Web-Service Based Information Integration for e-Mortgage Contract Matchmaking Decision Support: A Case Study in Hong Kong

Effective decision making often requires disparate information from heterogeneous sources. When significant contracts are involved, gathering such information is particularly slow and inefficient. As real estate business plays an important role in Hong Kong economy, there is a strong need for a handy and efficient service to assist the mortgage searching activities. Presently, a property buyer lacks of the mortgage information for the interested property when making the purchase decision. Many buyers can only search for the property mortgage after a down payment is made because of keen competitions in purchasing. However, sometimes the bank cannot offer the mortgage plan as the buyer expected because of the buyer’s financial status, property valuation, and price trend. Therefore, we study on the requirements of an e-Mortgage Contract Matchmaking Service (EMS) for offering it in the form of a Web service via real estate agencies to the buyers. The EMS can be incorporated into the agency’s property management system so that the relevant mortgage information (provided by the participant financial institutions) could be revealed when the buyer is making the purchase decision. Moreover, the EMS offers mortgage contract evaluation and ranking to assists the prospective buyer earlier in the decision-making stage.