Google Earth Integration & Commercial Property KML Export

Google Earth is a great tool for visualizing the locations of commercial properties, allowing you to cover lots of ground without leaving your desk. We’ve integrated Google Earth directly into Commercial IQ and our local commercial listing services providing you 3D visualizations of the commercial properties on each site.

You’ll just need to install the Google Earth plugin, then click on the “Earth” button at the top-right corner of any map, including search results and listing presentations.

For those of you using the Google Earth desktop application or another GIS service, we’ve also added the ability to export commercial properties in KML format.

Search Expired Listings

Many of our users keep an eye on listing expirations and withdrawals as a way to prospect for leads. We put in some work to make this more efficient. You can now find links to search for “Expired” or “Withdrawn” listings on the “Comparables” search tab of any of our local CIEs.

Improved Property Input & Administration

We took another look at our property input interface to make the process smoother and more intuitive. We polished dozens of areas: adding more lease rate customization, improving the organization of the fields, adding simple warning messages when information is missing or incorrect. We also added a handy tool that allows administrators to generate a spreadsheet of listings that need attention, along with a description of the problem and the contact information for the listing agent. We hope this makes it easier to stay on top of your listings, keeping the data accurate and up to date.

Thanks!

As always, thanks for your excellent feedback and suggestions! Please don’t hesitate to contact us with your ideas to improve the service. We’ll be rolling out more great tools this Summer.

When trying to find retail space for a tenant, it’s nice to have a great commercial property search engine at your disposal. Even better though is having the perfect spaces come to you. We’ve been working with our friends Paul and Luke over at VEXRAY to make that happen.

VEXRAY works with major retail clients (Little Caesars Pizza, Sears, Ace Hardware, Cinnabon, etc.) to build a complex model defining their requirements for a prospective site. They then use those models to automatically sift through retail availabilities for matches. The result is a list of highly qualified retail sites for the tenants, and qualified leads for the listing agents and property owners.

We’re currently working to feed our retail inventory into VEXRAY. Once complete, our members’ property listings will be automatically submitted to VEXRAY and matched up with dozens of major retailers nationwide — another huge benefit for our Commercial IQ and CIE subscribers.

Look for another announcement later this Spring.

Add your listings to Commercial IQ now!

Read on for the full release…

500 New Retail Sites Wanted in 2009; VEXRAY Delivers Tenants to Catylist Subscribers

Despite record inventory levels in the retail marketplace there are still plans by national retailers to open over 4,000 new units in 2009, according to a recent study conducted by the International Council of Shopping Centers.  Roughly 12% of those new unit openings will come from retailers using a revolutionary new real estate match-making service called VEXRAY.  VEXRAY identifies optimal site opportunities among the expansive universe of supply for any retailer’s unique concept.

VEXRAY’S premise is simple.  By working with growing retailers to identify key drivers of success, VEXRAY is able to use high-powered data-mining techniques and over 1,000 success attributes to help each retailer quickly assess the entire inventory of supply to identify the sites that will maximize sales potential and minimize the risk of sales cannibalization between existing units.

“VEXRAY now allows our entire field team to stay focused on high potential real estate data.  Prior to VEXRAY our staff spent hours reviewing hundreds of emails and faxes of unsolicited site materials, most of which really never had a chance to be developed by [Ace] because they failed some major test of viability.  VEXRAY now eliminates those on the front end; saving our people time and keeping our limited resources focused on only high potential sites.  On the flip side of that same coin, I think Vexray is also a huge win for the listing agents who can now immediately know where they stand with Ace [and other participating retailers] so they too can focus their resources where it counts. In an environment like we are in – who can squander time chasing after futile opportunities.  It’s a win-win mechanism.” said John Venhuizen, Vice President Retail & Business Development for Ace Hardware Corporation.

VEXRAY goes deeper into the site evaluation process than traditional listing services or basic filtering engines.  By assessing business specific requirements such as sales potential, competitive impact, key tenant impact, brand strength, lifestage factors, and market capture rate, VEXRAY has the ability to more intelligently determine how well a site will perform for each retailer.  The result is a real-time streaming list of the highest potential sites for each retailer.  VEXRAY’S retailer roster includes household names such as Ace Hardware, Little Caesars Pizza, Schlotzsky’s, Cinnabon, Carvel, and Moe’s Southwest Grill among others.

To further enhance the match-making science of VEXRAY, a recent partnership with Catylist, an industry leading listing service, has created a valuable proposition for the commercial listing agent as well.  By integrating Catylist’s extensive warehouse of 8,000 available retail listings from Commercial IQ and their local commercial listing services around the country, VEXRAY has been able to identify and connect each listing agent to the retailers best suited for their site.  The integration is scheduled to launch later this month.

In processing all 8,000 available properties against the needs of 14 retailers, VEXRAY’S intelligence engine found that roughly 11,000 highly qualified site leads are possible matches. This means that Catylist subscribers gain the benefit of knowing exactly which retailers need their site right now.  Their sites jump to the top of each retailer’s list of high potential sites and, when the time is right, the retailer has the necessary information to contact the listing agent and take the next step.

The combination of listing service data with intelligent data-mining now allows both agents and retailers to maximize limited resources on the highest potential sites saving time and money. VEXRAY saves the listing agent time by:

1. Identifying high potential tenant leads
2. providing those leads with the demographic, competitive, co-tenant, and sales potential data needed to properly assess their site
3. allowing the agent to reach all 14 companies with one-click to find out exactly how well their site stacks up

For retailers, VEXRAY reduces the amount of time spent reviewing undesirable listing information and provides them a dynamic, real-time view of the available properties that offer the greatest potential to meet their requirements.

NAR Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo
Washington DC, May 13-15
Catylist Booth #425

ICSC: RECON
Las Vegas, May 17-20
Catylist Booth #2066

Stop by the booth to find out how we can help your company, or your local association…

• Find out why we’re the #1 REALTOR®-Operated CIE provider in the country. Discuss the difference between our marketing and research platforms.
• Let us demo our next generation scenario-based search engine, including integrated demographics, market stats and advanced mapping.
• Let us show you how easy it is for members to send e-brochures to 130,000+ recipients, power their company websites without redundant entry, integrate a CRM database, and order customized marketing to promote their company or listings.
• Check out our distribution partners. Members enter listings one time and they can publish them on more than 40 websites including the local CIE, Google, Commercial IQ, Commercial Source, 35+ local Catylist sites, Vast, Lycos, CIMLS, RE Business Online and more.
• Learn how Catylist CIEs connect directly with the business community by partnering with local and state EDCs to power their websites at NO cost to the Association.
• See how members are maximizing listing exposure by syndicating their data on local newspaper and publication websites at NO cost to the Association.

More good news!

The REALTORS® Commercial Alliance of Massachusetts, NAR’s newest Commercial Association, recently chose Catylist to power a Commercial Information Exchange (CIE) for their commercial members. The CIE will serve as the source for commercial real estate throughout the entire state of Massachusetts.

Martin Kane of King & Newton Commercial Real Estate, CIE Task Force Chair, said, “The REALTORS® Commercial Alliance of Massachusetts is excited that Catylist will serve as our CIE provider. We reviewed the latest available national CIE options and it is clear the Catylist CIE service is head-and-shoulders above any other available service. Catylist CIE offers marketing efficiencies on a property-centric service that connects member listings to multiple other sites, including Commercial IQ, Google, REBusinessOnline, Commercial Source, CIMLS, and many others. We are also impressed with Catylist’s responsiveness and their commitment to staying at the forefront of the evolving technology curve.”

We’ll be launching the site this Spring.

Learn more about how a Commercial Information Exchange can benefit your local community.

We helped the Greater Baton Rouge Association of REALTORS® develop the Louisiana Commercial Database in 2003. It now contains over 5,500 commercial listings for sale or lease throughout the state and is used to search and market commercial property by nearly 700 professionals including most of the largest brokerage firms in Louisiana.

“LACDB is proud to renew its service with Catylist for another 3-year term,” said Barry Spizer, CCIM, LACDB Immediate Past Chair. “We looked at other available service providers in the market, but it was obvious Catylist offers superior technology on a user-friendly platform. From the search engine, market stats, demographics, listing analytics and the new Market Monitor feature, Catylist offers the best CIE service available today… period.”

Learn more about how a Commercial Information Exchange can benefit your local community.

While referring to present-day as the “Internet Age” might conjure images of cavemen trading in their clubs for keyboards, this article in the March issue of REALTOR magazine has some interesting ideas for commercial real estate professionals: Marketing Your Listings in the Internet Age

“I now consider CIEs just another cost of doing business,” says Jason Hart, principal of San Luis Obispo, California–based Hart Commercial Real Estate, a company that sells and leases commercial properties. “It’s like putting a For Sale or For Rent sign on the Internet.”

These days, most commercial professionals should agree with Mr. Hart. The Internet has become the largest and most powerful marketing tool when listing a commercial property.

“Compared with residential multiple listing services where everyone uses the same database, commercial listing services are highly fragmented by property type and location,” says Bob Gibbons, who subscribes to several CIEs. “You have to put your listings everywhere you think they can be seen.”

We hear the same comments everyday and have been working hard to find a solution to the problem. Our goal with Commercial IQ is to simplify the process into two steps:

1. Build a killer listing presentation — Add as much information as you want and upload an unlimited number of photos, maps, plans, video and other documentation to help searchers learn more about the property. We augment your listing automatically with demographic data, market statistics, and aerial imagery.
2. Send it everywhere — It’s a lot of work to build the perfect presentation and you shouldn’t have to repeat the task a dozen times. In addition to exposure on Commercial IQ, we automatically distribute your listing to dozens of sites, including CommercialSource.com, CIMLS, Vast, Oodle, GoogleBase, 35+ local CIEs and 20+ economic development sites. You can even display it on your company website with our SiteLink product.

The commercial real estate industry has a ways to go, but things are always evolving. Give Commercial IQ a try — registration is free.

Stay on top of activity in your local market

There’s a lot to keep track of in your local commercial real estate market. We’ve been hard at work on a new feature brings all the information you need together in one place. Now, when you log into Commercial IQ or your local Commercial Information Exchange (CIE), we pull together recent activity that will be of interest to you.

Using your stored preferences (such as Offices for Sale or Lease in Ann Arbor, MI, etc), your Market Monitor will inform you when:

• New hits and leads are generated for any of your listings
• Properties are added, modified or removed from any of your catalogs or saved searches
• Newsletters, documents and more are posted by your CIE administrator
• Events are added or occurring within 7 days for your CIEs
• Commercial Real Estate news articles are posted on dozens of sites
• Matching properties are added or modified to your CIE
• Matching “Wants/Needs” are posted
• Matching property emails are broadcasted
• Matching comparables (recent sale/lease transactions) are added

You can also receive automatic notifications of all of this information either daily or weekly via email or RSS/Atom so that you never miss a deal.

Log in now and make sure your preferences reflect the types of properties and locations you’re interested in. If you’re new, create a free account — it only takes a minute.

Thanks!

As always, thanks for your excellent feedback and suggestions! Please don’t hesitate to contact us with your ideas to improve the service.

Nancy McKellar – Vice President, Regional Sales

Nancy was hired by Michigan’s Commercial Board of REALTORS® (CBOR) in 2004 as the executive director of CPIX.net, a statewide CIE, which she helped establish. In 2006, she became the executive vice president for the statewide CBOR. She continues to retain these positions. Nancy is also responsible for all planning aspects of Synergy, Michigan’s largest commercial real estate industry annual convention. Nancy speaks and trains nationally regarding establishing and growing CIEs and is approved by the state of Michigan to teach commercial real estate continuing education courses. She’ll be in charge of our markets in the Northeast region, including Ohio, Indiana, New York, and Michigan.

If you’re interested in working at Catylist, we’re always looking for great people.

We’ll be experimenting with Twitter this year as another way to communicate quick updates, links or thoughts and ideas. Twitter is one of those technologies that (much like RSS) has become very useful to a very small portion of the web community. We hope it catches on. Follow us at: http://twitter.com/commercialiq

CrunchBase is TechCrunch’s online database of technology companies.

Traditionally, we’ve focused our efforts on building listing services for local commercial real estate associations.  The launch of the RE/MAX commercial portal this week marks our first CIE installation for a large national brokerage.

We’re hoping to branch out further into the brokerage community in 2009, offering turn-key marketing and research software to companies (large or small) nationwide. If your company may be interested, get in touch with David Diaz to learn more.

Read on for the release…

RE/MAX Announces Launch Of Commercial Information Exchange

(Denver, CO, January 14, 2009) – RE/MAX International, Inc., is pleased to announce the launch of the RE/MAX Commercial Information Exchange (CIE), a comprehensive marketing and research tool for commercial real estate agents. The CIE is powered by Catylist, a leading provider of commercial listing services. It provides brokers, owners, developers and investors access to practical tools such as property email services, custom marketing materials and financial analysis products.

“We’re thrilled to launch the very first Catylist-driven Commercial Information Exchange (CIE) on a brokerage level,” said Mark Baker, Vice President of Regional and Commercial Development at RE/MAX International. “RE/MAX Sales Associates have been asking for a platform where they can enter commercial listings one time and market them across dozens of other websites. Full Access membership to the CIE gives them this ability, along with lead capture capabilities through online traffic reports.”

The CIE works in conjunction with the company’s public website, www.remax.com, and all commercial listings in the CIE will be available to millions of consumers worldwide. The CIE is available to RE/MAX Associates via the company intranet, RE/MAX Mainstreet. Through the CIE, Sales Associates are able to search commercial properties, list and market their own properties, utilize integrated mapping and aerial views, display basic demographics for listings and more.

The Commercial Division of RE/MAX has steadily grown over the past 20 years. Currently, there are over 3,700 Commercial Practitioners operating in 337 Commercial offices and Divisions in the RE/MAX network. The RE/MAX Commercial Division spans across 1,200 markets in 24 countries.

What RE/MAX Commercial Practitioners are saying:

“The RE/MAX CIE allows me to add virtual tours, tons of listing information and 360-degree views of my commercial properties. I enter your listings locally and anyone, anywhere in the world can see my properties. It’s so flexible and user-friendly. And the fact that it flies under the wings of remax.com and countless Web sites is a huge plus.” – B.J. Johanningmeier, RE/MAX Alliance, Fort Collins, CO

“We’re excited about it and all my agents are checking it out. It helps further the branding of RE/MAX Commercial out in the marketplace. We think it’s going to be a great resource tool to work into our listing presentations and get our properties noticed. It’s really important to get more transactions going in the RE/MAX family, and this will help facilitate that. ” – Jeff Chain, RE/MAX Millennium Commercial Properties, Las Vegas

“Catylist has been around for a long time and it’s one of the best CIEs out there for the value. Other CIEs are shallow about collecting listing information from the broker so when a potential buyer is looking at the information, there are a lot of holes in the information that could’ve easily been available. That makes it harder for a buyer to make a judgment call on whether the property works for them. More is always better – and Catylist gives you that. You can go into great details about a property, from the return on investment, cap rate, property status (lease or investment), tenants, lease terms, and more.  Your listings are populated on other sites, creating invaluable exposure. Catylist also has a strong marketing program. If I want to do e-mail blasts on a property, it has a ready-made template set up on CMail. If you’re not using Catylist and the RE/MAX CIE, you’re missing one of best commercial listing vehicles this business has had in a long time. It’s a no-brainer. You have to use it.” – Blair Gilbert, RE/MAX Reliance, Souderton, PA