During yet another panel on the future of CRE tech, I heard many of the same things I’ve heard before. How the driver-less car, 3D printing, mobile connectivity and VR are going to change the CRE industry. How the agent will transition from salesperson to trusted advisor. Better tools for agents, standardized transactions, more transparency, the importance of data, etc and so on. What made this panel a little different was the presence of CoStar CEO Andrew Florance. Not only was he … [Read more...]
Too Much Stuff and No Way to Find It
Every day I get at least one email announcing a new CRE app. Some of them look pretty good so I check out the website. Usually, no price is published, so I forget it about. I just don’t have the time to watch a demo only to be told it’s out of range price-wise. This goes on day after day. And then the day comes when I’m looking for something and can’t find it. Google isn’t much help when you type in “commercial real estate software” or any variation of that. Most of the new ones are buried, … [Read more...]
My Advice for CRE Tech Developers
I get lots of requests for advice. But with a day job, I don’t have time to give it. That’s why I have this blog - to share some solutions for common problems agents have and suggestions for developers. So here’s my advice all in one convenient post. Know Your Market My experience in small-mid-sized markets. Institutional investors, big developers or national headquarters? Few to none. Agents can’t afford to specialize and they rarely work in teams like they do in major markets. Maybe half … [Read more...]
Automating the Agent
Remember all the talk about real estate industry disruption? The other "d" word being thrown with it was disintermediation, i.e., getting rid of the middleman. It's always been assumed that the middleman expected to disappear was the agent. But there has always been another middleman in the real estate process. The brokerage. According to McKinsey Analytics, when it comes to the likelihood of automation, brokerages have more to worry about. McKinsey gives brokerages a slightly over 50% … [Read more...]
Tech Tips and Tricks
Everyone has tech issues. And in my line of work, I see lots of them. The problems below are ones that seem to be on repeat, in part thanks to Windows 10. In case you're struggling with these same issues, here are the fixes and advice. Backing up Outlook Files If you’ve been relying on Outlook’s backup utility to save copies of your Outlook databases, you were probably as annoyed as I was to discover they abandoned it for new versions of Outlook. Luckily, a programmer picked up where Microsoft … [Read more...]
How Good is CRE Big Data?
The term “big data” has been thrown around a lot lately. CRE is no exception with startups claiming to be harnessing its power. What is big data? It refers to large data sets of both structured and unstructured data sources. You’re dealing with structured data when you’re filling out forms. Each field in the form goes into a column in a table in a database. Unstructured data is typically text – like Tweets – where meaning has to be derived from analysis of the text. That’s where … [Read more...]
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