Any GIS experts? I'm looking for some basic info..

[tbone]

I am in the real estate development business and I am looking for a way to efficently manage information on, and identify new, development opportunities.

I have always had analysts to help out with GIS related work before, but now I am at a new job where I am starting up a new divison and basically my resources are just me for now.

I am looking for opportunities to develop high density in-fill residential projects on undeveloped, or under utilized, parcels of land. Basically, what I want to be able to do is:

1) Look at high quality digital aerials, overlay zoning information, and highlight certain parcels zoned in certain classifications. If I could somehow get conected to tax ownership records as well, that would be great

2) Make notes on the digital aerial relating to land sales comp and retail sales comp info that I can change and print out over time.

3) Get up to speed and maintian the system with a minimum time commitment on my part until I can bring on a full-time junior level analyst.

Do any of you have suggestions on where to start re: hardware, software (Arcview and Mapinfo are the ones I've heard of), and where to get the data - digital aerials, zoning info, etc?

Thanks in advance.

 

[kevwun]

I like Arcview. For the aerials, checkout the COG website for the area you're looking at. CAPCOG, the COG for Travis county has a lot of mapping info. Here's a link to it. For the land owner info, talk to the counties appraisal district and see if they can help you.The Link

 

[idigTexas]

I used a program called AtlasGIS when I was in grad school 10 or so years ago. ESRI's flagship application suite is now called ArcGIS. Their old product was very easy to use, but I haven't done any GIS stuff since then. It may be worth a look.

www.esri.com/

 

[Orange&White]

Tbone---check your PMs

 

[tbone]

O&W - I don't have any new ones.

 

[7Titles]

ArcGIS would be the software to get. Actaully the county assessor's office might have online mapping systems that will allow you to do a lot of this through a web browser. If Oklahoma County here in OKC is up enough to have it online then wherever you are should as well!

 

[BigWill]

Call First American. I heard a presentation from one of their reps that described a service that was about what you want.

 

[tbone]

First American TITLE COMPANY?

 

[BigWill]

yep.