Map-based property search on mobile devices

• Main Author: Tan, Jia Hao
• Other Authors: Sourav Saha Bhowmick
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Computer science and engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/70445
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

With the growth of housing market and smart device users in Singapore, the property industry was slow to innovate as demand to search for properties efficiently on-the-go increases. This project aims to explore the inefficiencies introduced by property industry and develop a solution to better help consumers in making informed decision. Existing property searching platforms limits consumer to traditional search methods such as search by location and search by property attributes. Property information are also inefficiently presented in a cluttered manner along with limited amenities details. For this project, we have developed a mobile application that leverages on the availability of open source datasets on local infrastructures, as various map-based methodologies and APIs are studied and applied to build a smart map-based property search system. The objective of the map-based search system is to analyses and link underlying interconnections among the data to provide beneficial insights to consumers that helps tackle their customized search requirements. The following are the proposed and implemented features of the search system: 1. Cluster-based Map View: Clustering of map markers 2. Smart Listing View: Informative listing of nearby amenities 3. Placed-based Search: Search for properties near a specific location 4. Theme-based Search: Search for properties near multiple types of amenities 5. School-based Search: Search for properties near a specific school 6. Fastest-route Search: Recommend properties based on shortest path to multiple destinations