Realtor.com launched its new map-based search expertise on Tuesday, which makes use of color-coded map layers to assist homebuyers discover their subsequent house based mostly on most well-liked house options and market traits.
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Realtor.com has upgraded its map-based house search perform with dynamic map layers, a software that allows patrons to visualise key market knowledge of their desired neighborhoods. There are 11 map layers for patrons to discover, together with house estimates, lot measurement and slope, house measurement and age, market hotness, bought vs. listing costs, common days on market and neighborhood boundaries.
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Mausam Bhatt | Credit score: LinkedIn
“Do you remember when you bought your first smartphone and how it completely changed how you use a phone? Dynamic map layers are going to change how people search for homes online,” Realtor.com Chief Product and Know-how Officer Mausam Bhatt mentioned in a written assertion. “They are an entirely new pathway to home discovery that allows buyers to answer their most pressing questions with a look at a map.”
Out there on desktop and cell units, homebuyers can entry dynamic map layers by altering their house search view from listing to map. After toggling the map, they will click on the layer icon to see all the knowledge visualization choices, that are color-coded from vivid yellow to darkish purple. The colours modify as homebuyers zoom in or out on particular neighborhoods, giving patrons a chicken’s eye view of the listings and market traits of their space.
“[The maps] present data in an interactive way that is easy to use, easy to understand, and easy to make the most informed decisions with – so users can confidently choose the place they call home,” Bhatt added.
Realtor.com’s previous map search vs dynamic map layers | Credit score: Realtor.com
In a telephone name with Inman, Bhatt mentioned the dynamic map layers will save patrons valuable time whereas looking for their good house. As an alternative of manually sorting listings based mostly on filters and key phrases, they will merely toggle layers to simply get solutions to their most urgent questions.
“I live in the Silicon Valley Bay Area, and it’s a pretty wide geographic area,” he mentioned. “There are many cities and towns that make up the Bay Area and homebuyers are looking for many different things, like a turn-of-the-century Victorian home, newer construction or an area that might not be as earthquake-prone.”
“Being able to answer those questions traditionally meant you had to spend hours and hours like going through one property at a time, looking at all the data, and then creating this mental map or a list,” he mentioned. “With this initiative, it’s been about how do we cut down what historically has been very tedious to something that is very visual and you can get key information at a glance.”
Bhatt mentioned his workforce is already considering of the way to increase the map’s capabilities, together with local weather threat and predictive market development layers.
“We’re working on layers to help people think through their decision, like how will home prices evolve over the next kind of 10, 20 or 30 years,” he mentioned. “When they’re making perhaps one of the most important financial decisions of their lives, they’ll want to have some insight into that.”
“And then similarly, we’ve also been on the forefront of adding a lot of environmental risk factors and trends data,” he added. “So we’re going to add layers [about that] to our dynamic map layer technology.”
Realtor.com’s dynamic map layer for lot measurement | Credit score: Realtor.com
Lastly, Bhatt mentioned synthetic intelligence will probably be key to future iterations of dynamic map layers and crafting a customized expertise for each customer on Realtor.com’s desktop and cell websites.
“I see AI as the foundational underpinning for personalizing the maps experience as well,” he mentioned. “Let’s say, for example, a buyer comes in and engages with some layers or some parts of the neighborhood more than others, we want to use machine learning and AI to personalize the maps experience.”
“I mean, today, for most people, maps are fairly generic. It’s one size kind of fits all, but how people interact with maps and what’s important to them is also important and very different, and I think that that’s an opportunity for us to innovate,” he added. “It’s like going from black and white TV to color. That’s the experience we want to create for consumers.”
