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Terrakan.com Announces Launch of New Web Service
[October 18, 2018]

Terrakan.com Announces Launch of New Web Service


Terrakan.com is a brand new web platform for real estate developers that was just released to the public this month. The trailblazing new service offers property reports that can tell you the development value of any residential or commercial property in the city of Los Angeles.

How It Began

Prior to now, anyone researching properties and looking for the best potential development opportunity would have to spend a significant amount of time conducting research. First you would have to look up the zoning information, then apply the appropriate setback reductions, then calculate the allowable density, do another calculation for allowable square footage, and finally, figure out what the whole thing will cost to build.

For developers and land-use consultants, this is a time consuming effort. Especially when certain aspects aren't clear and you need to take time out of your day for a visit to the city planning department (a common occurrence). The whole process can take anywhere from several hours to several days just to get an answer. Now suppose a developer had to analyze a list of 10 or 20 potential properties to determine which one of those would make the best investment...

This is exactly the problem that the Terrakan founders have been encountering throughout their many years in the development business. The diverse and multi-disciplinary group of architects, engineers, developers, and real estate agents, had all experienced the inefficiencies of this process, and sought to change it.

While the inception of the internet has made things far easier, there was still no simple way of getting the answers they needed. Tat's why they decided to change course and take on a new kind of development project, web development. The multi-year effort is finally complete and the Terrakan platform has been pre-programmed with all of the data that they would normally have to look up and analyze manually.



With the push of a button, developers can now get instant reports detailing what the maximum allowable scope of a project can be. It even generates an estimate of construction costs based on local market averages. The service is currently only active for properties in Los Angeles, but the team says that more cities like Chicago, New York, and Houston are coming soon.

Capitalizing on LA's Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) Program


What is TOC? In 2017, the city of Los Angeles rolled out a new program that would encourage new development in areas around major public transit stops. The goal of this program was to provide much needed housing stock, while at the same time limiting the impacts on local roads and traffic congestion. It works by offering density increases incentives of 50-80% above the existing zoning limits for project that are within a certain distance from designated metro stations and bus intersections. For example, if a project was zoned for 10-units by-right, and fell within the highest tier (tier 4) of the TOC program, that developer would now be allowed to build up to 18 units on the same piece of land. Needless to say this makes any TOC-eligible property far more valuable than those which are not.

In addition to the Terrakan Property Reports being offered by the website, Terrakan.com is also capable of identifying these lucrative parcels with their Advanced Search feature. The platform is able to scan the entire city and generate a list of addresses that qualify for the density incentives, as well as tell you which of the 4 tiers that it falls into. This is something that was only possible by manually measuring the distance from a parcel to a qualifying transit stop before now.

Terrakan's Upcoming Features

Terrakan's CMO, Thomas Bailey, says that the property research tools are just the beginning for Terrakan. The vision is to create a portal where users can get access to anything they could possibly need related to real estate and development. Upcoming features to be deployed soon include:

Advanced Listings - list of properties that have been prescreened using the Terrakan algorithms and determined to be the best potential development opportunities on the market.

Community Forum - A social networking space specifically for industry professionals to exchange knowledge and experience by asking and answering questions.

Service Database - A centralized place for companies to list their services. Vendors will be able to create profiles showcasing their specialties, thus increasing competition among providers, and ultimately benefiting the consumer.

With all of the different moving parts involved with real estate development, it is high time that someone made an attempt to consolidate everything onto one easy-to-use platform. Stay tuned for more updates.


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