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Big Results From Real Estate Web Site

Ohio County launched a service that provides detailed property value information for prospective home-buyers

LUCAS COUNTY, Ohio -- A county with a population of under 500,000 launched a real estate Web site that generated 2.3 million hits in its first year of service. The Auditor's Real Estate Information System (AREIS) changed how real estate agents and home-buyers do business in Lucas County, Ohio.

AREIS is an integrated technology project that provides real-time election results and online personal property tax information. It was designed using national GIS company ESRI's baseline GIS system housed on Oracle and SQL servers and GeoMicros Alta Map for the mapping application.

It features interactive wizards to calculate depreciation, true value, listed values and final tax amounts for small and large businesses in the county. The auditor no longer has to send out printed forms for businesses to use and users file directly online. Their information is sent to the state as required by law.

"We created AREIS based on the idea to develop a computer-mapping system the idea to provide property values to the county," said Keith A. Fournier, director of Lucas County Information Services. "We began looking at mapping and how we could apply it to work for the county. Then we actually built it to the point where we used it operationally in 2000 and were able to come up with the appropriate models and defend them. It's all a part of our philosophy to always look at new technology and how we can improve."

Citizens have taken to it as well. Fournier noted that people are using it at night and early evenings. Sunday evening gets more hits than other days, because Realtors have taken clients out to look at properties and then they get home and look at information on adjacent houses. "I've had several people come up to me and say they're so glad they found the AREIS site. It impacted their decision about the house they are going to buy or build," said Fournier.

"We've had an unbelievable response to AREIS. You obviously want to put out a Web site that everyone is going to use, and when you do you don't know what is going to happen. So, the big surprise for me was its popularity," said Gary Kleinfelter, Internet technology manager. "It's a nice feeling that people need the site that you wrote."