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...]
If Real Estate is Local, Who Needs a National Database?
If you’ve visited Realtor.com lately, you’ll notice a lot of missing listings. And if you’ve visited local residential brokerage sites, you’ve noticed a lot more listings. Residential brokerages in markets around the country are not only displaying their own listings but those of other local brokerage listings on their websites. What’s going on? For years residential brokerages have been fighting with the NAR about listing syndication permissions. Sites like Zillow were at the root of the … [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...]
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...]
The Other Data War
I don’t want to hear any more whining about LoopNet. It's just a marketing platform. You assess LoopNet’s value by how well they deliver leads that convert to deals. If they don’t deliver, you should stop paying for it. No whining about CoStar either. They’ve collected all sorts of data, added value and are charging you to access it. Same thing goes for those who use LoopNet as a data source. You can only whine if you know their data sucks, in which case, why are you still using them for … [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...]
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