COMPS InfoSystems Inc. Announces Name Change to COMPS.COM; New Name Reflects Company's Shift To Internet as Primary Delivery System.

SAN DIEGO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 27, 1999--

New Internet Product, E-COMPS II, Also Introduced

COMPS(R) InfoSystems Inc., a leading national commercial real estate information service that has set the standard for thoroughness and reliability since it was founded nearly two decades ago, Wednesday announced its corporate name will change to COMPS(R).COM -- a strategic move designed to clearly reflect its shift to the Internet as a primary delivery platform, effective immediately.

In making the announcement, Christopher A. Crane, president and chief executive officer of COMPS.COM said the name change is, in part, aimed at prompting existing and prospective customers to visit the Web site for the company's complete product offering. "The Internet is important to the way that we are now conducting business in that it's very much a part of our product initiatives, which is only going to increase going forward," Crane said.

He added that another key aspect of the change is that overall service will be improved for the customer base since the nature of the Internet allows for new applications to be built more rapidly. "We want our customers and prospective customers to know that we are no longer a `paper' company and the new name affirms that," said Crane.

To underscore this, COMPS.COM also announced the national roll-out of E-COMPS II, an expanded version of E-COMPS, the online product that allows for purchasing sale comparable reports on an ad-hoc basis.

With E-COMPS II, a user anywhere in the world can select properties online from any of COMPS' markets nationwide that are most relevant to the subject property and make a credit card transaction to purchase the comparable information.

Additionally, property sale comparables reports can be printed out in color from a high quality, Adobe Acrobat file format or downloaded to an image file, important features that were not included in E-COMPS.

"E-COMPS II, which we consider a revolutionary offering for e-commerce in the commercial real estate information industry, provides the real estate pro a product that has incredible productivity and speed, putting he or she within minutes of getting the sales comparable report they seek," said Wally Papciak, executive vice president of sales, marketing and new product development.

Industry expert Peter Pike, editor of the popular PikeNet directory of commercial real estate Web site and a former broker, said E-COMPS II is an important step in providing information immediately and seamlessly.

"I had tears in my eyes remembering the hoops that I had to jump through to get comparable (information) out of our (San Francisco) market area when I was a broker," Pike said, referring to how much slower the overall process was in past years.

COMPS' suite of other Internet products includes DealPoint, a commercial listing service that launched Jan. 11 in San Diego and is scheduled to be made available nationally on a market-by-market basis over the next 12 months; Pipeline, an adjunct to COMPSLink, COMPS' acclaimed software database management package that provides the most current COMPS information available; and Spectrum, a subscription/Internet-based data warehousing platform.

With headquarters in San Diego, COMPS has been the acknowledged leader of commercial real estate information services since its inception in 1982, maintaining a database of more than 500,000 transactions that serves a clientele of more than 25,000, including brokers, lenders, appraisers, investment banks, insurance companies, REITs and corporate real estate executives. COMPS' Web site is located at www.comps.com.