We deliver a digital tool that enables a better experience for homeowners, potential buyers, and real estate brokers. Homeowners can know a price estimate based on comparable and listing market data. Potential buyers can look at a neighborhood and stay up to date on prices and listing .Real estate agents can generate comparative market analysis in minutes. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Oscar, Rivera, urbital Data team and Rosamalia Perez
Urbital is led by Giancarlo González Ascar, who worked in prop-tech in Puerto Rico from 2004 – 2012 and then served as CIO of the Government of Puerto Rico from 2013 – 2015. These two experiences provide the foundation of the digital and data capabilities fueling Urbital’s offering.
The government of Puerto Rico administers a wide range of critical services that are supposed to protect us and support our lives. Those services — registering real estate transactions, responding to emergencies, providing power and water services, and other basic services — need to work efficiently to ensure the safety and security of our citizens. Today, this spectrum of services becomes even more critical, even more, essential in the wake of the series of extreme events governments face all over the world — epidemics, natural disasters, economic and financial uncertainty, and political and social unrest. The impact caused by each of these events has been exacerbated by the inability of our government to appropriately and adequately respond.
Our goal is to improve the delivery of real estate services via digital offerings. This application informs homeowners of pricing information on their home as well as other services that may appeal to their house. It leverages public registry information and combines it with proprietary data and related algorithms to display relevant information, unlike anything the market has ever had before. The team behind this operation is a combination of dedicated application developers to committed civic tech professionals.
Giancarlo Gonzalez on TV presenting Urbital Energy Data
There are data points that matter more for particular markets. In Puerto Rico, understanding where power outages occur matters. Urbital is providing data on power availability in neighborhoods, so you can make better investment decisions when buying or selling a home. Much of the work with the energy data is part of a local civic-digital community, people who, though working with limitations on their access to data, have been able to provide the citizens of Puerto Rico with data previously unavailable. This community has proved itself in terms of not just its knowledge but also its motivations — they have acted in this way because they share the scars from the failures of those whom we have elected to serve us. Urbital is composed by a team of individuals pushing for the digital transformation of Puerto Rico. It is not all about technology; it is about changing the way we work, and with whom.
Our community effort extends beyond data normalization and application development. A community of real estate professionals forms part of the Urbital Podcast, focused on current issues affecting the real estate market in Puerto Rico. Through the past year, the Urbital Podcast has accumulated over 24 episodes and raked in over 10,000 downloads. Topics range from Airbnb, home price appreciation, short sales, urban revitalization and planning, and land value tax discussions. Giancarlo González, Urbital co-founder, and CEO serves as host, with Fernando Rodriguez, Coral Bouret and Brandon Zavala as its main participants. The podcast is available at Podcast.Urbital.io
