RISMedia, June 10, 2011—The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) is impacting the commercial real estate industry with technology initiatives that will change the landscape of Web-based services. NAR is bringing together these components to deliver a comprehensive solution for commercial practitioners: CommercialSource.com, ePropertyData (ePD), Real Estate Transaction Standards (RETS), Realtors Property Resource™ (RPR) and even REALTOR.com®.
The No. 1 Real Estate Website, REALTOR.com®
REALTOR.com® is now home to Commercial.Realtor.com. Although REALTOR.com® is primarily a residential site, the commercial experience is in development. While this portal is becoming more robust, REALTORS® are experiencing the greatest listings exposure on the Internet.
There are three ways to get listings on Commercial.Realtor.com:
1) Commercial Multiple Listing Service (CMLS), Multiple Listing Service (MLS), or Commercial Information Exchanges (CIE) may upload commercial property listings directly to REALTOR.com® with a data-provider agreement.
2) If no agreement is in place, contact your MLS to be added to the queue of data-content providers awaiting technical implementation.
3) Manually upload listings, for free, to CommercialSource.com by creating an account. CommercialSource.com will aggregate those listings and send them to Commercial.Realtor.com.
The Alternative CIE, ePropertyData (ePD)
ePD, a leading CIE solutions provider, owned by Second Century Ventures, the strategic investment arm of NAR, offers researched and broker-loaded data solutions to more than 150,000 commercial real estate professionals. ePD recently announced a new mobile application that will provide members of its CIEs greater access to data. This gives practitioners an innovative way to bring value to their clients and the real estate transaction—and for ePD, reinforces their brand value as a secure and cost-effective option.
Comprehensive Data Source, Realtors Property Resource™ (RPR)
REALTORS® face the challenge of technology-empowered consumers and investors who rely on research from multiple sources in order to educate themselves. The Realtors Property Resource™ (RPR) http://blog.narrpr.com offers a comprehensive source of information for the exclusive benefit of NAR members.
Realtors Property Resource, LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NAR and its members. No listing, seller or property-level data will be released, and there will be no consumer access.
RPR is currently in development of its Commercial application with release targeted for Q3-Q4 2011. Benefits to commercial practitioners include:
• REALTOR®-only access to nationwide, parcel-centric datasets on over 147 million properties, including public records and tax assessment data, the industry’s largest database of foreclosure information, flood maps, geo-point and aerial mapping features and more.
• Customized Commercial user profiles, property displays and reporting features.
• Works with MLS or CIE systems to integrate localized active and off-market data with RPR’s robust nationwide datasets.
• RPR provides a number of reports that can be generated by agents and brokers for the benefit of the consumer.
Efficiencies in Data, Commercial Real Estate Transaction Standards (RETS)
In 2010, the Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) announced the formation of a workgroup comprised of key industry leaders—including commercial professionals, CIE providers, appraisers and software developers— tasked with publishing data standards for the commercial real estate market. RESO oversees the NAR-supported Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS), which defines an approach for exchanging listings with multiple listing services and Commercial Data Exchanges.
This workgroup aims to create methods to collect and communicate commercial property information consistently. By connecting these technologies together, NAR is enhancing the value for its commercial members and demonstrating its commitment to the commercial industry.
