Staying afloat as real estate tide changes.

Activity in the investment sales industry has reached a frenzied velocity: capital is plentiful; deals are closing; new investment opportunities and players are popping up all over the country. With this burst of activity, it has become extremely difficult for brokers and investors to keep track of all the changes in the market.

During the past few years, slow, sporadic activity in the commercial real estate market made the business easier to follow. Since investment options were few and far between, keeping track of opportunities could be as simple as picking up the phone, or flipping through the paper. Little was happening, and when something did, everybody knew it.

As everyone remembers, when capital starvation drew money out of real estate nationwide, market after market tumbled. The financial drought hit the Southwest commercial real estate market first, followed by the Northeast, finally slamming the West in 1989. However, during the past eight to ten months, most markets across the country have shown significant improvement. Texas, one of the first market segments to crumble, was also among the first states to rebound back and begin the recovery - a recovery that has since rippled through the nation. The final area hit by the capital crunch, the West Coast, may be starting to reclaim a leading position in the real estate economy.

As recovery sweeps through the country, investors - many of them new to the property markets - are pouring capital back into real estate. A surge in securitization of real estate (through REITs and Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities) is supporting renewed fluidity in commercial property investment. A new breed of adventurous, flexible investors is also buoying the intense wave of activity in investment sales. Interested in a broad spectrum of property types and market segments, today's investors are uncovering alternate markets when their traditional "first-choice" investment outlets dry up. More conventional investors are, in many cases, changing their investment strategies, raising money from new sources and pursuing smaller, higher yielding investments in less prominent markets and locations.

This explosion has sent brokers and investors scrambling to organize their information and track movements in the markets. Keeping on top of executive moves and company mergers is crucial to maintaining contacts and securing deals. Recently, the mergers between La Salle Partners and Alex Brown/Kleinwort Benson, Prentiss and Baring, and McFarlane and Mellon McMahon, have altered the way many conduct business. It is imperative that brokers know who is working where, who is hot and who is not. When the players change, so does the game.

With all of these changes occurring simultaneously across the nation, information is hard to keep track of, and nearly impossible to organize. The investor needs to maximize his deal flow, and with all the competition, he has to pursue many to close one. Staff and time are precious, because resources need to be spent on negotiations and deals. Allotting efficient time to research and organization is a luxury many desire, but cannot afford.

The broker must be aware of who is investing and in what type of property, as well as the geographic focus. This takes time away from his primary focus: getting the deals closed and securing the next listing. The chaos, the pressure to stay on top of every change, and the struggle to embrace every opportunity may actually hinder progress, despite the prospects and pace of the investment sales market.

The challenge to get ahead in this market is intense. Brokers are dashing after listings; investors are chasing hot deals before they are snatched up by the competition. In this active commercial real estate market, information is the key to success.

A variety of services have emerged to assist brokers and investors with their quest to find hot deals. Property Information Exchange (PIX), a source for buyers and brokers in need of comprehensive, up-to-date information on real estate investment properties for sale, has surfaced as a reliable and necessary service. PIX assists the broker in finding viable candidates for the sale of their property through its regularly updated database of investor-clients from around the country. When investors' interests change, PIX knows, guiding the broker straight through the confusion toward a potential sale. With PIX, the investor does not have to track every real estate market that is of potential interest. PIX gathers and standardizes the data on relevant opportunities for them.

Brokers can distribute summary information on their properties for sale to interested buyers within 24 hours, through PIX FLASH. Appearing on the desk of targeted, serious investors with a succinct summary on a property for sale, PIX FLASH provides a quick, efficient way to present an opportunity to investors all over the world.