By Tony Wilbert, Wilbert News Strategies
ATLANTA (May 25, 2010) - The commercial real estate industry has been slow to embrace smartphone apps, but things are about to change. A new iPhone app enables people searching for office space, retail shops and warehouses to point their smartphone at a building and learn all about its available space.
Even commercial Realtors and brokers who have been hesitant to get on the tech bandwagon won't be able to ignore this. If they do, they'll miss out on deals and therefore precious commissions. The free app, soon to be available for Android users as well as iPhone 3GS owners, comes from "augmented reality" app maker junaio and works in concert with a subscription from Rofo. This video shows how the works.
Let's say you point your iPhone or Android at Terminus 200 in Atlanta's tony Buckhead district. Icons alerting you to available spaces will pop up on the screen. You can tap on the icons to see the spaces and to instantly e-mail the landlord rep. So, if tenant reps don't jump all over this, some disintermediation could occur.
The iPhone app, of course, is only one tool and won't replace completely wiped out the tenant rep industry. Successful brokers have morphed into consultants who give clients much more than space-available lists and stats. They add perspective, market knowledge and insider info not available on an iPhone.
Here's more on the app from On the Block, SFGate's (San Francisco Chronicle's) real estate blog.
As a huge fan of commercial real estate who prides himself on knowing practically every available office space in Atlanta, I can't wait to go home and test it out.
This sounds pretty cool, but it is only as good as the comprehensiveness of its data. Who's their data source?
Posted by: Kim Rice | June 02, 2010 at 07:38 AM