On my post about the CoStar/LoopNet changes, David asked what should an agent or brokerage do? Good question. What you should do depends on a lot of things. Do you need a data provider, a marketing platform or both? Can you afford to pay the subscription fees or the time it will take to research, collect and/or market on your own? DATA PROVIDERS CoStar arguably has the most comprehensive database of properties, listings, and comps. How good that data is depends on your market. I’ve long … [Read more...]
CoStar – LoopNet Integration is Here (and What it Means)
If you read their PR and info sheets on the CoStar/LoopNet database integration - or "enhancements" as they like to call them - you’ll find CoStar didn’t do a great job explaining things. In their zeal to convince you that this is the best thing that ever happened to you, they left out a lot of the nitty-gritty agents and brokerages need to know. Luckily, I had the chance to talk with them about the changes. So here they are – in plain English. No More Paid LoopNet Search Current paid Search … [Read more...]
Disrupting CRE – It’s A Matter of Trust
Innovation and disruption are studied a lot these days as everyone tries to identify industries ripe for disruption and figure out exactly how to disrupt them. One way to do that is to reverse engineer disrupting companies to create a blueprint of sorts to help innovative types find a path for disruption. As I was reading about some of these theories on Stratechery.com (excellent site, btw) I couldn’t help but think about how they apply to commercial real estate. How does what CRE disruptors … [Read more...]
Is Commercial Real Estate a Great Market?
I can't keep up with CRE start-ups anymore. They start out doing one thing. Months later it's something else. Not that there’s anything wrong with changing course when you notice you’re not gaining traction. It’s called responding to the market - or, more bluntly - change or die. Marc Andreessen wrote about this process – what he called getting the right “product/market fit.” Of the 3 things he believed a start-up needs to succeed – a great team, product and market – having a great … [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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