Barrett Powell

After years of walking land, listing land, and selling land... I had finally become tired of property lines not being properly marked (or marked at all), and with trying to carry a plat around on the property to try and find some recognizable feature that might tell us where we were on the property.

So finally one day I decided to use some of my software background and do some research to see how easy it would be to download parcel lines from my county's GIS system into a handheld GPS. Most counties around the country use a system developed by ESRI and known as a GIS (Geographic Information System) to maintain a combined graphical and text database of all the geographic features of the county. This includes things like roads, water lines, property lines, and many, many other features.

All these features that are stored in a GIS system are what is called "Geo-referenced", meaning they are located on a global plane so that they are located correctly in relation to other things around it. For the most part, when a surveyor comes out to your lot to survey it, he starts from a known point called a "datum" that allows him to anchor all the other points and lines (property lines and corners) to that known point, the datum. The "datum" then allows that property to be a part of the larger geo-referenced world.

This same type of data is what is loaded and what are called "base maps" in a GPS. So roads on the GPS match up with roads in the real world and vice versa. So it would seem to be logical that getting GIS data such as a parcel from a GIS system downloaded into a GPS would be easy and straightforward, or so I thought.

Well after exhaustive searches, I came to the conclusion that what I actually wanted did not exist. Sure there were tools out there that I could purchase (for somewhat expensive prices for what I wanted to do) but they were not really practical to use and were more aimed at GIS Engineering and GIS professionals, hardly what a Realtor would be. I mean I'm not trying to knock us Realtors but unless you live in the GIS world day in and day out, you cannot even start to grasp all of the commands and lingo needed to command one of these systems. Then there was the problem of getting the data in the correct format to be downloaded in to a GPS. Most GPS units come with software to download information to the unit. But GIS data is NOT one of those things.

So my search turned to finding pieces of technology I could put together to create something that would work. It took me the better part of six months to find such tools. They came out of the educational and government archives and are what is considered "public domain", which is a nice way of saying they are free. Still, in their current state they were useless unless I could work out the process and begin to integrate the technologies together. After another six months of tinkering, I finally introduced the tool to my agents in my firm. I had purchased three handheld GPS units for testing and began loading the GPS units with parcels we had listed for sale. The feedback I started to get back from my agents and their clients were overwhelmingly positive.

Pretty soon I was getting calls from other firms and other agents asking if they could use the system to download their land listings in to show. This brings me to where I am today. I have created a temporary company (www.RealEstateWebExpert.com) to start test marketing the GPS product to see if there was enough interest to begin marketing.

So I ask you Active Rain Agents...Is there any interest in such a tool? Would you be interested in purchasing if it were priced correctly? Contact me with your feedback.