Factors to Consider in Real Estate Business
Each and every business that is thought to exist has to keep in mind the value of managing money and time which in this case is its resources for it to realize any form of success. An online Real Estate Management System will encompass business methods basing on the internet simply to mean managing property by means of an online tool. This tool will not be complex and there will be no need for a special platform or training users on how it will be working. A company dealing with estates, for instance, has to make sure that time and resources are not by any means embezzled. This can only be achieved thorough a suitable management system that is centralized and technologically accepted due to the current hi-tech world. A decentralized system is where individuals are seen to own and at the same time manage their properties without dedicating the management to an agency company. This becomes hard due to mistrust and security that is usually witnessed by individual owners.
This system targets agency companies that wish to attain their targets basing on the objectives put in place that drives them. While designing the mobile application, AJAX, JSon, MySQL, JavaScript, and Html will all be used to ensure the aspects of security and portability are vastly highlighted. However, companies venturing into real estate businesses have to consider specific factors of success or objectives in order to avoid future losses (Robin, 2018). To start with, security has to come first where a company has to invest at a crime-free location since no one will easily rent or buy a house at an insecure location (Gross and ?róbek, 2013, p.11). The Real Estate Management System will come as a solution where a user will have to search and even have a Google search view of a location of a house before making a request.
The other objective of a real estate company is making sure that all utilities that are high-in-demand such as electricity and water are available before building any house since those are first considerations for anyone looking for a house either to rent or even buy. Now, the solution to this challenge is already highlighted in the new system since it will have a clear map of amenities within a particular house making it easier for one to make an informed decision. Healthcare and recreation facilities are also a vital consideration when targeting good outcomes from an investment like housing. Real estate developers consider it as a determinant of the price to impose on a certain house (?róbek-Ró?a?ska & Zieli?ska-Szczepkowska, 2014, p.80). On the other hand, whenever an education institution is closer to a house, many parents consider living in such places. Developing firms, therefore, are building near schools or some go further by building schools inside the estates just to attract more customers.
Real Estate Management System for Managing Properties
There is a need to do away with commotions that are witnessed each and every day between house landlords and tenants not forgetting care takers in this modern error of technology. This is the reason as to why most landlords have dedicated most managerial roles to agents in housing agency firms. However, one can easily think that work is just easy on the side of agents but it is really a headache. Just to mention but a few, rent collection, assets maintenance, making payments to property owners, foreseeing renting processes, writing reports, banking information documentation among other things. There is only one solution that can make life worth living for these agents. A system that is feasible enough to integrate all these tasks and execute without errors and only depending on information first entered or updated by specific people with managerial roles (Muczy?ski, 2015, p.5).
A company with a system able to perform all the duties being done by dozens of its employees saves a lot which results in the realization of profit and productivity at the subsequently. There can never be a comparison between a system where computers are employed only to do the typing and receipt printing and an automated system able to handle everything on its own. Issues of misappropriation usually arise in a system where not all information is channeled through it resulting in a manual way of doing things in an organization.
Developing an automated system able to coordinate, keep track of company activities, control and above all incorporate all the affiliates of that firm in a smooth and timely manner. The integration capability of the system into a mobile app should contribute to efficiency and real-time business performance.
- Coming up with a system able to fulfill all the overall objectives
- Making sure that the implementation part of the system is successful
- Accomplishing the evaluation and testing of the system.
There will be time management on the side of companies managing properties, tenants, and even property owners using an automated system. Consequently, as a result of doing away with manual work, there will be a big percentage in resource management not to mention the high level of security protection on data that will come with the new system (YABE, 2017, p.27). Therefore, it will be an automated system with user login modules protected by strong password policies with end-to-end encryption of all the communications done by all users.
Agents and companies will benefit from the system more in terms of administration and management of properties besides tenants enjoying the efficiency like never before while doing businesses with the agencies (KITAJIMA, 2017, p.72).
Advantages of the Automated System
The operation of the system will only be conducted on a computer or a mobile for those who will be using an app. However, this system will require up-to-date technological equipment which on the other hand will be costly.
A lot of shortcomings are seen in the current system of managing real estates as a result of the manual work involved. In particular, the filing of the record, keeping forms, and the entire documentation is manual and labor-intensive. A lot of errors may arise along the way in this manual way of doing works since making changes is always somehow problematic. Chances of data loss are always high due to lost or misplaced files (Gross, ?róbek and Špirková, 2014, p.63). Data security in a manual way is poor since anyone in the offices can have access to unauthorized documents of the company.
The proposed system will provide all the features offered by the existing system but in an automated manner where all details will be kept in a database. It will have a search feature according to the user’s requirement and only the sought request will be given back to the user. The system to be developed will consist of many modules which will include the Web page, housing, salable and administrator’s module (Elmetwaly, 2011, p.416). The index page also known as the homepage will include the housing and salable modules and will have a top menu which will comprise the Login menu which a user will have to use a valid username and password to login in and access the system. Only the recorded operators will be capable of using the Homepage. The housing or the residential module will include a registration form, data about the house, type of the house either a studio apartment, bungalow or penthouses. The salable or the commercial module will incorporate the registration form, cost per house (Diop, 2017, p.291). Finally, the administrator’s unit will enable the admin to have all the rights of all the visitors as well as the regular recorded client.
Buying, selling, or even renting will be easier due to its search capability and readily available information about houses on the system. There will be guaranteed security of data due to authentication incorporated in the development part of the system (Radzewicz, 2013, p.87). Therefore, precise data about all the company’s property will always be available as a result of the system being automated.
Overview of the Housing Agency Structure
This structure is just but an outline of how the internal arrangement of a housing agency looks like. It depicts how the entire company is structured outlining relationships and roles within the company.
Below are UML diagrams which are activity diagrams showing a step by step workflow actions and activities basing on concurrency, choice, and iteration (Huston & Han, 2018).
Displays the procedure witnessed during the payment process when a tenant makes his payments to the system and then feedback sent back as an acknowledgement (Nase, Berry & Adair, 2013, p.48).
Shows how a report is acquired by a user from the system as per his or her interest.
This show how data flow around the entire system displaying the modelling aspect of the system.
This shows the general functionality of the entire system basing on external entities.
Authentication
Reports
Displays a view that is more detailed of how data flows in the Real Estate Management System (Marmolejo?Duarte and Ruiz?Lineros, 2013, p.63).
Are users that are listed in the system which corresponds with the system database. There will be an account for each user which will be secured with credentials best known by that very user.
They are appeals submitted by tenants seeking clarification on a certain matter or even a complaint against the services offered by the agency.
Are records detailing the amount, time, and date each and every transaction happened and even the status of the transaction.
Details all available assets ready to be leased, sold or rent whereby location and more clarification of the property are availed. The type and nature of that property are well defined in a way that one can know if it is an apartment, a penthouse or a bungalow as stated before (Liow, Zhou & Ye, 2015, p.537).
They impact on a financial aspect of a company since they are the sole channel when talking about profit gained in form of rent. Their details are available in the database and will reflect in the transaction during the payment process.
Stipulates the amount paid by tenants detailing the account number, names of the individual tenant, the amount paid, and the transaction ID.
The system will be comprised of a number of features with a clear interface enabling both technical and non-technical users to be able to access it. To start with, there will be a logs interface where accounting users will have to submit their details before accessing the system for the purpose of data protection. The system will also have a tenant’s portal where their issues and requests can be channeled. To add on these, there will be a receipt and report generation interface where receipts and reports can be generated easily. A dashboard will be available as a special feature where a user like an admin can manage the system (?mietana, 2014, p.51). The properties feature will enable a user like a tenant to access details about available houses whereby a search module will be available to minimize the time taken to acquire the information wanted. Lastly, there will be a finance feature where details of tenants who have paid their rent will be displayed.
UML Diagrams Showing Workflow in the System
The MRB technology which plays a vital role while documenting, tracking or managing data electronically will be relevant if incorporated into the system. Since the new system will be working independently, it will display all information fed into it which in return will help in establishing whether the company will be making a profit if not a loss (Thanikachalam, Jinu & Nagaraj, 2014, p.634). MRPII technology adds the feature of property floor creation organization and a tracing tool which when employed will help the agency when it comes to paying of the caretakers to cover employees and succeed the capability and also when a new floor or property has to be added. Therefore, it will as well assist in monitoring, recording and generating of reports of various activities carried out which uses centralized data. The Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) technology when employed introduces the electronic way of passing data and not the paperwork way (Paul, 2013). This will be a feature in the new system since everything will be automated using the up-to-date technology like receipt and report generation leading to the elimination of paperwork system (Pu??te & Geipele, 2015, p.45).
In the proposed system, the incremental model will be used permitting the elasticity and adaptableness of the strategy and the execution of the system. In particular, this system allows the developer to have flexibility in relations to the design, employment, and repairs. Having decided on the incremental model we will have the capacity to progress on the quality of the system by varying some precise materials in the project and implementation stage so that the end outcome of the system will correspond the user requirements (Peng, 2018). Talking about entire coding, a relation database management system MySQL will be used to store all the details including passwords, usernames, properties, the amount paid, tenants details among other things. PHP, JavaScript, ajax, JSon and Html programming languages will be used to create dynamic and responsive webpages, the backend and frontend of the system.
Google Map will be fused into the system whereby clients will be able to access the geographical mapping and find location and even directions. The insight view of a property is displayed with the help of a Visual Tour which is a snapshot equipment for capturing multiple pictures inside a room (Cichoci?ski & D?browski, 2013, p.72).
When a report is needed by an admin, for instance, the admin will have to click a filter icon to allow conditions to be entered based on the type of data that needs to be outputted. Then a generate button will be clicked followed by a save button to customize the outputted data.
System Features
Here multiple reports and views are displayed on a lone screen where users can have a chance to view them together. However, timeline, predefined and tubular views can only be embedded using a widget or hyperlinks that are clickable and pointing to them (Harris, 2016, p.4).
Non-accounting users are able to access the system and view the news portal where information about tenders and other things needed by the company are advertised. Suppliers are able to make applications and submit then to the management just by a click of a button.
Once logged in as a tenant, a profile is created where personal details binding an individual to a particular agency are displayed including all the payments records. Report generation module is availed to a tenant enabling a user to generate and keep a hard copy of whatever document desired (Kettani & Oral, 2015, p.1).
Real estate agencies are also using cloud computing applications where sellers store data. A hacker may at one point infiltrate the system with malicious intentions and get a hand on the company’s data which on other hand is also the data belonging to the clients. There are other dangers in the system resulting from malware infections affecting both physical and operation of a company whereby, for instance, a malware can encode information on the workstations used and makes information inaccessible up until a payoff is paid (Recio, 2017, p.114).
The other danger that is seen bringing down businesses is as a result of emails that are compromised as an attack deceivingly persuading clients to send money to offender’s bank accounts in the name of an agent particularizing the change in account details which may not true. Data in a REMS can be breached in an incident like when a user hands over personal credentials to be used by unauthorized personnel leading to security issues on company data arising (Czerniak & Sisko, 2012). The system may end up being manipulated hence some of the company clients will, in the end, start losing trust in the entire company.
Having learned from the past, the new system will be cautious of the security risks and data breaches that may arise. To start with, data that will be gathered from clients will be only essential for the company at that very moment meaning that it won’t be extra information than required. On the other hand, the system will be using top exercise to organize or identify data once it is no longer needed to be retained. User data will be kept on protected devices with security software with firewalls, anti-spyware and antivirus supported capabilities that will be up-to-date. Data encryption mechanisms will be put in place where users will need special clearances to be able to access their personal data hence keeping away intruders (White, 2011, p.6).
Conclusion
The other security measure that will be employed is using strong passwords by every client whereby the password will be lasting for a considerable period of time thereafter prompting an automatic alert for password resetting to be done by the user. The system will have a self-backup mechanism where personal data will be stored on a cloud account automatically after a set period of time. Above all, for the purpose of accountability, a mechanism will be put in place whereby the new system will be able to store logs detailing how critical company information is accessed so that those found messing up with the system in an unauthorized manner are traced.
Conclusion
Basing on the pros and cons of the system, there is a great setback on the side of most housing agencies resulting from breakups in communication and operations. Both parties involved in the business are forced to share arising burdens such as lengthy procedures taken before a tenant can have his or her grievances addressed. A manual housing agency is in one way forced to incur most company resources so that to satisfy the needs of their clients. Consequently, the new system when introduced in a struggling company like that ensures extreme satisfaction amongst all the parties involved in the business. The main objective behind this system is helping in the maintenance of clients details, all property particulars, description and addresses of all the properties, and the portrayal of available facilities in areas with desired properties before a client makes a choice. Each system user will have to be identified using login credentials due to the stringent password strategies that will be embedded in the system.
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