Technology and the residential industry in Manhattan.

As Manhattan's residential brokerage houses explore new ways to market product via the Information Superhighway, they have failed to respond to advancing technologies and the shortcomings of information distribution channels at the local level of the market.

Whereas the Internet can beam the listings of local real estate concerns to prospective purchasers around the globe, information flow among brokerage houses, management firms and building owners remains in the stone age. Information received via phone, the mail, or even the fax machine is outdated by today's cutting edge standards.

On-Line Residential (OLR) offers the individual brokerage firm new technology and competitive advantages without the development costs. With its citywide library of elevation photos, any broker can down-lead the entire city on a laptop and walk block-to-block with a client.

OLR has been developed to facilitate information flow citywide and to replace or supplement the independent listing system each brokerage house maintains. OLR is designed to act as a central clearinghouse of information. In the long term, the vision is to tie the entire community together, including management and apartment owners, and to leave the outdated modes of communication and information flow behind.

The Listing System is the big dinosaur of the residential marketplace in Manhattan. Each brokerage house, large and small, maintains a stand-alone listing system completely independent of other brokerage firms. Yet much of the information recorded in each of the listing systems each week is identical. The aggregate cost to maintain these independent systems is millions of dollars per year. Most firms find the daily maintenance severely hampered either by time limitations or fiscal constraints.

The OLR software not only reads the listing transmission, but enhances it by integrating building information, elevation photos and floor plans. On a daily basis, each firm on the local area network receives new listings in a standardized format in the database.

The industry as a whole could shave millions of dollars from their bottom line by pairing down their listings staffs. In contrast, the local commercial real estate industry has gradually accepted the clearinghouse concept and firms of every size are tapped into an on-line service. In lieu of the in-house stand-alone listing system, these firms find themselves with greatly improved listing systems at a fraction of the cost.

The second advantage of On-Line Residential is that the program incorporates the latest advances in computer hardware as well as taking advantage of the full feature components of its development tools.

In our study of the local marketplace, we found that many firms are entrapped by systems they have used for years or by technology standards that were once state-of-the-art. The limitations of these systems compared to today's computers are manifold. Furthermore, the cost of new technology has dropped drastically, so that features that were unthinkable just a few years ago, can affordably be placed on each agent's desk.

We also found that many brokerage houses use their computers as fancy rolodexes rather than exploring the full power of the computer or software. OLR was built as a relational database so that information can be gathered from innumerable sources. On the development side, the relational nature allows for an exemplary level of quality control on information flow.

A third and no less important advantage to using an off-site service agency is its ability to stay abreast with the latest advances in technology. Unless a real estate firm has a computer technician under its employ, or is paying an outside consultant on a regular basis, it is difficult to maintain a technological edge. An off-site service can provide its end-users with the latest technological advances because it employs people to explore new technology and software and by nature needs to stay ahead of its competitors.