1. WEB SUCCESS. Richard Drevs of the Gladstone Group is a Chicago real estate broker with a very straightforward web site that has "generated several deals." Recently a facilities manager in Florida looking for Chicago warehouse space found Dick’s site. He filled out the form with some general comments, and Dick sent him a list of potential properties. "We had several conversations to refine details. This was followed by the new area sales manager reviewing sites and bringing the corporate VP in for final approval." The result was a five-year lease for 26,000 square feet.

2. NEW AND NOTABLE. Dan Mihalovich, a broker with the San Francisco office of Cushman & Wakefield, has created one of the best individual web sites to market his tenant representation services. Capital Associates, which provides commercial brokerage, leasing, management and development in Cary, NC, features a good space-available search engine. First Industrial Realty Trust is a REIT specializing in bulk warehouse and light industrial properties in the central U.S. General Growth Properties, a REIT, owns, manages and develops shopping centers nationwide.

The Newell Group provides commercial property and business tax assessment services across Western Canada. FOCUSnet is an attractive listing service and property information for the U.K. American Community Network, which is focused on community and economic development activity, features MSA demographic profiles and interactive maps nationwide. The Donohoe Companies develop office, hotel, retail, industrial and residential properties in Washington, D.C.

3. WSJ ADVERTISING. This is a non-scientific survey. In the Wednesday, June 25, 1997, Wall Street Journal (California edition), I counted 108 property advertisements. Of these only 10 (9.3%) included a URL. Almost all the major advertisers, led by Cushman & Wakefield’s full page, did include their web address. But there were dozens of other ads with no easy links to web sites for further information.

4. COUNTY INFORMATION. So much real estate information is gathered at the county level, e.g., tax and assessment records, that you frequently need to find out in which county a particular city is located. I recently found the Iowa Cities to Counties Index that allows you to enter a city name and find its county. Has anybody seen a source for this kind of information for another state? Or nationwide?

5. USING BIGBOOK TO FIND BUSINESS ADDRESSES AND CREDIT RATINGS. There are a number of competing "yellow pages" web sites. One of my favorites is BigBook. As an example, I show you at PikeNet how to look up the Insignia Financial Group in Greenville, SC. To find this example, go to PikeNet’s home page, then click the "Questions…How To" hyperlink under "Toolkits." Finally, click "How to use BigBook" which is included under "Research." You’ll be amazed at how quickly you can find addresses, maps, driving directions and credit ratings.

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--Peter Pike