Commentary by Bob Goldberg
RISMEDIA, June 9, 2008-In May, the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (NAR) launched a new national commercial real estate marketplace. This exciting new platform will help you and your agents increase the national exposure for all of your commercial for-sale and lease listings. The launch fulfills our vision of providing a single, trusted source for all things commercial real estate.
CommercialSource.com
The new commercial real estate marketplace can be found at CommercialSource.com, which is operated by ePropertyData and managed by the REALTORS® Commercial Alliance (RCA), NAR’s commercial real estate division. Our goal is to make CommercialSource.com the premier destination on the Internet with the richest inventory of listings along with ancillary features and functions available anywhere on the Internet.
The site will become fully integrated over the next few months to include a national database of commercial real estate listings, a section for the online trade show and convention and other information of interest to commercial practitioners.
The robust platform accepts data from Commercial Information Exchanges (CIEs), brokerages, brokers and agents. Listings will be uploaded by your CIE, and if you are not in a market area or member of a CIE, you may upload your listings directly.
The platform is available to non-members on a limited basis. Non-members are able to load basic listing information. This ensures that the website has the most complete set of data for anyone looking for commercial properties.
As an NAR member, you have full access to search for and load properties. You can also enhance listings with video, PDFs, images, additional text, and links to your CIE and company website. In the future, you’ll have access to Web 2.0 social networking tools, such as Facebook, blogs, networking, and wikis to help increase exposure for your listings.
A free Basic Marketing Package is available for all users. You can purchase a Premium Marketing Package, which is available free if your local CIE is a customer of ePropertyData, which operates the website. And in coming months, we’ll also be rolling out two new optional programs: the Power Broker Marketing System and the Broker Productivity System. These programs will provide you with many useful tools to do business. Realtors get significant discounts on all product packages.
ePropertyData
As part of our Second Century initiative, NAR recently acquired ePropertyData (ePD) to operate the new national commercial real estate marketplace. ePropertyData has been providing CIE solution services for the commercial real estate industry for the past 10 years. They currently operate two of the largest CIEs in the country in Seattle and Houston. These are two of the most progressive commercial real estate markets in terms of organization, sophistication, and technology.
NAR and ePropertyData have taken extensive steps to ensure that you have lifetime ownership and control of your data, so it will not be distributed without your consent. In addition, ePropertyData will be rolling out CIE solution services across the country, at very competitive rates. You can contact ePropertyData with any technical or product related issues or NAR’s commercial real estate division about forming a new Board or CIE.
Through the end of the year, we’re focusing on developing the most comprehensive national commercial listing website available. With all of this exposure, we expect that millions of people will now be able to view your commercial listings. And next year, we’re working on expanding CommercialSource.com internationally-and getting your listings even more exposure.
We Are the Face of Real Estate
2008 represents a milestone few organizations achieve-a Centennial. Realtors have been serving as “The Face of Real Estate” for the past 100 years, helping millions of people realize the American dream of homeownership.
NAR is commemorating this event with Centennial mosaics-Realtor faces arranged to represent the Realtor “R” membership mark. While thousands have contributed their photos and have already seen these mosaic advertisements, all Realtors will receive a mosaic on the cover of their 2008 NAR Membership Kit.
Each year, NAR creates and distributes a Membership Kit to all Realtors providing valuable information to make the most of their membership. 2008 is no different. The 2008 Membership Kit contains a Membership Reference Guide, a personalized, membership card and a REALTOR Benefits® Program Resource Guide, which includes a product showcase of industry publications and special offers from NAR alliance partners.
Throughout the Membership Guide you will discover “How to Get Involved,” which calls out where you should go for more information.
NAR’s annual Membership Kit illustrates the great value members receive as part of their membership in the National Association of Realtors. Membership Kits to renewing members and new members through April, will arrive in June. After that, new member kits are mailed on a monthly basis. Look for yours, coming soon!
For more information, visit www.CommercialSource.com.
Bob Goldberg is the senior vice president, Marketing & Business Development, and Commercial Services NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.
