas #7 is what we like to call Mapping Hieroglyphics. Mapping Hieroglyphics occurs when you come across a great real estate website complete with an interactive map, you think how great it is that so many real estate companies are embracing consumer mapping needs and adding maps to their website. BUT just as you exhale with relief you realize that something isn’t right about this map, is it in a different language? What are all of these symbols on it? You’ve just come across Real Estate Mapping Faux Pas #7: Mapping Hieroglyphics.

Mapping Hieroglyphics occurs when, a well intentioned map, is overloaded with too many symbols, complex mapping words, useless widgets and other overwhelming clutter that does not belong on a map. When a user stumbles upon mapping Hieroglyphics it is almost a guarantee that he will abort mission and leave your site with a bad taste in his mouth. Don’t let this happen. Here are some tips to avoid mapping Hieroglyphics and keep your real estate website visitors coming back for more!

Start off right by using a mapping platform that consumers are comfortable with like Google or Bing Maps. These mapping platforms are extremely prevalent and consumers are so familiar with them that you’d be foolish not to utilize them on your site. Don’t reinvent the wheel when consumers are already happy and comfortable using something that is readily available.

Another tip to avoid mapping hieroglyphics on your map, keep things simple and easy to digest. Don’t make your users learn a new language or sift through confusing symbols to use your map. Instead of saying “buffer search” say “search nearby”, use terminology that users don’t have to pull out a dictionary to understand otherwise the user will be leaving your site faster than you can say “ratersize!”

Finally, in order to avoid mapping hieroglyphics and ensure a great experience for your user invest in cloud services and already available APIs that focus on making the map work. Cloud mapping services and APIs are making it effortless to embed a great map on your website so you can spend time ensuring your map is user friendly and improving the user experience.

Read the Other Real Estate Mapping Faux Pas in Our Series:

Mapping Faux Pas #6: Treating Your Map as a Store Locator!

Mapping Faux Pas #5: Bad Data Visualization

Mapping Faux Pas #4: Loading Map Syndrome

Mapping Faux Pas #3: Dumb Maps

Mapping Faux Pas #2: Street Level Geocoding

Mapping Faux Pas #1: Where’s the Map?


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Sharing Innovative Technology at the NACo Annual Conference

July 18, 2012 Annie Schwab, Vice President, Marketing No comments

The Digital Map Products team had the honor of speaking at the National Association of Counties’ annual conference in Pittsburgh this past weekend. Our long-time client, Mr. Webster Guillory from the Office of the Assessor in Orange County, California, chairs the Essential Technology Subcommittee and asked us to share our thoughts with the group on citizen communication using online maps.

In our presentation we discussed how citizens’ expectations for information access and communication with their local governments have been shaped by our plugged in, technology driven world. Our lives are defined by information, and as such, residents expect 24×7 online access to data, two-way conversations, and the ability to engage with government using familiar technology.

We shared examples of how online maps have been used successfully to publish property, agency, and community information to the public, improving constituent service and also agency efficiency. We also touched on a few tips on creating maps the public will love: 1) think of your end user and invest in your user interface, 2) be obsessed with the performance of your online maps and keep your data as current as possible, and 3) make your maps easy to find on your site.

If you’d like to learn more about using online maps to communicate with residents, you can watch our recent webinar, Talk to Me.

While at the conference, we attended some incredibly informative sessions, all focused on how counties can leverage technology to improve their agency operations and resident quality of life. We saw a demo of a new site, dubbed the “App Store,” designed to help municipalities share IT knowledge and jointly procure IT solutions. Mobile access was another recurring topic. Governments recognize they need to embrace mobile devices in their citizen communications lest they risk alienating an entire generation. One of the biggest challenges facing counties in the mobile space is data security. The use of social media to connect with residents, Twitter in particular, was another popular subject. Cumberland County found that leveraging Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube helped the county better broadcast and control the quality of public information, significantly reducing the incidence of misinformation and rumors. The use of social media also increased their community engagement.

NACo is a fantastic organization that not only embraces technology for the advancement of local government, but also the sharing of knowledge and solutions. This is the kind of thought leadership we need to solve many of our current community challenges and elevate government service. If you aren’t already familiar with NACO, we encourage you to learn more. We’re incredibly grateful for the opportunity to share our mapping knowledge with conference attendees and hear the latest trends in government technology.

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