Listings Management at Spieker and United Properties

Can't We All Work Together? ... My Feb 20 Dispatch, Listing Standards: Are We Moving Backwards? , generated a flood of ideas. But if you're counting on a consensus, don't hold your breath! I've copied highlights below and will conclude with final excerpts in Friday's Dispatch.

Paul Quinn, Spieker Properties , Menlo Park, CA. ... "We recently completed an internal database of space available that includes a super-set of the marketing data elements used by the various listing services. The marketing information includes descriptions, features, photos, floor plans, space plans, CAD drawings, contacts, etc. This database is synchronized daily with our property management system (CTI), looking for vacancies 18 months in advance and removing leased spaces. The database is maintained by building managers with a web-based application through our intranet. Spieker Properties leasing personnel can search the entire space available database. Spaces marked as 'Listed' can be viewed at www.spieker.com... We have coordinated with the dominant listing services in our markets to push them our vacancies on a weekly basis. The beauty of this system is that our building managers are only required to maintain the information in one place but have listings with multiple services. Spaces are automatically removed once they are leased. And our leasing people have an internal database of all vacant spaces, not just the ones we choose to list publicly."

Melissa Lee, United Properties, Bloomington, MN. ... "In a nutshell, the change to true automation will not occur until real estate leaders truly understand the benefits technology can provide. ... It’s not to difficult to add a couple lines of code to automatically transfer information to a remote database on a regularly scheduled basis (e.g., 1:30 a.m). WHY are all these companies insisting that Company A export data, send it to Company B, and then require Company B to import the data? ... This is all for the great benefit of having information updated weekly! It makes no sense. ... Think Palm and the hotsynch function, or think ACT and the synching function to a 'master' database. Now imagine if this is automated... Over the next 1-3 years, I see major hubs (such as LoopNet, OCR, CoStar…) 'hotsynching' with each other (maybe) and then synching to the mini-hub destinations (United Properties, CB, etc.) a few hours later. What this allows is each region to maintain its own preferential language, and yet it allows a national synching and updating of information across all the key hubs in the US. ... This is not a NEW technology. Other industries (airlines, car rental, hotels) have been using it for years."

Keith Claxton, BT Commercial, San Jose, CA. "Yes! We have taken a huge step backward. In the Association of Silicon Valley Brokers... We tried for a number of years ... to organize, design and write a web-based ... program that all brokerage houses ... could use in a very dynamic way. Our bond to each other was that we wouldn't put a listing on the system unless it was a valid exclusive, and, when it expired, we would take it off. ... [But] we couldn't get everyone to play. I observe [today] that everyone who has a listing immediately e-mails all brokers on the list, I get anywhere from 40 to 100 e-mails a day, too many to process, file or otherwise organize in a way that could be useful to me or my clients. ... So, I'm in info overload and believe the quality isn't there." ... Hey, Silicon Valley is supposed be our technological leader.

--Peter Pike