Homo sapiens are a visual species. When receiving information, most of us would rather look at a colorful photograph, map, business graphic, or other image than a paragraph of text, table of numbers, or other alphanumeric display. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

Not surprisingly, then, many real estate organizations initially invest in GIS for better presentation graphics.

History will show, however, that the real power of GIS is in data integration and analysis. Something like 85% of all computerized data bases have some type of locational component—a street address, zip code zone, submarket designation, etc. GIS uses "location, location, location" (usually via longitude-latitude coordinates) to bring together all the data relevant to a decision. Moreover, GIS offers literally hundreds of tools for processing spatial information, such as: "Find and map all potential store sites that encompass at least one acre of raw land, on an arterial street, not in a flood plain, zoned commercial, within a five-minute drive of an Interstate highway off-ramp." No other data base management technology has these capabilities.

Real estate is essentially a game of information arbitrage. Whoever knows the most about a property wins. GIS is the best technology invented yet for gaining an informational competitive edge.

To date GIS has been adopted most quickly by organizations that perceive the technology as a way of automating existing business practices. Salient examples:

• Site Selection - Fast food companies, major retail chain stores, and other enterprises that constantly seek new locations have discovered that GIS is a much more efficient and reliable way of identifying and analyzing candidate properties than relying on stacks of cumbersome, varying scale, hardcopy maps.
   
• Commercial Brokerage - On the surface, the traditional broker's mentality of "find, kill, eat!" doesn't seem compatible with painstaking data base assembly, extended time at the computer keyboard, and other quasi-nerd activities needed to maintain a sophisticated information system. Yet brokerage houses have been among the first to embrace GIS. The reason is real or perceived information arbitrage. Why should a client retainer a broker who has less than the most complete and usable data bases at his/her finger tips—in the form of terrific looking maps, no less?
   
• Institutional Investment Managers - To obtain assets from pension funds and other institutions to invest in real estate, investment managers must demonstrate a thorough understanding of real estate markets by location and core property type. This is all the more true given given the fiduciary responsibilities of most institutional clients. Consequently, most if not all of the 30 or so leading institutional investment management firms have GIS tools and data bases, typically residing in their research departments.

The above applications of GIS technology are "the slow, fat rabbits." Even greater rewards are theoretically possible from applications in less obvious industry segments, including appraisal, asset management, highest and best use, due diligence, portfolio diversification/risk management, and so on. The major hurdle—and competitive opportunity—is finding individuals with an in-depth understanding of both real estate and GIS, and who have the vision to synergistically bring the two together, thereby fundamentally changing the way the money is made in the real estate business.