Online rental services target property information market.

Picture this, you have been following a major discount drug store chain as a new retail leasing client for several years.

You have met with all the key people. You have given them presentations on your company. You' have taken them to ball games and to dinner. You have even helped them as a favor with a problem with a landlord in a transaction where you were not the broker. The commission was paid to their regular broker. They have finally called you to locate a new store for them. There is only one catch, you have twenty-four hours to get them the information they need. The market survey, the analysis of the competition in the area and the list of available spaces with photographs. Have only one problem. It is physically impossible to complete this assignment in one day. This may no longer be an impossible task. Perhaps it can be done in under thirty minutes, with an interactive database and web site.

In today's world, perhaps more than ever before, access to information in a quick and efficient manner has become the cornerstone of successful real estate transactions. The advent of the Internet as both a communications and transactional tool is transforming our industry, just has it has many others.

Many real estate firms, including owners, developers, brokers and other concerns have established sites on the Internet to expand their reach. Until now most of these sites have been in what can best be described as an identification format, something akin to a large yellow pages ad; it lets you know the company exists, what they do and where to reach them. In the broader world this approach is useless. Internet sites need to reflect the way we do business; in other words they need to be a re-invention of the telephone, a tool that permits us to transact business not just to identify ourselves nature of our business though is such that we also need to maintain the high level of security for proprietary information that we have had in the past. Web sites need to be both interactive and secure. Our web sites must maintain information security and afford interactions in real time and terms to move marketing efforts into the internet age.

At the same time that many firms have begun marketing efforts on the Internet many web sites have begun offering listing services for real estate as well. While they would like to consider themselves databases, they are for the most part more like bulletin boards, carry a minimal amount of information per listing and provide a phone number and/or email address for a contact to follow up on that listing. The viewer often has to read through the entire listing section to locate those transactions that might be of interest to him/her and then contact the designated agent. Alternatively, an interactive system allows the user to search through the entire database and to sort those listings that meet his/her criterion. Additionally, these database systems generally offer much more extensive information than a "bulletin board" including photographs as well as maps and other graphic information. They are in many cases also editable in real time by either the user, the database service provider or both. With the cont inuing evolution of Internet software and marketing concepts a convergence of these web areas is occurring.

Database services are offering satellite web sites to subscribers thereby creating marketing alliances between users and providers of information. This is critical and beneficial in an industry where these roles are often times interchangeable.

The other major issue for real estate professionals in developing effective, useful web sites is the adaptation of proprietary information to the Internet, an environment that prides itself on the unrestricted, free flow of information. As we well know information is power in our business and we need to protect our monopoly on information when we have it.

When developing an interactive web site or choosing a co-branded arrangement for an interactive site with a database service, users should seek the following features. To begin with a direct URL (internet address) is desirable. Your web site should be reachable by anyone on the Internet directly. Secondly, a real estate website should feature two "sides", public and private. The "public" side provides a forum where visitors can view property listings information considered non-exclusive.

Confidential information such as property addresses for exclusive listings, should be accessible on the "private" side only by visitors using passwords supplied to them by you, This approach protects proprietary information, the backbone of the real estate transaction. Transactions in our industry have always been more likely to occur in more private environments. The alteration of this free flow of information characteristic of internet commerce to the needs of the real estate industry and its professionals will make the integration of e-commerce methods to our industry more acceptable and will accelerate its integration into our everyday work lives.

Interactive web sites should offer the user the power to edit information in real time. Additions, deletions and changes to listings and general property files must be editable as soon as they occur. E-mail notification of these changes must occur in real time as well. Whether as a user of a database service or as a supplier of information into your own site or service the speed to affect transactions afforded both users and suppliers through adoption of internet marketing techniques is achievable only if information is made available on an immediate and constant basis in real time.

Online interactive sites offer other benefits as well. Imagine being able to conduct initial site visits with clients through the internet. Database and interactive systems enable you to create your marketing packages online, including financial information, photographs, maps and other graphics. You can send these packages to your clients electronically and view the prospective sites on-line simultaneously. Additionally the same software enables you to manage properties on-line. We can literally put the messenger services out of business. Also, no one will dispute that the quality of documents and photographs sent electronically is far superior to that received by FAX.

Subscribing to an online database service, particularly in conjunction with an online, interactive website of your own, affords you the following benefits. It expands your reach. Your listings can be entered into a larger, more frequently viewed listing service. The database's client base becomes yours as well. You also have the benefit of access to all of the additional information stored within that database as it relates to your marketing and data research efforts. Most importantly perhaps, you will benefit from the database's online and off line marketing efforts as well. Traffic driven to the database will be driven to you.

Interactive on-line web sites and database services offer you the opportunity to take advantage of the new and exciting changes occurring through the interfacing of the real estate and internet industries. They empower their users with speed, ease-of-use, standardization of information, privacy protection and up-to-the minute information.