To really understand something, you need to put the information in context. For local Aerials Express dealer John Nagy, that context includes a birds-eye perspective married to invaluable real-estate information for the entire Puget Sound region.
The Arizona-based company uses a single-engine plane with a million-dollar Leica digital camera to take sky-high photos of 5,600 square miles of the area, said Queen Anne resident John Nagy. "The resolution is just incredible."
However, the extremely high-resolution photos are just the basis for the real meat of the business: data. Make that a lot of data that can be overlaid on the aerial photos with a click of the mouse.
The computer-based information system includes, among other things, property lines, city boundaries, street names, wetland maps, zoning maps and the owners of the property. Customers can also zoom in and out on an area, and specific plots of land are linked to Excell spreadsheet details that also provide sales histories.
Sources for the database include county and city sources, Nagy explained. "It's all geo-referenced. They match up, I would say, pretty darned good," he said of the data and photo details.
"Our primary customers are developers, engineers and commercial real-estate offices," Nagy said. But cities and counties use his information also, along with national banks, the federal government and even Wal-Mart.
Nagy was already familiar with the real-estate business before he launched Aerials Express in 2003. He owned five homes in Magnolia in the 1970s, and Nagy and his wife ran the Washington Real Estate Register company in Interbay before that. "It is the largest supplier of real-estate data in the Pacific Northwest," he said.
While ownership details are updated quarterly, the aerial shots are only taken every two years, the last time in 2005, Nagy said. The photos cover an area that measures 2-1/2 miles on a side, and the camera takes shots straight down, to the front and to the back, the results of which are used for contour maps. The pixels cover 1 to 1-1/2 feet, he said. "It's really cool technology."
The company's product package is provided on CDs and DVDs, but it can also be downloaded onto computer servers and laptop computers. The same kind of system has been around for awhile, Nagy admitted. "But bringing it down to the PC level is relatively new."
Counties and cities also buy aerial photos with a resolution of one pixel to 6 inches. "But it costs tens of thousands of dollars," Nagy said. By contrast, Aerials Express can provide 90 percent of the same data to counties and cities for a tenth of the cost, he added. "So we're saving taxpayers money."
Besides providing the easy-to-use information, there are other advantages to using Aerials Express, according to Nagy. "First of all, it saves a lot of trips to the field." A developer, for example, could determine in the office that developing a parcel of land is impossible in an environmentally sensitive area, he said.
While the wild speculation that drove real-estate prices through the roof just a few years ago has ended, Nagy said he doesn't believe the so-called housing bubble has burst yet. Still, there is some cooling, and developers are telling Nagy that they have a lot of inventory they'll have to bank for awhile, he said.
But to make better decisions people still need the information Nagy's business provides, the entrepreneur said. Indeed, while Nagy declined to provide revenue figures for his business, he said sales this year were seven times higher than they were for the first year of operation. "We're kicking some serious butt," he said with a grin.
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached via email at rzabel@nwlink.com or by phone at (206) 461-1309.[[In-content Ad]]
