Drop location pin, please

For buyers moving into a brand new property, the following scenario might feel familiar. The keys have been handed over, the new roads are open, residents are moving in and the first round of shops downstairs are preparing for business.

But there is just one small problem. Try searching for the address online and it either does not appear, points somewhere else or sends visitors towards an entrance that does not even exist.

For residents of a newly completed development, the inconvenience can become a daily frustration all too quickly.

Delivery riders ask which block. Visitors ask for a location pin after going round and round. A ride-hailing driver waits on the opposite side of the development.

The easiest solution may simply be to send a WhatsApp location rather than rely on the written address.

Yet what appears to be a minor inconvenience raises a much bigger question for the property industry. When a new development is completed, how does it go from being an approved address on a development plan to an address that people can actually tap and find on their phones?

An increasing number of everyday activities now depend on digital maps.

Property buyers use them to find sales galleries and inspect surrounding amenities. Residents rely on them for ride-hailing, food deliveries and parcels, while retailers depend on customers being able to find their premises.

Think of it like this: A development today exists in two places.

There is the physical development of roads, buildings and addresses. There is also its digital counterpart, represented across navigation and location services.

However, the two do not always tally.

Before there can be a digital address, there first has to be an official one. Local authorities have procedures governing the naming of developments, buildings and roads.

Take the Iskandar Puteri City Council, for example. It requires applications for proposed names to be accompanied by documents including the development layout and planning or building plan approvals.

But just because a name is approved and a road is completed, it does not mean whoever is searching for the location can find it on navigation apps.

Google Maps allows users to submit missing places and addresses and correct inaccurate pin locations. Missing roads can also be submitted, including their names and road types.

For larger-scale address information, Google states that eligible organisations and governments can use its Maps Content Partners programme to correct multiple addresses. This means the digital representation of a place is part of a separate mapping ecosystem that continues to change as information is submitted, checked and updated.

Waze offers another way to update its navigation systems. Its maps are supported by a worldwide community of volunteer editors who can correct addresses and turns, add places and make other changes to the road network.

According to its official source, Waze says more than 20 million map edits are made every month across more than 150 countries.

Interestingly, Malaysia has its own Waze map-editing community and guidelines for editors.

A small error repeated many times

For an individual resident, a misplaced pin can confuse anyone coming to the location.

But say it is a high-density serviced residence that scales the inconvenience across hundreds or thousands of homes? High-rise developments sometimes face complications where visitors need guidance to the correct block entrance rather than just the geographic centre of the site.

As a result, the quality of the information matters too because a pin placed in the middle of a large development may technically identify the correct location while being of little use to someone trying to enter it.

What about a large township? A township’s numerous new inner roads get added into navigation apps as well, alongside new intersections, residential precincts and commercial addresses.

Then there are mixed-use developments where residences, offices, retail areas and parking entrances use the same address but require very different routes to get in.

There are several other issues that could arise. A road may appear but its access restrictions may have changed or visitors could end up at an old sales gallery instead of the actual completed residential development.

For logistics and mobility businesses, these tiny discrepancies can become repeated points of friction in the daily life of transporters. So, accurate location information will improve the efficiency of increasingly location-dependent services.

Being visible online

There is the commercial aspect to think about as well.

For a newly opened shop, restaurant or commercial centre, just being physically visible from the street is no longer the only way customers discover it.

Sometimes they may first encounter the business through a search result, delivery platform or shared location before asking a navigation application to take them there.

Therefore, Google allows businesses to establish and verify a business profile containing information such as their location, opening hours and photographs.

Missing places can also be submitted to Maps. This creates something like a digital front door for a physical property.

So, for developers planning commercial components within new townships, they need to ensure that customers can find those destinations.

The same principle also applies to residential sales. Developers spend heavily on sales galleries, show units, signage and marketing campaigns designed to bring potential purchasers to a project.

But none of this means navigation platforms should be treated like water pipes, roads or electricity networks.

Google Maps and Waze are commercial digital services rather than statutory infrastructure, so users and mapping communities can update their information.

But their omnipresence poses an interesting question for developers. Should digital mapping readiness become another consideration as a project approaches completion?

The industry already works through long lists of physical matters before residents arrive, from access roads and utilities to signage and building management. Checking whether the development’s roads, entrances, addresses and key destinations can be correctly located across commonly used navigation platforms could be a relatively small addition.

More importantly, developers may be in a better position to provide accurate information at the beginning than residents attempting to correct it individually after moving in.

As Malaysia continues to build new townships, high-rise communities and mixed-use developments, the question of where a property is located depends on what appears when someone types that address into a search bar.