Modeling real-estate search service using GIS technology

Abstract

Geographic Information Systems are computerbased tools for mapping and analyzing spatial data. The technology dates back to 1960 [1]. In many spatial data applications, the events at one location are highly influenced by the events at neighboring locations which is known as spatial dependence [2]. This spatial dependence is measured by spatial autocorrelation which could be viewed as property of a variable that is distributed over space [3].As part of the economics discipline GIS technology has been used to automate the marketing of the real-estate industry. It is helpful for finding properties by analyzing data around locations, demographics, aerial photographs and traffic counts [4]. In this case, spatial data could be visualized in different formats. One of these formats is the map. When used in real-estate industry, GIS simplifies urban and resource planning and management due to its features of storing, retrieving and mapping large areas with huge volumes of spatial data.There are several approaches to explore and search for realestates in Lebanon, but these approaches have many limitations; to begin with, they are neither map-enabled nor GIS-integrated and hence do not provide graphical representations of estates, second, they do not cover the services related to distance and altitude calculation of geographical areas, moreover, the modeling of traffic information, population and absorption rates in addition to road mapping facilities are also absent. To surpass some of the above limitations, we propose UGIS which is a solution to model the real-estates search services in Lebanon. UGIS is enhanced with Geographical Information System. Although ZipCode addressing schemes are not yet used in most of the middleeastern countries, the GIS technology when present, makes the search service easier, faster and more accurate due to the mapping facilities used in our solution.UGIS, or "You Get It Simply", was developed to search and explore the different types of real-estates and properties around Lebanon. The absence of such solutions in this country, gives UGIS an added value, since it uses a GIS to provide a graphical representation of geographical locations of the capital which will allow the users to get an idea of the look and the surrounding of the estates; this is achieved by displaying the region of where the estate is located in addition to other related details over two different types of maps: Cadastral map and a Road map.