The Holy Grail of Standards --
XML to the Rescue, But When?

Can't You Simplify My Life? ... Well, I started to write about GlobeXplorer's new aerial image service, which allows you to generate aerial photographs. Yes, it's a cool site. And, yes, it works pretty well for office and industrial properties -- not so well for shopping centers or newer properties. But it's a long way from being a comprehensive real estate research tool. Test it yourself by going to a listing service, looking up a few addresses of properties for sale or lease, and searching for them at GlobeXplorer. My experience is that it only works well about half the time.

So that got me thinking about standards. Why don't we have standard addresses for properties? Will a real estate player or consortium develop a property ID system like D&B's D-U-N-S Numbers for business identification? And what about data format standards? For example, PropertyFirst.com is currently advertising its Universal Listing System (TM), to be launched in the fall. Based upon XML (Extensible Markup Language), the evolving standard for data exchange over the Internet, PropertyFirst.com's ULS will "change everything" by enabling a property owner or broker to enter information once and "to share listings with another firm or make information available to other listing services." That's a big vision.

Will other listing services cooperate? Will Octane, Constellation, and the Office Technology Consortium embrace ULS? Will the Data Consortium incorporate these XML standards into its own work? What about The REALM, which is XML-enabling its property management and financial analysis programs? And what about the hundreds of real estate dot-coms currently offering research and process management services? These are huge, hairy questions involving major owners, service providers, technology companies and investment bankers with lots of money at risk. Each will carefully gauge the need to cooperate and compete. Wow, it's difficult to predict the final landscape, as these firms face bet-the-farm decisions.

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--Peter Pike