We’ve been chosen to create a new Commercial MLS for the Pensacola Association of REALTORS®!
The new site is live at: GulfCoastCMLS.com and we’ll be working closely with Wendy and the great staff at PAR to aggregate data and grow this into a valuable tool for marketing and researching commercial property in the greater Pensacola area!
Learn more about how a Commercial Information Exchange can benefit your local community.
We’ve just released a new round of improvements to our CIE platform! Over the past year, we’ve built partnerships with providers of the best CRE data available, including tax/assessment/loan records, owners and tenants, traffic counts, current and projected demographics, GIS map layers, etc. Several of our CIEs have already made this information available, and others are in the process.
Our focus over the past few months has been on taking that new data and integrating it within our CIEs in a way that makes the information easy to understand. These latest changes are a big step toward our goal of making our locally-controlled databases a one-stop-shop for commercial real estate information in each market.
We’ve made it much easier to get around your CIE. All major functions are now instantly accessible thanks to the new drop-down menu bar at the top of the screen. This should drastically reduce the number of clicks it takes to get at the information you need.
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We’ve also overhauled the search pages to make it easier for you to see all the different kinds of information that can be searched. You’ll notice the new menu on the left-hand side that will allow you to quickly toggle between different searches. The new search pages are a lot less cluttered, and should be easier on the eyes.
We’ve made searching by keyword easier to find and more effective. The keyword fields will also auto-populate with popular terms to save time and avoid typos. Finally, when searching for listings or comparables, you will now see a “Show on Map” option allowing you to go directly to the “Map View” when searching. |
Better Submarket SupportSubmarkets are locally-understood designations for areas that don’t always align nicely with government boundaries, ie. “Downtown” or “South City Industrial District”. If your CIE has submarket boundaries defined, you can now choose to filter your search to particular submarkets by visually selecting those areas on a map. Look for the “Select Submarket” link under the location box when searching for listings, comps, or properties. If your CIE doesn’t yet have submarkets defined, let us know and we’ll work with you and your CIE administrator to set them up. |
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Because our CIEs are Property-Centric, all of the information we collect gets tied back to individual parcels. The “Property History” page makes it easy to see everything the CIE knows about a property at a particular address. We’ve just overhauled this page to be more comprehensive, including many new types of information:
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This gives your CIE the ability to function as a powerful research database, giving you quick access to data that might’ve taken hours to compile separately. To try it out, select the “Property Histories” option under the “Search” menu, and enter an address.
If your CIE doesn’t currently provide tax records or owner and tenant information, get in touch with your CIE administrator and let them know you want it. The data is available should your CIE choose to integrate it.
Many agents aren’t comfortable sharing details about their transactions, especially the sale price. We’ve added a new option for users reporting sales: “Keep Price Confidential”. This allows the CIE to use the price to generate more accurate market statistics, but allows the agent to keep the price private. No one else will be able to see the entered price.
| QR codes are a new form of barcode that can be scanned by smartphones. All printable reports generated from your CIE can now include QR codes for each property. Once a report is printed, clients can simply scan the code and be automatically taken to the online listing presentation to view the full details. You can also choose to exclude the QR codes from their reports by selecting that option when customizing their report.
Learn more about QR codes and Commercial Real Estate. |
As always, thanks for your excellent feedback and suggestions! Please don’t hesitate to contact us with your ideas to improve the service. We’ll be rolling out more great tools and enhancements later this year.
We’re excited to welcome our newest CIE client! NICAR’s new CIE will finally give commercial real estate professionals in Northern Illinois a place to share information, including property listings for sale and lease, and access to a historical database of over 80,000 transactions.
Dan Cawley, SIOR
2011 President Elect, NICAR
Learn more about how a Commercial Information Exchange can benefit your local community, or read on for the full press release:
We’re very happy to announce a new partnership with our friends at Rofo, a national search engine for available space. All Catylist CIE members are now able to push their property listings to Rofo.
Additionally, thanks to Rofo’s Real Estate Pro app, those listings can also be displayed on your LinkedIn profile. Setting up the app is free and takes just seconds, then you’ll be able to display your available listings and deals done on the world’s largest business-focused social network. LinkedIn has over 100 million members. If you don’t have a profile yet, it’s time to take a look.
To learn more, here’s a short video demonstration:
Your next deal can come from anywhere. Catylist Commercial Information Exchanges allow members to syndicate their listings to a growing number of sites with no additional data entry. Investors and tenants are searching for space on many sites – we help our members get their listings on as many of them as possible. Learn More about Catylist CIEs
Rofo stands for Right of First Offer. It’s your right to find the best offers and get a complete view of your local commercial real estate market. Whether your searching for office, retail or warehouse space to rent or buy, finding the next location for your business is an important decision and it goes beyond viewing active listings. Rofo provides the unique tools and information to make your search smarter and more complete.
We’re happy to announce our newest CIE client — we’re building a new commercial property database to serve the members of the Coeur d’Alene Traders Club. The CIE will be THE source for commercial real estate information in Northern Idaho & Eastern Washington, including property listings for sale and lease, and transaction history.
The site is live at: nwcre.org.
“The recent merger of the two largest data providers in commercial real estate underscored our decision to control the data in our market. Catylist was an easy choice for us after seeing other offerings. We were impressed with the constant innovation and upgrades that Catylist provides. Partnering with Catylist will allow us to stay at the forefront of the commercial real estate industry.”
Pat Eberlin
President, Coeur d’Alene Traders Club
Learn more about how a Commercial Information Exchange can benefit your local community.
We’re now in Washington, DC for the 2011 REALTOR® Midyear Meetings & Expo, May 11th through the 13th.
— Dave Lefebvre, CIE Committee Chair for New Hampshire Commercial Investment Board of REALTORS®. New England Commercial Property Exchange
There are great things happening at Catylist, whether you’re an association looking to grow your commercial membership or a broker looking for marketing tools and services to close more deals.
Come find out why we’re the #1 provider of CIE solutions to associations around the country!
As the CIE movement gains some steam, we’re excited to see renewed activity in two markets: Mississippi and Savannah Hilton-Head. Both communities are working with us to develop strategies to grow their Commercial Information Exchanges and have recently signed multi-year contract extensions.
Visit their CIE at: www.mcar.ms
Micah McCullough
Secretary/Treasurer & Technology Committee Member
Mississippi Commercial Association of REALTORS
Visit their CIE at: cie.rcasavhh.com
The Realtors Commercial Alliance of Savannah/Hilton Head wanted to be more visible both locally, regionally and nationally in the commercial brokerage community. Part of this strategy included an overhaul of our website and added features that would provided benefits to our members and their clients.
We did an extensive search and questioned a number of well know listing services competing in the market and Catylist seemed to be the only group interested in meeting our needs and the needs of our members. Having the ability to not lose control of our market data and know that we are entering into a true partnership with a group that had our best interest at hand cemented our decision.
The process with Catylist has been very easy and streamlined in spite of our efforts to complicate the process. We look forward to the benefits and exposure our Alliance and clients will get from this project and look forward to our partnership with Catylist.
Ryan T. Schneider, CCIM
Principal/Broker in Charge
Hostetter Schneider Realty Partners
Learn more about how a Commercial Information Exchange can benefit your local community.
As a commercial real estate pro, technology has become central to your business. Whether you’re researching rates, marketing an opportunity or availability, or just networking, you and your peers have invested time and money in building a database of information: a repository of property data for your market, sale and lease transaction history, contacts and leads, etc. Who owns that information? What happens when the companies providing the service change course, consolidate, or hike your fees?
Last week, LoopNet and CoStar announced a merger that, for those of us making or using commercial real estate software, is big news. These two publicly traded companies provide services (used by millions of people) related to marketing and/or researching commercial real estate. Over the years they’ve fought bitterly both in the marketplace and in the courtroom.
As their respective stock prices reflect (LOOP up 30%, CSGP up 10% since the announcement), the merger makes sense for shareholders. However, there’s a great uncertainty and much speculation in the commercial brokerage community over the implications.
The commercial real estate community has made LoopNet and CoStar into what they are today. You contribute your information, whether entering or importing your property listings or answering a call from a researcher looking to verify details about a recent transaction. Your contributions make their services stronger, yet they are firmly in control of both its use and its cost.
With CoStar gobbling up its primary rival, many brokers are left wondering what the future holds. The options are slim when you’re held hostage by your own data.
Your company may have its own internal tools, or you may choose to subscribe to any number of different services to provide the services critical to your business. There are two key lessons to be learned here:
Many markets learned these lessons long ago, creating Commercial Information Exchanges to pool their resources and allow members to end their costly national subscriptions.
A CIE is a platform used by a commercial real estate community to share lease and sale availabilities, recent transaction details, tax records, tenant information, demographics, market statistics, aerial imagery, GIS mapping layers, leads and contacts, and more. It’s established by a local community (usually an association of REALTORS®) and controlled by the community. The members establish the rules – they’re not handed down from some company’s shareholders. It’s a grassroots effort resulting in greater flexibility, security, and utility for everyone in your market.
The CIE movement isn’t new – it’s been around formally for over a decade, and it’s modeled off of the widely embraced residential MLS. Over 100 markets around the country come together to share information and do business together on a CIE platform. If your market isn’t one of them, it’s time to take a look. Join together and take back your market.
This is the reason CIEs exist and the reason we started this company a decade ago.
Catylist Commercial Information Exchanges allow members to syndicate their listings to a large number of sites with no additional data entry. Investors and tenants are searching for space on many sites – we help our members get their listings on as many of them as possible.
We’re happy to add PropertyShark.com to our distribution network. PropertyShark aggregates real estate data and listings from hundreds of public and proprietary sources into a comprehensive property research website covering several major markets.
Catylist CIE users with listings in the following areas can now choose to push their listings to PropertyShark automatically each night:
The traffic your listings receive on PropertyShark is tracked via your CIE and can be included in a client-ready marketing report like this one: Sample Marketing Report
Founded in December 2002 by real estate investor and programmer Matthew Haines, PropertyShark strives to level the playing field by providing real estate professionals, investors and savvy homebuyers with the information transparency essential to evaluate all types of real estate and make informed decisions. PropertyShark now provides Property Reports, Pre-Foreclosure and Foreclosure Listings, Sales Comparables, Maps, Building Photos, For Sale Listings, and For Lease Listings. The company now has 50 full time employees and has been profitable since day one, growing even during one of the worst economic downturns in U.S. history in 2008.
It’s been a great year for us here at Catylist! Here are a few of the highlights:
With the industry still recovering, it’s not surprising that brokers are looking for ways to save money. Catylist CIEs (Commercial Information Exchanges) added a record number of new members this year, as brokers looked for alternatives to the rising fees charged by national websites. We saw growth in all of our major metrics, including a 15% increase in logins – double our historic year-over-year average. We also built several new CIEs for REALTOR® associations in Wisconsin, Florida, Tennessee, and New Mexico, and signed long-term renewals with several of our major clients.
Our search engine optimization and syndication efforts continued to pay dividends, getting more eyeballs on member property listings. Listings on Catylist CIEs saw a 27% increase in traffic over 2009. Also, nearly all of our CIE clients now return at the top of Google search results for targeted keywords (example: “louisiana commercial real estate” or “knoxville commercial property”).
One of our goals for 2010 was to beef up the research capabilities of our CIEs, enabling our client markets to build comprehensive compilations of verified data for their members. We’ve made some great strides this year:
We’re currently working closely with clients in several markets to implement research strategies. It’s very exciting to see communities come together to pool resources and information, saving each other time and money.
We received hundreds of thoughtful suggestions, and added loads of great features to the software, including:
We hope you find these new tools as useful as we do – keep the suggestions coming!
Focusing on providing simple, useful, and affordable tools has served us well, and we want to thank the commercial real estate community for all your support again this year. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel for CRE – here’s to a great 2011!
Happy New Year from the folks at Catylist!