Techno-future looks bright for real estate professionals.

Real estate professionals are currently using or planning to implement a wide variety of business management and productivity tools, including desktop and Internet applications, according to findings in a recent national survey.

The Counselors of Real Estate, in collaboration with Price Waterhouse LLP, conducted a survey on technology usage by real estate professionals to identify technology trends within the real estate industry. Findings were incorporated into a 43-page document called the "1998 Real Estate Technology Survey."

Professionals who participate in real estate activities, particularly real estate appraisers, advisors, brokers, owners, corporate real estate executives, developers, computer and software vendors, should find the results of this survey of interest.

Future Directions

The following are key findings from the survey. Standing above the fray of day-to-day product announcements, upgrades and enhancements, the following trends are evident:

Electronic Information: The real estate profession will steadily learn to use more information in electronic format with each passing month, although different sectors of the profession will adopt technology at different rates of speed. There will be more electronic data available, faster and cheaper. Providers of information will make more available less expensively, more flexibly, and in multimedia format.

Universal Meeting Ground: The World Wide Web (the Web) will become the universal meeting ground. More information will gravitate to the Web. High-end users with their proprietary Bloomberg terminals and beginners moving up from AOL will converge on the open Internet, intranets, and extranets.

Networked Computers: Stand-alone computers will become rare. The information environment will be increasingly networked, with each user drawing information from a multitude of servers and databases and communicating with large and diverse on-line communities.

Mobile Computing: Computing power and Web access will become ubiquitous. The equipment choice list will expand to include such things as Web-enabled pagers, cell phones, PDAs, and car dashboards. The coming of "universal messaging" technologies free, everywhere E-mail and Web access - means that the real estate professional can soon be freed from a specific machine and will be able to access information and communicate from multiple access points (in effect, wherever there is Web access). We can expect corporations to start providing such universal messaging access to their employees in the near future.

Geographic Information Systems: Multimedia and desktop publishing tools will be used to created sophisticated reports. Increasingly, professionals will utilize geographic information systems (GIS) and statistical analysis tools to report complex relationships graphically. They will have reporting software to further increase their productivity. Most of this software will be purchased off the shelf or developed in-house from standard packages.

Chip Technology: We're already moving beyond Pentium chips, with many new computers now equipped with Pentium II processors. The latest "must have" chip is the Pentium with MMX or "multimedia extension," which is required for serious graphics and multimedia Web activity. Later in 1998 or in 1999, the "Merced" chip will provide even more speed and flexibility.

Members of The Counselors of Real Estate (CRES) were questioned for the survey, along with members from the Urban Land Institute (ULI), Pension Real Estate Association (PREA), National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF), and the International Association of Corporate Real Estate Executives (NACORE).

The survey included questions regarding hardware, software and Internet tools that were currently in use or were scheduled for implementation in the next six months to two years, Participants were also asked about their Internet habits and satisfaction with their current software tools.

The 1998 Real Estate Technology Survey is available for $25 by contacting The Counselors of Real Estate, 430 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611, or calling [phone]. Their Web site is http://www.cre.org.