Geospatial software developer from San Diego

[Alexander Rolek]

Hello BiggerPockets community! I'm a geospatial software developer in San Diego with a background in commercial real estate and land development. I did my undergrad in Finance with a focus on Real Estate Development at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I spent time in Las Vegas during the real estate boom and subsequent bust. After the market dropped out I started building technology companies and have been doing so ever since.

As of recent I have been building a geospatial search engine which aims to simplify working with numerous geospatial data sets (i.e. zoning, overlays, parcel outlines, etc.). Currently ScoutRED cover San Diego County but I'm looking to add two more counties this year. It would be great to hear which counties people would like to see added next, as well as understand some of data points that would make your lives easier.

Looking forward to getting to know the community better. 

Alex

[David Faulkner]

Interesting app you are working on ... ideas for data points: School districts ... I think Zillow already does this. Maybe flood zones for coastal areas? Set backs that define the allowable building footprint? Could you tell from utility records if/where utilities have already been run or not? How about a way to tell how steep slopes are? Rent controlled areas would be interesting. Not as big a factor for SD, but huge for LA and SF. Not related to geospatial data, but I always thought it would be cool to use predictive analytics to combine various traditional and non-traditional big data sources to pinpoint distressed sellers, like a list source with AI ... I figure if political candidate can do it to target mailing lists, why not RE investors?

It really depends on who your target audience is ... something like property radar already has a good handle on the flipper and wholesaler markets. Zillow, realtor.com, redfin for retail buyers & sellers. MLS for agents ... etc. Sounds from your data sets and background you are more focused on developers? At any rate, I would try to identify the niche that will be your target market ... maybe you already have and if you share that it would help.