Decisions in real estate – whether buying a skyscraper, renting out office space or installing solar panels – has in most cases required showing up in person, while gathering all the necessary information was heavily dependent upon antiquated manual processes. Now details about an entire city’s-built landscape are available on a smartphone, allowing users to filter buildings by type, size or fit-out style, or dive in deeper for floorplans, tenant details, lease terms, and even virtual tours. This so-called digital mapping – a catch-all term for the application of one or multiple digital tools to provide a data-driven visualization of properties in the context of their surroundings – is increasingly being adopted by city authorities and the real estate industry. Building information modelling (BIM) is one of the key tools used in digital mapping. While for many years it has provided construction professionals a collaborative and interactive way to plan, design and manage projects through a 3D building replica on screen, it is only more recently being adopted by the property industry in the shape of digital twins, which incorporate live building data into a digital replica.
BIM’s regular sidekick in the digital mapping space is geographic information system mapping (GIS), which provides location-based information in a visually engaging format. From monitoring development progress across entire cities, to managing sustainability policies, or carrying out due diligence on commercial decisions, digital mapping is finding applications across the real estate ecosystem. Businesses looking for offices, and investors looking for their next purchase, are using digital maps to quickly shortlist viable options by filtering preferences, such as proximity to public transport. Brokers and tenant representatives are using this also to communicate options to their clients. Growing interest from non-traditional real estate players is set propel the use of digital mapping further.