A Case for Panoramic CRE Space Tours

This post was originally a comment I submitted on CREvation and Startups, in response to a post titled, “Virtual Tours – Good or Bad Idea? — The CRE App Review has regularly posted reviews on mobile pano apps like TourWrist, iPhone’s iSight, Android’s Photo Sphere and Microsoft’s Photosynth and truly believe that it this type of media is the next step in CRE photography. I am going to make the infamous comparison of residential vs. commercial real estate technology adoption…. Surprise! Resident…

Bo Barron: What does 2013 have in store for CRE?

Here is Bo Barron’s take on what the 2013 CRE tech landscape will look like. There are some great nuggets here… 1. What CRE tech niche will be ripe for disruption or improvement in 2013? Mobile is it. There is nothing in the same ball park. The proliferation of high speed 4G and everyone under having an iPad (1,2,3,4,mini) or a smart pad that can surf the web make it crucial that CRE advisors take notice. We have to optimize our content for mobile users. I think more than half of web page hits…

Chris Clark: What does 2013 have in store for CRE?

We posed four questions to the one and only Chris Clark (aka CREoutsider) to get her take on 2013. Buckle your seatbelt… What CRE tech niche will be ripe for disruption or improvement in 2013? My pick is electronic transactions. Whether it’s OSCRE adopted standards or proprietary ones, large companies, REITS, banks, global firms…they have to maintain strict control over their transactions and communications. Those CRE portals are fine for the average transaction but not for companies that have…

Patrick Braswell: What does 2013 have in store for CRE

As we continue our CRE tech prediction series for 2013, we pose the same four questions to Patrick Braswell. In addition to being one of our favorite commercial real estate bloggers, Patrick is the founder of Ten Eight, one of the most innovative apps CRE Apps has reviewed in the last 12 months. My 2013 CRE Tech Predictions: Well, I think that it is safe to say that 2012 was the year of online search startups. There were three significant ones that launched: 42 Floors, OfficeSpace.com, and The S…

Are paywalls going to be new normal in media?

CRE Technology Predictions for 2013

I am excited to introduce a short series as we start 2013. I’ve posed four questions to a handful of my favorite CRE bloggers including Chris Clark, Duke Long and Patrick Braswell. To kick off the series, here is a preview of the questions to come, along with my own predictions. What CRE  tech niche will be ripe for disruption or improvement in 2013? Startups will continue to be disruptive in the CRE space, but with less focus on listing search (listing search was soooo 2012). Listing search is…

MSYapps: For Education, Finance and Real Estate

MSYapps is a great little suite of apps for finance, real estate and educational purposes. Here are some of my favorites: The NCREIF Property Index provides quarterly and annual total returns for thousands institutional-grade office, retail, apartment, industrial, and hotel properties. All properties in the NPI have been acquired and managed on behalf of tax-exempt institutional investors, principally pubic and private pension funds. Performance histories began in 1978. View in AppStore » The …

Building Operations In Your Pocket

Because none of our reviewers are in property management, we haven’t had an opportunity to used Building Engines Mobile. Even so, many of our readers are property managers. For this reason, we thought it would be good to post some information on the application. What does Building Engines Mobile do? This mobile platform allows property and facility management teams to: Work with a modern, fully functional onboard App and database Work offline-access equipment history, maintenance documents and i…

Visual Lease: Web-Based Lease Administration

I referred Visual Lease to someone yesterday and realized I hadn’t posted anything on it yet. The main reason is simply that I haven’t had the opportunity to use it. It looks pretty good. From the Visual Lease website: Build any report, anytime, in minutes Visual Lease is the only lease administration system that was specifically designed for reporting. Simple or complex reports can be created in just minutes. Never sweat over a report again! A custom lease administration system without the cust…

The new and improved REISReports

Quietly, REIS Reports rolled out a refreshed (and elegant!) interface. Over the years, I’ve used CoStar Comps, Real Capital Analytics and REIS for sale comps. A quick story I have had a strong preference for Real Capital Analytics over the years, as they regularly improved both the breadth and depth of their research. Another large reason was that RCA also provides lists of the most active buyers for various asset types and regions along with easy access to many of these buyers deal histories. …