March 16th, 2009
By Scott Petronis, Senior Director of Product Management
In my last post I described the current capabilities in the Lifestyle Listing Engine Web Service and also mentioned some of the new things in the works. Well, we’ve been diligently at work and I’m happy to report we have some new stuff nearly ready for debut. In about a week we’ll have our next release ready for review. So I’m going to concentrate this post on what’s new and talk a bit more about what’s on the way.
A few cool new things we’re just completing put the “lifestyle” in lifestyle search. And believe me, this is just the start. To start we’ve focused on exposing some key new search criteria and also added a new content retrieval concept into the web service.
The concept is simple: there are criteria people will use to “drive” their search and then there’s additional content one wishes to see to help better educate herself/himself on the area surrounding the listing. So we’re exposing easily understood and highly relevant criteria in the search web service. Then we’re exposing more detailed content that may be pulled for presentation on the listing detail page.
School Performance
The first new search criteria is one of the most crucial for the largest demographic of homebuyers nationwide—families with school age children. In fact, school performance can be THE driving force. So we’ve focused our initial efforts on enabling searches based on school ratings from GreatSchools. Now, within the Listings Web Service a desired GreatSchools rating (such as 8 or greater) can be identified and the search will return listings nearby those schools. This way, a user can get an understanding of school performance up front rather than having to dig through a whole bunch of information after the search. This may also be combined with other criteria so the user may search for listin
gs within a specified distance of an address (i.e., their workplace), select a desired number of beds and baths, and input a price range. The search will take into account all the criteria to execute the search.
The search can be initiated to just show counts of listings that meet the criteria. Or it may pull back the listings themselves so they may be presented in tabular or map form. Records returned may be pre-sorted based on any of the criteria submitted. For example, you may choose to sort on the GreatSchools rating from greatest to least if that’s the criterion the user indicated is most crucial.
In addition to the search capability, a new call has been added to pull back the details of the school district. This is especially useful when presenting the listing detail. The way this works is that once a specific listing is pulled back, another request may be made (“GetContentSchoolDistrict”) for the detailed information on that specific school district. This pulls back information such as number of students, student teacher ratios, enrollment by grade, expenditures, and more. Once retrieved, this content might then be presented in another tab within the listing details page or however your design dictates. So users don’t have to go searching for this information on their own, nor do you have to link off to another site to provide it. It keeps the user engaged on your site and provides the added benefit of improving SEO by adding locally relevant content into your pages.
Nearby Amenities
Another common way people search is by nearby amenities such as golf courses, parks or playgrounds, cafes and a wide variety of other “points of interest.” We have loads of this data that we’re integrating into the search and have started with over a dozen key categories including: schools, parks and playgrounds, golf courses, grocery stores, cafes, public swimming pools, hospitals, airports, libraries, bookstores, veterinarians, pharmacies, health clubs, and universities. Depending on the individual’s lifestyle and what stage of life they’re in, one or more of these may be crucial in thei
r home search.
Using these criteria a search may be conducted to determine the listing located within a certain distance of a desired amenity. Likewise, they may wish to ensure that they are NOT near one of these as well. For example, someone may want to be near a golf course but NOT near a school. Or they may wish to be near a school, park or playground and library, but further away from an airport. There are numerous ways these criteria may be used to enhance the search experience and drive the relevance of the results.
Just like with the school district content, the details of each nearby amenity may also be retrieved for display. So if there’s a golf course, nearby, the listing web service will return the name, address and other pertinent details. The same holds true for any of the amenities. This way, a list of nearby amenities may be displayed on the listing details page or in its own tab to help give a solid impression of the area and all it has to offer.
Other Search Criteria
We’re in the process of fleshing out a host of additional criteria for use in the search. These decisions are being driven by ongoing research with both sides of the equation—home buyers and searchers as well as real estate brokers and agents. We’re gaining great insight into how people search, what information they feel they need, where they tend to find this information today and what role the broker or agent plays in this laborious process. As more of this information is collected, I’m looking forward to sharing the results to help drive more thoughtful design and better user experiences.
One criteria that’ made to the top of the list (I mentioned it in my last post) is the ability to search based on a desired “commute time or distance.” This is well underway and we’re very close to getting out a first cut. With this new capability, a user will be able to input their work location and either a desired commute time or a maximum commute distance. The system will then calculate the potential areas and will retrieve the listings that are within those areas. As we all know, there can be a significant difference between the straight line distances most searches use and the actual road distance. Case in point, New Jersey is just across the Hudson River from New York and if you could kayak across, you’d be golden. But for those of us not in the kayaking mood, we have to cross a pesky bridge. So our commute time calculations will take this sort of situation into account. Of course this will have maximum value when we can incorporate transit which we’re diligently working towards.
Other criteria on the docket right now are:
- Area demographics (i.e., average age, household income, family type, etc.)
- Cost of Living (i.e., total cost of living, cost of living per category, COL vs. the national average and vs. the general area, etc.)
- Safety (i.e., area crime, health, air quality, weather, natural disaster and other factors that impact safety and security) Note to self…see if Earth, Wind & Fire is available for launch party.
- Fun (i.e., bars, clubs, museums, arts and entertainment, and other places and events that give an area a “fun factor”)
- Employment Statistics (i.e., white collar vs. blue collar, does the area have more professionals or laborers, etc.)
- Educational Achievement (i.e., does the area have mostly college educated people or high school attainment?)
Again, depending on the lifestyle and stage of life the searcher is in, one or more of these items may be paramount. As a young family just starting out, I may want to find places with other young families that tend to hold similar professions but also an area where the cost of living is reasonable compared to the national average. An “empty nest” couple may also be looking for a lower cost of living but wish to be near others in a similar age group and might not care so much about the employment statistics. So these different criteria may be used by different groups to identify the best fit for their needs.
Smoothing out the edges
As I mentioned in my last post, what we’re providing right now is purely an that can be accessed via SOAP or using RESTful HTTP requests. So one area we’re about to start diving into is the creation of some SDKs to “smooth out the edges.” Many of the people I’ve talked to so far develop primarily in C#, are using .Net Framework 2.0 and primarily work in Microsoft VisualStudio .Net. So this is our likely starting point. I’ve also spoken with quite a few PHP developers who work primarily on a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) technology stack. So this appears to be the next logical environment. But I’d like to hear more about what environments your working in, tools you use, and the extent to which you’d like to see UI widgets vs. pure .
I realize time is a precious commodity none of us have enough of, so I want to be sure we’re delivering enough to get you well on your way but not so much that we take away the very benefits of a flexible web service. So what’s “enough” in your mind?
Please keep the comments coming and pipe in with your ideas as well as your critiques!
Feel free to reach out to me at spetronis@onboardinformatics.com until my next post.
Tags: API, geocode search, geocoding, Lifestyle, lifestyle search, listings, LLE, onboardinformatics, Products, property search.
Z57 Inc., a leading provider of real estate online marketing services, announced the company has transitioned thousands of their clients to the Onboard Informatics’ Listings Web Service platform, their Internet Data Exchange (IDX) solution. With the 2009 integration of Onboard Informatics’ state-of-the-art IDX solution, Z57 REALTORS® websites deliver timely, accurate and useful consumer listing information.
