New and improved PDF Reports

We know how important it is to be able to hand your clients professional looking materials, and we’ve spent the last couple months completely overhauling our PDF brochures and reports using all the great suggestions we’ve been receiving. Here are the highlights:

• We spent a lot of time on general beautification: minimizing white-space and increasing data-density, eliminating overflow, making pages break efficiently, using better fonts and spacing.  All of the reports will now look much more professional.
• We’ve doubled the number of items (listings/properties/comparables) that can be contained in a report.
• The single-page and multi-page formats now have an option to include demographics and/or market statistic summaries.  These can be enabled when customizing a report.
• If you’re generating a multi-page brochure for a listing, you can now choose to include any/all/none of the uploaded attachments.  These will show up at the end of the same PDF.
• In addition to manually changing the order via drag-and-drop, you can now set a sort order for each report using common fields like: Date Added, Property Type, Location (State/City), Price, Size, Number of Units, Status, Cap Rate, Zoning, Agent Name (Last/First), and Company Name.
• Pages are now automatically numbered.
• The new platform is faster and more reliable.
• We’ve enabled several more report formats for comparables — they should have the same options as listing reports now.

You can check them out by clicking the “Generate PDF Brochure” link on any listing, or clicking the “Create Report” button at the top of search results.

Better support for Industrial properties

In order to make the database more useful for industrial specialists, we’ve incorporated core industrial fields like ceiling height, loading docks/doors, etc. throughout the system.

• Added industrial-specific fields to listing search results and most reports.
• Ceiling height values are now stored as a range of a minimum (clear height) and maximum value, which allows users to search more accurately.
• We also added many additional building details to comparables — you’ll notice those on overview pages and the various report formats.

Easier link-building for SiteLinks

SiteLink is our customizable search engine, ready for instant integration into company websites. We’ve tweaked our search API to make it easier for SiteLink clients to deep-link to results pages.  Here are a couple examples:

Return all sale listings:
http://signatureassociates.catylist.com/listings/sale

Return office listings for a particular City:
http://signatureassociates.catylist.com/listings/office?location=Detroit,MI

SiteLink company administrators can view some examples on the “Integration Tips” page, linked
from their console.

Miscellaneous

• Agent and company information now display in the expanded version of listing search results.
• We’re now doing a better job validating email addresses, so as to avoid bounced communications.  Users with bad email addresses will be prompted to correct them when logging in.

Thanks!

Thanks for your excellent feedback and suggestions.  Please don’t hesitate to contact us with ideas.

Catylist / Commercial IQ — Booth #2859

Find out why we‘re the #1 REALTOR® operated CIE provider in the country. To schedule a meeting, email Richard Maxson

• Stop by and let us demo our next generation search engine, including integrated demographics and market stats.
• Learn how easy it is to create an electronic property brochure, send it to 100,000+ brokers, users & investors, and track the results with Cmail Marketing by Catylist.
• Let us show you how to integrate a powerful listing database into your company website — in a matter of minutes — with SiteLink.
• Gain a competitive advantage with Catylist CRM powered by REALHOUND.com! Receive a 30 day FREE trial.

Our information exchanges are partnered with almost two dozen local chambers and ED groups around the country, and we’re adding more all the time.  See the press release below for the latest addition: the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce.

Find out more about our EDCLink product: http://www.catylist.com/edclink

If you’re interested in linking up your local chamber of commerce or economic development site, contact Shane Hayes: shane@catylist.com.

Chattanooga Association of REALTORS® Teams with Local Chamber to Help Bring New Business to the Area

The Tennessee Valley Commercial Listing Service (CLS), powered by Catylist and operated by the Commercial Investment Council of the Chattanooga Association of REALTORS®, recently partnered with the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce to display commercial real estate for sale or lease on the Chamber’s website.   The Tennessee Valley CLS website, launching earlier this year, provides access to over 500 available industrial, office, and retail properties as well as vacant land throughout Southeast Tennessee, Northwest Georgia, and Northeast Alabama at www.TennesseeValleyCLS.com.  In addition to buildings, users can also search for local commercial REALTORS® to assist in their relocation efforts.  The same search-engine functionality and property data set, updated in real-time, will be available on the Chamber website via EDCLink, also powered by Catylist, in early November.

While the database will provide access for all companies seeking to relocate, this partnership comes on the heels of a major business expansion in the area. Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. recently announced that it will build a U.S. automotive production facility in Chattanooga. The expansion is expected to bring nearly 2,000 new jobs to the area and an investment of $1 billion to the economy. The online database and direct contact with local commercial real estate professionals will assist suppliers in locating facilities as new contracts are awarded by Volkswagen.

The database will be available at www.chattanooga-chamber.com.

About CIC of the Chattanooga Association of REALTORS®
The Commercial Investment Council of the Chattanooga Association of REALTORS® is composed of over 400 office, industrial, retail, and investment real estate brokers, salespeople, property managers, appraisers and others engaged in all aspects of the commercial real estate industry in the Tennessee valley.  By fostering information sharing, education and advocacy in the interests of licensed commercial real estate practitioners throughout the region, its REALTORS® remain leaders in conducting their business professionally, successfully and ethically by adhering to the strict REALTOR® Code of Ethics.

“The Catylist CIE service consistently ranks as one of our highest-rated benefits by FGCAR members. In our most recent survey, over 89% said the CIE was valuable for their business. This very much reinforces our Association’s commitment to its premier service.  Catylist has always been responsive, willing to listen, and committed to building a comprehensive service tailored to our specific needs and we are excited to continue this relationship.”

Lois Kostroski
Executive Vice President
Florida Gulfcoast Commercial Association of REALTORS®

Visit their Commercial Information Exchange at: http://www.fgcar.org/.

Learn more about Catylist Commercial Information Exchanges.

Read on for the full release…

Florida Gulfcoast Commercial Association of REALTORS® Renews Catylist CIE Contract for a Third Consecutive Term

Tampa - September 22, 2008 – The Florida Gulfcoast Commercial Association of REALTORS® (FGCAR) recently extended their Commercial Information Exchange (CIE) contract with Chicago-based, Catylist Inc. through 2011. Catylist developed the online CIE for FGCAR in 2002.

“With our current Catylist contract nearing expiration, FGCAR had a fiscal responsibility to evaluate all available listing services through an RFP process. In the end, our board voted to remain with Catylist and the system that we have relied on for the past six years,” said Lois Kostroski, FGCAR Executive Vice President. “The Catylist CIE service consistently ranks as one of our highest-rated benefits by FGCAR members. In our most recent survey, over 89% said the CIE was valuable for their business. This very much reinforces our Association’s commitment to its premier service.  Catylist has always been responsive, willing to listen, and committed to building a comprehensive service tailored to our specific needs and we are excited to continue this relationship.”

With detailed information on over 3,400 available commercial real estate properties for sale or lease throughout the Tampa Bay area, the database was the area’s first locally-owned and operated exchange. FGCAR’s 500+ members have access to many advanced features of the website and the public is invited to search for basic information on members, firms, and available property listings at www.fgcar.org.

About FGCAR
The Mission of the Florida Gulfcoast Commercial Association of REALTORS is to provide a broad range of benefits and services to its members, including regular networking and educational opportunities, promotion of listings, recognition of accomplishments, and a positive impact in governmental affairs. The membership of FGCAR is dedicated to maintaining the highest standards of conduct and ethics in business dealings, and the protection of private property rights.

Anna Winters - VP of Marketing

Prior to joining Catylist, Anna was Senior Marketing Director for a large, institutional-level brokerage firm and was responsible for overseeing the company’s marketing efforts nationwide. She earned an MBA with a concentration in marketing from the University of South Florida, and is a CCIM candidate. Anna will be helping us execute marketing strategies and run the print-services division.

David Diaz - VP of Regional Sales

David has experience in both commercial real estate lending and brokerage.  He holds a BS in Finance, with an emphasis in Real Estate, earned an MBA from Florida State University, and is a CCIM candidate. David will be helping us develop a broader sales strategy and will service most of the Southeast region.

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

Search for Off-Market Properties

A growing number of our CIE clients are choosing to give their communities an affordable alternative for research data and statistics by building out local databases with not only active sale/lease listings and comparables, but also records for every property in their market. If you’re a Full Access member of one of our research-enabled commercial information exchanges, you can now search the database of off-market properties alongside active listings.  You’ll see an “Off-Market” option along-side “For Sale” and “For Lease” when searching.  Off-Market properties can be compared, emailed, mapped, and used in reports just like listings.  Note: Property records must be considered “verified” to be searchable.

Improved Lease Searching

Lease searches will now return individual records for each matching space instead of a single record for each building with matching space. This will make the results (and subsequent printable reports) more accurate and eliminate much of the “why was this returned?” confusion. We’ve also improved the display of multiple suites within a building.

Better Profile Pages

Having an impressive online resume is a good way to get new business.  We spent some time cleaning up the profile pages on our sites (agent and company). You should notice lots of little improvements to both the search and display sections.  Here’s a good example: http://www.commercialiq.com/agent/17913

SiteLink Upgrades

SiteLink is our very affordable service that builds a listing search engine into your company website, which is extremely convenient if your listings are already in one of our CIE databases.  We’ve made several significant changes:

1. We’ve integrated much of the new search technology into the sites.  Results are returned in List View, with a Map View option.  There’s a expandable filters-section at the top that can be used to manipulate the results.
2. The front pages have also been given a make-over: There’s now a quick email form which should help generate leads for each SiteLink company.  Also, if a company has one or more agents with transactions being featured on their professional profiles, the most recent will now display on the front page.
3. Users can now email listings to interested parties and generate property reports directly from the SiteLink site.

Our EDCLink service for economic development communities and MediaLink service for local publications that wish to display commercial property have also been similarly upgraded. Here are a few examples:

• SiteLink (for companies): Prudential CRES, Kalamazoo
• MediaLink (for publications): Florida Real Estate Journal
• EDCLink (for economic development groups): Baton Rouge Area Chamber

CIE Manager improvements

It can be hard work managing a database of users, companies, listings, properties, transactions, etc. and we’ve made numerous changes to our tools to make life easier for CIE and company administrators.

1. The speed for listing searches should be greatly improved.
2. Search pages for users, companies, listings, transactions, and properties have been overhauled.  You can now jump to any record quickly using the Catylist ID, and we’ve created a list of common search links to save you time.
3. We’ve also added a feature to the listing searches allowing you to search for listings that are missing a particular value — useful to see all listings without Ceiling Height, for example.  We’d picked a few important fields for now, but can expand this easily by request.
4. CIE administrators can now edit company admin usernames and passwords.

Marketing Tools, News Updates

A key part of the value of Commercial IQ and our local CIEs is the tight integration with various marketing tools, which were just given an overhaul. We also added a comprehensive list of online distribution sites where members can automatically send their listings.

We added a section to the front page of Commercial IQ that tracks recent activity on the site: national industry news, Catylist updates, listings, and posted wants.  We’ll be expanding on this idea in the near future, and integrating it in some fashion into our CIEs.

Miscellaneous

• Loading Docks, Loading Doors, and Ceiling Height have been added to the expanded summary view in search results, and to the summary report.  This was highly request by ChicagoCDB and several other industrial-specialists.
• The default zoom on re-geocode pages is now closer, so users don’t have to zoom in several times to see where to click.
• We’ve patched several changes to the map view and polygon functionality lately.  It should be working better.
• The real estate services directory on our local CIEs should now be much more intuitive.

Thanks!

As always, thanks for your excellent feedback and suggestions.

When we started developing our new property search interface, the design of the graphical marker used on the map stood out as a critical piece of the search experience. Not only do map markers provide geographic context, they are also an interactive link to deeper sets of information. In this sense, digital map markers serve dual roles: they convey information about a broad set of properties and they serve as a gateway for users who wish to access more in-depth information.

What Makes a Good Map Marker?

Map markers are information graphics and so should be created according to principles of Information Design. Specifically, the design of a map marker should focus on:

1. Pin-pointing a property’s exact location on the map
2. Maximizing data density while eliminating “Chartjunk”
3. Presenting an easily-clickable target for the user

This balance between conveying information and enabling interactivity straddles a fine line. When our search plots 500 map markers on a single map, it is important that the information we have chosen to convey is communicated clearly and directly relevant to the search being performed, but not so complicated that browsing through the results becomes unwieldy.

Comparing Commercial Real Estate Markers

As you can see below, Commercial IQ’s set of map markers was designed to both pinpoint a property’s exact location and communicate extra property-type specific information via an icon on the map marker’s “handle”. This icon allows searchers to quickly distinguish a key difference - property type - between hundreds of different properties on a map without having to perform any additional interaction. Even if a user is only searching one property type, having the property type icon on the map marker reinforces the direction of the user’s search and increases user confidence within the interface.

Commercial IQ’s Map Markers

Commercial IQ’s Map Search

Of course, our map marker is far from perfect. For example, there isn’t any visual cue when the user moves their mouse over the marker beyond the cursor changing shape, and despite our best efforts the meaning of the property type icons is not immediately clear to everyone. That said, we think it hold up pretty well against the designs of our competitors. In the spirit of fun, we’ve taken the time to review the markers on some other commercial real estate search sites. Let us know what you think!

LoopNet

LoopNet’s Map Search

LoopNet is the largest commercial real estate listing site on the web. Their map marker, which looks like an improved version of Microsoft’s Live Maps marker, is attractively designed and does a good job of pinpointing a listing’s exact location. It also has a good hover state, reinforcing when the user may click and when they may not. The numbering on the markers is however, in our opinion, a unnecessary waste of user brain-power, as there is no inherent value in knowning which property is #1 in the list, which is #2, and so forth. The numbers are a presentation abstraction, and therefore don’t belong in an information user interface. Why not use that space to convey other, meaningful information about the properties displayed?

CoStar

CoStar’s Map Search

CoStar is another large commercial real estate listing service. Their map marker also has strengths and weaknesses. We applaud them for taking advantage of the marker body and using it to convey additional information about their listings, in this case property type via a simple and intuitive letter on the marker. Our biggest complaint about the marker is it shape. The circular design does a poor job at conveying the primary information a map marker needs to communicate - the exact location of the marked property. This is especially apparant when a user is zoomed farther out, as in the screenshot above. Why not add a tip or point to the marker, to better show the property’s location? For example, if a circle covers an intersection, how are we supposed to know which corner that property occupies?

Building Search

Building Search’s Map Search

Building Search aims for the site selection and procurement market. Their map marker shape is the default Google Maps shape, which does an excellent job at pinpointing a property’s location, though we sometimes find it difficult to click consistently due to its narrow profile. In addition, they go the extra distance and differentiate property type via color. Like with CoStar, we applaud this attempt at providing users another level of detail on the map beyond location, though we find differentiation by color alone to be a confusing. Some of the colors are very similar, and when we use the map we find our eyes constantly jumping back and forth between the map and the color key next to it. Why not simplify this representation with a letter or icon that are more inherently tied to the information being communicated?

Xceligent

Xceligent’s Map Search

Xceligent provides research technology to local markets. Their map marker does an great job at pin-pointing (literally) the exact location of a property. Like with LoopNet’s marker, however, we take issue with the use of numbers on the marker handle, since the numbers have no inherent connection to the property they represent. They are a presentation abstraction, not a piece of information inherently tied to the property the represent itself.

Conclusion

For such a small and ubiquitous internet device, map markers are deceptively difficult to get right. This difficulty isn’t just confined to the Commercial Real Estate Industry either: browse around this blog post written by Trulia (a leading residential real estate site) back in 2006. Ultimately, the successful design of a graphical map marker depends on maximizing communicated information while maintaining usability and clarity of presentation.

We’ve wanted to add news streams with current commercial real estate headlines to our sites for quite a while, but were having trouble deciding which source was best (most relevant, most current, etc).  Eventually, we realized that being forced to choose between fragmented news sources was an industry-wide frustration.

Why can’t we just see ALL the news?

There really isn’t one best source.  Each publication or blog is good at a particular type of reporting, or specializes in a certain type of story or industry segment.  What we really needed was a way to pull ALL of the news together. Luckily, with the help of recent syndication technologies, we were able to do this in a matter of hours.

Quick Introduction to Yahoo Pipes

Yahoo released a very powerful service last year that allows you to mash-up content from various sites, filter or manipulate it, then repackage it.  It gave us an easy way to take news feeds from all the major sources and combine them into a single feed.  It’s really an amazing application and very useful for anyone who monitors lots of feeds, even if you’re not technically-inclined.

The finished product

So after a little post-processing to handle feed idiosyncrasies, remove duplicates, etc. we have a glorious aggregated news feed:

http://www.commercialiq.com/news/

Each story links to the original source for the full version, so we’re really just acting as a comprehensive search engine for CRE news.  Also notice that you can subscribe directly to this consolidated feed — much better than having to subscribe individually to 15+ sources!

Next steps

Now that we have all the news together, the next logical step is to allow readers to choose which bits they care about. We’ll be working on various customization options (location and keyword filters, etc) in the near future.

Let us know what you think, or if you have any other sources you’d like to see us add to the list.

Information is the key currency of the commercial real estate industry.  Having the right data is essential to success, but compiling and maintaining it is extremely costly.  As a vendor, possessing the data gives you power over those who need it and that’s easy to monetize.  So it makes sense that companies like LoopNet and CoStar take ownership of the data and don’t share.  It’s good for business, but forcing practitioners to waste time moving and re-entering data hurts the industry.

Since our master plan is to organize local communities, we don’t struggle with this issue as much.  For a market to be truly successful, information needs to flow in and out of local listing services, company websites, economic development websites, publications, contact databases, analytics engines, etc.  Sharing data strengthens a community, and we’d like to see more people come together.  To that end, we’ve spent a lot of time giving users as many options as possible to publish and extract their data.

What we’d really love to see though, is a data standard — a common format that would let data flow from place to place without all the usual headaches.  A few years ago, we were part of an OSCRE (Open Standards Consortium for Real Estate) work group whose goal was to create a data standard for commercial real estate.  The idea was to come up with a standard XML definition that made sense to the various disciplines (brokers, appraisers, etc.), and the benefits are pretty compelling:

• Minimize data entry of property for sale or lease into multiple marketing sites (From multiple times to single entry);
• Cutting costs of data management. With a single data export, all marketing channels will be able to be kept current.
• Improve data quality. Providing data definitions will contribute to better data quality and easier data interpretation.
• Improve the ease of data management. Providing data in a consistent format will allow data originators and receivers to more readily manage data from different sources.
• Re-purpose data for other activities. Data formatted for OSCRE CIE purposes can be used for other business activities, saving time and resources formatting the data and interpreting the results.

After making some great strides forward early on, bureaucracy started to drag on the progress.  A rough standard was published in some form last year, but doesn’t seem to be available now and we haven’t heard a mention of it since.

Data Portability isn’t going away, and I fully believe it’s only a matter of time until the industry gets it’s act together.  But how long must we wait?

Update:  It looks like I might have just been out of the loop.  I saw this story today:

OSCRE Rocks CIO Roundtable at Realcomm 2008: The Interoperability Showcase

“If you doubt the work of OSCRE (Open Standards Consortium of Real Estate) or, even worse, have never heard of it, you should have been at the CIO Roundtable at the Realcomm Conference in San Diego on June 9. Interoperability was “alive-and-well” when more than 200 real estate IT executives watched live demonstrations of 3 of OSCRE’s 7 Standards for the real estate industry conducted by the members of OSCRE.”

That’s good news!  I’ll update this post again if I can get a copy of the specification.

“The Knoxville Area Association of REALTORS® is pleased to renew its agreement with Catylist.  Our 500+ commercial members love that Catylist went the extra mile to turn this great CIE into a true commercial MLS.  Catylist continues to enhance the site to enable our members to have marketing capabilities unavailable through any other CIE because of its ongoing support that utilizes the latest technology at an affordable price.”

Helen Carter, RCE, CAE, e-PRO
Executive Vice President
Knoxville Area Association of REALTORS®

Visit their Commercial Information Exchange at: http://www.kaarcie.com.

Read on for the full release…

Knoxville Area Association of REALTORS® Renews Multi-Year Commercial Real Estate Exchange Contract with Catylist Inc.

(June 24, 2008-Chicago, IL)  – Knoxville Area Association of REALTORS® (KAAR) renewed a multi-year contract with Chicago-based, Catylist Inc.  Catylist, whose marketing/research-based commercial information exchange service is in use throughout the country, provides the platform for the Commercial Investment Division of KAAR. The newly-signed agreement extends the Catylist/KAAR license to 2012.

The KAAR CIE, www.kaarcie.com, connects commercial professionals, owners, tenants and investors looking to buy, sell, and lease properties in the Knoxville market area.

According to Helen Carter, Knoxville Area Association of REALTORS® executive vice president:

“The Knoxville Area Association of REALTORS® is pleased to renew its agreement with Catylist.  Our 500+ commercial members love that Catylist went the extra mile to turn this great CIE into a true commercial MLS.  Catylist continues to enhance the site to enable our members to have marketing capabilities unavailable through any other CIE because of its ongoing support that utilizes the latest technology at an affordable price.”

The online database recently received a major upgrade with the implementation of a next-generation, scenario-based search interface. The system allows users to refine their search by adding/removing a multitude of real-time filters.  The instantaneous search results provide users with a more efficient means of quickly identifying properties that match their specific criteria.  Advanced mapping and aerial tools incorporate varying perspectives from Google Maps, Google Street View, and Microsoft Virtual Earth Bird’s Eye.  In addition, all listings contain basic demographic data.  Full-access members of the KAAR CIE have access to comprehensive demographic reports available to download in PDF or export to Excel.

The public search also allows the business community to locate professionals by specialty, property type, and market area served.

Licensed commercial members have access to a full-featured marketing system with the ability to simultaneously market properties on over 40 websites, promote themselves, create high-end marketing presentations, communicate with local and national commercial professionals, and access a variety of integrated marketing tools on the member-only side of the website.

In addition to offering unprecedented local marketing exposure for brokers and their clients, listings and professional profiles are also accessible at the Catylist National Commercial Marketplace, Commercial IQ (www.commercialiq.com). This website aggregates thousands of commercial listings from across the country.  For maximum listing exposure, KAAR CIE members have the option to send their listings via Catylist’s unique distribution channels to Google Base, Yahoo, Vast, Lycos/Oodle, Southeast Real Estate Business, and more, without ever re-entering data.  This is a free service for full-access members.