Commercial Real Estate Blog

Mobile CIE App

All CIE Subscribers have FREE access to the Catylist Mobile CIE App:

• Designed to work beautifully on Android/iOS smartphones & tablets, including iPhones & iPads.
• Sophisticated, map-based searching including an unlimited number of results.
• View full listing details, including photo galleries.
• Sync’d with your listing catalogs for access during showings, client presentations.
• Email listings and catalogs directly from your device.
• Access to your CIE’s member directory to call/email colleagues.
• View your inventory of available property listings.
• Read the latest commercial real estate news articles, aggregated from around the Web.
• Free public search allows tenants & investors around the country to find your property availabilities on their mobile devices.

Read the Setup Instructions, and try it out now.

In addition to the new app, we’ve also added some better support for tablets on your normal CIE, including fixes to the scrolling issues some were experiencing when running searches on an iPad.

Improved Email Hotsheets

Email hotsheets allow you to be notified by email about new and updated listings that match your preferences. We’ve made four improvements that we think you’ll love:

• We’ve separated the “New” listings from the “Updated”
• Listings that are flagged as “Updated” will now display exactly what changed, example:
  Price was changed from $1,200,000 to $1,100,000
• All lease rates will now include a type where available, ie. NNN, Gross Lease, etc.
• The layout and spacing have been improved for easier scanning

To sign up for hotsheets or fine-tune your preferences, log in to your CIE, and select the “My Email Preferences” option under “My Account” at the top of any page.

Improved Catalogs

Catalogs are like “favorites” lists or client folders — they allow you to save groups of listings or comparables for later analysis, for presenting to a client, or just to keep track of changes to the properties over time. We made a few changes to make them more useful:

First, we redesigned the layout of the catalogs section to include more information about the cataloged listings and comparables, including a photo, price, size, property types, etc.

Also, each catalog now has a dedicated page branded with your company logo and contact information, and designed to be accessed by your clients. For instance, let’s say you were helping a client find some office space to lease in Albuquerque. As you found suitable spaces in the CIE, you’d add them to a catalog. Then, you’d email a link that would allow your client to review these spaces, all under your own company branding and contact details. Here’s an Example Catalog.

You can access your existing catalogs under “My Account” at the top of any page, and you can add an item to a catalog directly from each listing page. These catalogs are also accessible the new mobile app, making it easy to keep track of properties wherever you are.

Search Improvements

• We’ve added “Size” to the initial search screen for convenience, since most searches will include a size requirement.
• You can now search listings using a “Price Per SF” or “Price Per Acre” range.
• We’ve added better location searching options for Business Opportunities. Now when searching for businesses for sale, you can specify city, county, zip, or MSA in addition to state. Also, CIE subscribers can now search businesses posted by members of other CIEs.
• By default, when searching for lease space, your CIE splits each space into a separate search result. This makes it easier for you to drill down to only the spaces that meet your criteria. There are times when it’s more convenient to keep the results grouped by building, and we’ve added a new option that allows you to consolidate the results into a single record rather than one-per-space. To try it out, run a search, then check the “Group results by building” box the the left-side, near the bottom.
• If your CIE has submarket support, you can now select multiple submarkets from the pop-up map. We also include a list of the submarket names to make selection easier.

Thanks!

All of these changes came directly from feedback we’ve received from you. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with your suggestions – we’re planning another round of upgrades for the Spring!

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.

Improvements to Navigation & Search

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.

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 Support Submarkets 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.

Improved Property History / Address Look-up

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: Active Listings for sale or lease Spaces/Parcels at that address NEW Transaction History, including sale and lease activity Property History Timeline including new listings, price changes, and expirations NEW Property/Building Details including hundreds of possible variables like size, zoning, tax ID, characteristics, etc. NEW Photos collected for that address Owner History including contact information when available NEW Tenant History including contact information when available NEW Tax History including taxes paid and assessed values when available NEW Loan History when available NEW Links to local market statistics and demographics, etc. Maps, aerial and street views

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.

Confidential Prices for Sale Transactions

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 for Reports

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.

Thanks!

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’ve just wrapped up our Fall round of improvements to our commercial information exchanges! To take advantage of these tools, just log in to either your local Catylist CIE, or Commercial IQ.

Major Map Upgrades, GIS Capabilities & Layering

An important part of building a successful CIE is assembling different kinds of data in a way that allows your members to make better decisions. To that end we’ve made some big upgrades to our mapping software.

Your CIE is now a fully capable GIS platform. We’ve added the ability to overlay various types of data on top of your property listings, comparables, and building records. Whether it’s heat maps, points of interest, or custom geographic boundaries like local industrial zones — your CIE is now able to integrate any GIS layers you have access to for your local market.

To start, we incorporated a few layers of Census 2009 demographic data (Population Density, Household Income, and Education Level) as well as traffic flow indicators for major streets and highways. These new layers will be available on all CIEs. We’ve also been working with CPIX in Michigan to integrate several custom layers sourced from local data including: Railroads, Airports, Hospitals, and Universities.

This is something that no other CIE platform offers and it’s just a taste of what is possible — we look forward to working with each of you to integrate local data sets.

Finally, a few additional improvements:

• In the past, we’ve limited the number of items on a map to 500. We’re removing this limit altogether — the new maps perform similar to a heat map in areas with many listings.
• All of these new layers will transfer automatically to the PDF reports generated from the CIE.
• All maps now have a box-zoom feature, and a distance measuring tool.
• We also made a few changes so that clustered listings on a report don’t overlap.

New & Improved Market Statistics & Trends

We’ve completely overhauled the way we’re calculating and displaying market statistics.

Here’s how the process works. Each month, we collect a snapshot of all records (listings, properties, comparables) for your CIE. We then normalize those records, eliminating those with extremely high or low prices and sizes, and eliminating duplicates. Essentially, we build the most accurate virtual model possible of the space in your market. We then calculate various stats using these snapshots, allowing you to compare values month-to-month, identify trends.

We break the display into two pages. First, is the market summary, which gives you some high-level numbers about the market in general and allows you to compare property types side-by-side. You can then click deeper to view specifics for each property type, including 3-month and 12-month averages, 12-month trends, and submarket comparisons.

• We’re now tracking new statistics like “Days on Market”, and “Percentage Below List”, which measure the average discount from the original sale price.
• If your CIE tracks off-market properties, you’ll see new variables including: Total Inventory SF, Total Listed SF, Total Occupied SF, Vacancy Rate, and Net Absorption SF.
• Filter stats by location and property type.
• Download stats into a very nice company-branded PDF report, ready for clients.

The more research your CIE is doing, the more complete the database, and the more meaningful the statistics. The stats are available to CIE members only. Access them via the “View Market Statistics” link on your console, or by clicking through to “View More Market Stats” from any listing.

CIE Homepage Redesign

We gave our CIE sites a face-lift, based on some great suggestions we received from many of you. The new homepage is designed to better engage those searching for commercial space – we hope you like the new look!

Confidential Lease Rates

Everyone wants to know what rates spaces are leasing at, but few are willing to share the information. This causes many users to enter false information when entering the lease details of their completed transactions. We’ve added the ability to “Keep Lease Rate Confidential” when entering the rate. If that box is clicked, we will never display the lease rate. We will, however, be able to use it anonymously when calculating market stats. The rate for that particular space stays a secret, while the entire CIE benefits by tracking a more accurate lease rate average.

Space for Lease Display

Previously when searching for lease space, we display each space as a separate item in search results, even if those spaces are in the same building. We still think this is great for people searching for space. When displaying an agent’s or a company’s listings however, having the spaces separate is less desirable. We’ve made a change so that on profile displays like SiteLink or AgentLink, lease spaces are combined and displayed as a single building.

Thanks!

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 in a couple months.

AgentLink is our newest SiteLink™ product developed for individual Commercial Real Estate professionals who are looking for an affordable, personalized web presence.

It’s never been quicker or easier to have a website.

These days, all Commercial Real Estates pros need a website. Whether you have an existing website, or need help designing one, AgentLink is the fastest and easiest way to display your property listings and professional profile – complete with resume, completed transactions, links to social media sites, and more. AgentLink n a Nutshell:

• Display your existing Catylist listings & profile on your own website without re-entering your information. Everything is automatically sync’d up in Real-time.
$30/month
• Gives your clients the ability to search & map listings, create reports & brochures, view maps & photos, and more.
• Easy to either integrate into your existing website, or can work as a customizable stand-alone site.



• Lots of customization options let you control how it looks.
• Quick to set up: just 3 minutes.
• Very affordable.

AgentLink Examples:

• Timothy Adelsperger – RE/MAX, Indiana
• David A. Gleason – Van Eaton & Romero, Louisiana
• Mark Allen – PREC, Florida

Quick & Easy Sign-up:

• Log into your Catylist CIE (or Commercial IQ)
• Select the “My Account” tab
• Click the link to “Setup AgentLink Personal Website”
• Follow the prompts and you’ll be up and running in less then 5 minutes!

We’ve just wrapped up our Spring round of improvements to our commercial information exchanges! To take advantage of these tools, just log in to either your local Catylist CIE, or Commercial IQ.

CIE Discussion Forums

Your CIE now has a built-in forum, where you can discuss local commercial real estate topics, ask questions, and share expertise. We hope you take advantage of this to discuss current trends, local news, changes in the marketplace, etc. It’s a great way to show off your knowledge and network with other pros in your market. You’ll see the latest forum activity in your Market Monitor, and can receive automatic updates via email.

To visit your local discussion forum, look for the link on the CIE homepage or on the Market Monitor page once you’ve logged in.

Inventory Reports

Creating inventory reports is a common task for any company, whether for clients or for internal use. For instance, you might need to generate a report (or a CSV export) of all active listings including expiration dates so that your admin can make calls to verify pieces of information. Or, you might want to generate a report of all property represented by their firm for distribution to a potential investor, or maybe you just need a nice, printable PDF displaying all the details for your current Industrial offerings.

Catylist already has the best looking reports in the industry. We made a few changes that should make generating these reports much easier:

• We greatly increased the limit on the number of items in a report.
• We added the ability to include expiration date when creating a report with your own listings. You’ll see this option on the “Customize Report” page.
• We added the ability to include expiration date in the CSV export format when exporting your own listings.
• We added links to the company admin console and your company’s profile page to “Generate Inventory Report”, which automatically rounds up all your company’s active listings to be included in any of our printable, customizable, PDF report formats.

Here’s an example: Sample Inventory Report

A few other notable changes…

• Every Catylist CIE now has a built-in Blog. Your CIE admins will use this to communicate important information, upcoming events, etc. You’ll see all the new posts in your Market Monitor.
• When managing your own listings, you can now “Select All on Page” or “Select All” which automatically selects all listings, comps, or properties on all pages. This should save a lot of time and a lot of clicking.
• Maximum size for uploaded listing attachments increased to 10mb.
• “Economic Developer” and “Auctioneer” have been added to the list of selectable user roles, and AICP was added to the list of professional organizations.
• For CIE’s that track “Cooperation Compensation”, it can now be included in listing CSV exports.

Thanks!

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 Summer.

Commercial brokers live on their phones, and contrary to much of the hype, not all of them are iPhones. We’ve spent the past couple months listening to you and getting a feel for the types of tools that would be truly useful to the commercial broker on-the-go. Here are the features we heard requested again and again:

• Look up a colleague’s phone number and call it, or plot their address on a map.
• Access your available property listings.
• Find listings for sale or lease matching particular criteria.
• Access the latest commercial real estate news, market activity, recent sales/leases, and new properties added to the market.

http://m.catylist.com

Not Just for iPhones

It’s not an iPhone app or an Android app – it’s a simple, lightweight website accessible via ANY mobile device. You shouldn’t be required to have a particular phone in order to access the data you need.

Anyone can run searches, view listings and access agent contact information, but to log in, you’ll need to be a Catylist CIE subscriber.

Let us know what you think, or if you have any ideas that would make this more useful.

We received a lot of great suggestions over the past couple months, and have been hard at work incorporating these improvements into our commercial information exchanges. Grab a cup of coffee, and read over the changes below!

Meet the Listing Fixer!

Whether you’re an agent or company administrator, you likely spend a good deal of time making sure your listings are accurate, complete, and up-to-date. We’ve created a new tool to make this job much quicker and easier.

If you have listings that need attention, you’ll see a bright red message waiting for you when you log in to your CIE. Just click the “Fix This” link, and you’ll be taken to the new Listing Fixer. You’ll see the problem listings on the left; clicking each one will tell you exactly what’s wrong, displaying only the fields you need to change. This allows you to quickly move through the list minimizing clicking, scrolling and searching to find problems.

This tool is something no other listing service (commercial or residential) offers, and besides making your life easier, we think it will drastically improve commercial property data integrity.

Link to Social Media: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Blogs

You can now link your CIE profile to your accounts on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, or to your blog. This also works for company profiles. We’ve seen a steady increase in usage of these sites by CRE professionals, and we’re planning more integration later this year. Here’s an example of a CIE member profile using the new Social Media links: http://www.cpix.net/agent/20353

Combined Search: Active, Expired & Withdrawn Listings, Comps, and Building/Land Records

There’s a lot of searchable data on your CIE, and we’re always working to make it easier for you to find exactly what you need. You can now perform all property-related searches on the same page: Active Listings, Expired/Withdrawn, Comparables, and Building/Land Records (for CIEs that have off-market property data). Here’s a before and after comparison.

A few changes to note:

• We moved the Address Lookup box to the top of the search page to make it easier to find. Use this when you want to find out everything we know about a particular address (current listings, price changes, sale/lease history, links to tax records, etc).
• The new page makes it easier to search for specialty types: investment property, auctions, distressed property & price reductions.
• We made it easier to post wants, save searches, and create property alerts. You’ll now see direct links to these options when you’re viewing search results.

Display your Listings Anywhere with a Listing Widget

The Listing Widget is a new tool that allows you to embed a few listings on any website or blog, just by pasting some JavaScript into the page. You can build your widget by logging in, then clicking through to the “Promote” page for any listing. For SiteLink users, the widget will link directly to listing presentations on your SiteLink, so this is a great way to drive eyeballs to your listings.

FREE Company Administrator Training

We currently offer free online training sessions 4 days a week. We’re adding a 5th day, specifically geared toward company administrators, who are always hard at work behind the scenes. Neal will be leading these sessions, which will give admins a broad overview of how to get the most out of the system as well as answer any specific questions they may have. These will be held every Tuesday, and we encourage you or your company’s admin to attend. Sign Up Now!

Thanks!

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 in a couple months.

We rolled out a few pre-Thanksgiving features to Commercial IQ and our local Commercial Information Exchanges tonight.

New Specialty Searches

Commercial Real Estate is changing quickly these days, and we’ve added support for several highly requested searches:

• Search Property Auctions — View properties being sold by auction.
• Search Distressed Property — Find properties designated as “Distressed” (REO/Foreclosed).
• Search Price Reductions — Pull up sale or lease listings which have had their listing prices lowered in the past 30 days.
• Search Green Property — Locate LEED Certified properties.

You’ll find links to these on the search page, or by clicking the “Add Search Filter” box on the search page.

If you’re listing a property in one of the above categories, be sure to log in and mark it as such. You’ll find these options under the “Details” tab when editing your listing.

Here are a couple other features we rolled in, based on requests from many users like you:

“Copy Me” on Email — You can now check a box when sending an email and have a copy sent to your own inbox for future reference.

Listing Attachment Improvements — Previously, we’d limited users to 3 external links (usually to video sites like YouTube) per listing. They can now add as many as they want, and label each with a title.

Thanks!

Thanks again 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 in a couple months.

We’re excited to roll out another round of improvements tonight! These changes are now live on all of our Commercial Information Exchanges around the country, and on Commercial IQ (our national commercial real estate search engine).

New and Improved Listing Traffic Reporting

One of the most useful features of our CIEs is the ability to enter a listing once, then distribute it automatically to dozens of websites. By clicking on the “Track” link for any of your listing presentations, we allow you to monitor how many people have viewed it, and which site they viewed it on. We’ve overhauled this section to make it easier to measure the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts:

• New Design — The new layout, addition of logos for each website, and improved charts better emphasize the important information, making the traffic data easier to read and understand.
• Greater Consistency — You can export this data into a marketing report for your reference, or to give to your client. The improved “Track” web page and the PDF report format are much more consistent, displaying the same information.
• More Date Options — We’ve added the ability to toggle between 4 date ranges: 30 days, 90 days, 1 Year, and All Time. These ranges affect both the “Track” page and the corresponding PDF reports.
• Access for Admins — Your company administrator can now access this section to monitor traffic received by any or all property listings for your company. This will make it easier to track the effectiveness of tools like SiteLink.

Upload Multiple Photos Simultaneously

Users can now upload multiple photos at the same time, rather than attaching them to listings one-by-one. We’ve gotten a lot of requests for this. We also added the upload box to all the media pages to make it quicker and easier to find.

Copy Clients on Property Email Alerts

When a user saves a search, they can choose to be notified daily or weekly by email of new or updated properties that match their search criteria. They can now enter a second email address (for their client, assistant, administrator, etc) to be copied on those property alerts. It’s a great way to show clients that you’re on top of the market. To try this out: run a property search and click the “Save Search” link on the upper left-hand side. Then just enter a valid email address in the field labeled: “Send a copy to client email address”.

Copy Company Administrator on Listing Reminders

In order to keep data fresh and accurate, we require users to update and verify their listings regularly. Users can now choose to have their company administrator copied on all of the email reminders we send out. To enable this: log in to your CIE, click on the “My Account” tab at the top, then the “Edit Email Preferences” link. Then just click the link to “Copy my company administrator on all email”.

Post Private, Member-Only Notes on your Listings

When listing a property, there is often important information that you don’t want just anyone to see. Users can now add notes to each listing that are only viewable by other agents who are viewing their listing — these notes are not visible to the general public. Look for “Agent Notes” below the listing overview box.

View Listing Price Reductions

We’re now tracking data on listing price changes. Going forward, you’ll see a price history on every listing record detailing reductions (or increases) including dates.

Improvements to Listing Presentations

Besides adding the price histories, we’ve also made a few changes to the format of our listing presentations that should make them easier to read, highlighting the most important information. We’ve also overhauled the way we display spaces for lease. Here’s an example.

Thanks!

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 in a couple months.

Google Earth Integration & Commercial Property KML Export

Google Earth is a great tool for visualizing the locations of commercial properties, allowing you to cover lots of ground without leaving your desk. We’ve integrated Google Earth directly into Commercial IQ and our local commercial listing services providing you 3D visualizations of the commercial properties on each site.

You’ll just need to install the Google Earth plugin, then click on the “Earth” button at the top-right corner of any map, including search results and listing presentations.

For those of you using the Google Earth desktop application or another GIS service, we’ve also added the ability to export commercial properties in KML format.

Search Expired Listings

Many of our users keep an eye on listing expirations and withdrawals as a way to prospect for leads. We put in some work to make this more efficient. You can now find links to search for “Expired” or “Withdrawn” listings on the “Comparables” search tab of any of our local CIEs.

Improved Property Input & Administration

We took another look at our property input interface to make the process smoother and more intuitive. We polished dozens of areas: adding more lease rate customization, improving the organization of the fields, adding simple warning messages when information is missing or incorrect. We also added a handy tool that allows administrators to generate a spreadsheet of listings that need attention, along with a description of the problem and the contact information for the listing agent. We hope this makes it easier to stay on top of your listings, keeping the data accurate and up to date.

Thanks!

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 this Summer.