Homeowners or real estate professionals are sometimes reluctant to share the exact address of a property. However, it seems they would be very interested in providing this information as well as anything about the neighborhood where the property is located. The evidence is in the advent of geodecision tools.

Geodecision software helps anyone looking for property compare several real estate offers. The aim of geodecision tools is simple: provide as much information as possible on the neighborhood, town planning, or even safety of a geographic area in order to identify the pros and cons of a property based on its exact location. Most of the time, the information collected is presented as an interactive geographic map.

Is there a school, shops, a doctor, or even public transportation close to your dream home? As much as this information may seem secondary, gathered on a single map, it gives properties a new dimension and extra charm for potential buyers.

You can then perform your customized real estate search based on your lifestyle and needs. For example, if you don't own a car, you would no doubt only want to see results with a public transportation stop nearby.

You may not have much of an interest at the moment, but there are many positive results for users looking for property.

First off, this will allow you to verify the authenticity of an offer by comparing the price of the ad with the exact geographic area. In fact, a neighborhood may be very big and divided into smaller sections that are either more or less desirable for various reasons (near an industrial area, unsafe at night, near a railroad crossing, etc.). By having the exact address of the property and an idea of what the neighborhood it's in is like, you will have more cards in your hand to decide if this is a great opportunity or a scam.

Additionally, this will allow you to verify the condition of the property for yourself, especially the parking situation, Luxembourg's pet peeve. You are free to drive through the neighborhood day or night to get a more realistic idea of daily life in your future home.

Can we really trust this information? Like any technology, geodecision tools are not an exact science, but the information is overwhelmingly reliable. The information is provided by towns,  companies specializing in data, and most of all, people like you who want to work together with other users to share as much information as possible. This system has a name: Open Data. As a result, information may not be updated as soon as a business is opened or permanently closed, but it will be sooner or later by active users.

Until now, the real estate industry was undigitalized, with computers unable to replace the expertise of real estate agents and the subtlety relative to their profession. However, it is not a question of supplanting professionals with these new tools, but rather supporting them in the process of assigning value to a property to be sold or rented. Having access to this gold mine of information also allows the agent to make a profit by giving them the ability to present highly customized properties to prospective buyers.

Although already well developed in some neighboring countries, the phenomenon of geodecision is still negligible in the Grand Duchy, with is very particular real estate model.


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