THE REAL ESTATE AGENCY

Mary has just inherited her fathers real estate company. The company is financially in good shape because of the good reputation of her father and a number of faithful customers who return to buy or sell.

Mary just graduated from a reputable university with a degree in real estate and has big dreams for the growth of the company. She wants to keep the old faithful customers, but attract new ones as well. She is very familiar with services that the Web can perform and has taken courses on using technology in real estate business. To automate the business and establish a Web presence, she wants to develop an information system that lists available houses, condos, and rentals. All information on the number of rooms, bathrooms, footage, garage, parking space, price, tax (for buyers of a property), etc., must be available to prospective customers. Condos require information on condo fees and rentals require the terms of the contract such as duration, required deposit, and so on.

The system should also collect buyer information such as preferences, the price range that they can afford, and personal information (name, address, etc.). Preferences include location, size, condo or house, number of rooms and bathrooms, garage and parking space, and the like.

The system should be able to match buyers preferences with the sellers offerings and, if it cannot find an exact match, should offer the closest matches.

The system should be able to assist buyers and sellers alike. Buyers might need help in choosing an agent and, as a result, the system must provide a list of agents complete with personal information such as name, phone number, and credentials. They might also need help with getting a mortgage, choosing a home, making an offer, getting insurance, and closing the deal. Sellers would need advice on choosing an agent, setting the price, marketing the house, selling the property, and closing the sale.

Considering the expectations, the system should satisfy three major requirements:

• Collect information from buyers and sellers.
• Match buyers and sellers.
• Help and advise buyers and sellers.

Questions to be answered based on the information above

1. What are the business concepts in the scenario?
2. Categorize the business concepts into processes, functions, roles, objects, and business rules.
3. What would you name the system and its subsystems?
4. Write domain definitions and, from there, proceed to establish the domain scope for the system and each subsystem.
5. Create a domain dictionary for the proposed information system.