Title: Real estate services structure evolution with internet and SWOT analysis

Authors: Emna Cherif

Addresses: 1 E. Jackson Blvd, DePaul University, Chicago, IL 60604, USA

Abstract: The purpose of this research is to analyse the impact of the internet on the real estate purchase transaction. The research issues we are interested in are: how to specify formally the evolution of real estate transactions? How the structure of the real estate transactions changes? What corporate strategies the online real estate companies bring to the market compared to traditional services? We use the Unified Modelling Language (UML) to describe the purchase transaction in the real estate industry both traditional and using the internet. We concentrate in this paper on activity and sequence diagrams. We discuss the changes relating to the agent role. Then, we map the range of services offered by the real estate websites within the geographical reach to describe the real estate structure change. Lastly, we evaluate corporate strategies for both traditional and online real estate companies using SWOT analysis. This shows the advantages and disadvantages of each case.

Keywords: real estate services; internet; modelling; real estate transactions; UML; service structure evolution; SWOT analysis; integration; business strategies; activity diagrams; sequence diagrams; real estate websites; real estate purchasing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJECRM.2014.067510

International Journal of Electronic Customer Relationship Management, 2014 Vol.8 No.4, pp.200 - 220

Accepted: 04 Jan 2015
Published online: 29 Apr 2015 *

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