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Fallacy - Real estate professionals must maintain detailed information about each
property record in a real estate database by entering data "field
by field". Traditionally, real estate databases have been designed
to store all possible information for a property in "fields"
so that when a property record in the database is displayed, all of the
information regarding that property is available; street address, building
size, buyer and seller, deed book volume/page, zipcode, etc. Commercial
Complete offers more 250 fields that hold detailed property information.
However, if the information is not entered for each property record when
it is created, a traditional database is useless. Consequently, maintaining
a real estate database is time-consuming and costly.
Fact - Few real estate professionals actually need a real estate database where
all of the fields are filled in for every property record - unless your
job involves compiling, analyzing, or reporting statistical information
on a large real estate dataset. So if you maintain a traditional real estate
database, most of the time that you spend typing in information is wasted.
As a result, most real estate professionals do not have their own real
estate database. Instead, information that is gathered from various sources
is put in file folders. While less time consuming than maintaining a computerized
database, this method is very inefficient. Finding information when needed
is slow and unreliable and information tends to get lost or not filed properly
(news clippings, Internet printouts, datasheets sent from other real estate
professionals). Information that was sent by email (PDF files, photos,
etc.) is quickly lost and cannot be found on your computer when it is needed.
BUT
The Need for an In-house Real Estate Database is Real and the Benefits Cannot Be Overstated
The business of real estate professionals is real property and they gather
information about real property every day. They store the information every
day too, whether it is in the database in their head, or in comp books,
or in appraisal files, or in a computerized real estate database.
Real estate professionals survive on good (and detailed) information. Appraisers,
brokers and agents all must know what properties sold and when, what the
terms of the sale were, what tenants occupy the properties. The more information,
the better. Information comes from various sources - colleagues, competitors,
news articles, etc. The Internet is a major source of information in today's
computer driven world. We get our information from the local multilist,
from LoopNet and CoStar, from our County, from emails - all from the Internet.
While this treasure chest of online information is wonderful, it also presents
a dilema for real estate professionals.
The question is not whether a computerized real estate database would be
of great benefit. The question is: How can information that is gathered from numerous and varied sources be
easily entered into a computerized real estate database where it is organized
and easily accessible when needed? Ideally, this would be accomplished in a way that would not add additional time, but would in fact SAVE time.
The Computerized Solution - Traditional Real Estate Databases Fall Short
Some hardy souls enter the information into a computerized real estate
database, field by field. When they obtain information from any source,
a property record is created in their database and each field in the database
record is filled in. One of the great benefits of the Internet (including
emails received from other real estate professionals) is that we can now
get detailed information about a particular property from many sources
instantly - a listing brochure, County recording information, news articles
about new developments, photos, maps, etc. But typing this information
into fields in a database is a real chore, it is prone to error, and usually
all information in the source document or webpage cannot be entered into
the database record.
There are several major flaws with this "field by field" approach.
First, it is very time-consuming to enter information field by field into
a real estate database. It is especially impractical for "one man
shops." Paying others to enter the information is costly. Another
major flaw with the "field by field" computerized route is that
all of the original source information will be lost once you leave a web
page or file your emails! All that you will have in your real estate database
is what has been entered in the database fields. Hard copies of the material
are often printed and filed also, but this is a hit and miss solution to
the problem and it also takes time.
Traditional Office Files - The 2,000 Year Old Solution
Most real estate professionals have intuitively recognized the problems
inherent to the computerized solution and have either never tried it or
they have abandoned it. When information comes in from any source, it is
copied or printed and filed in folders. If the information comes in the
form of a PDF or an Internet image, it is saved in folders on the computer.
But using this method, all of the benefits of the computer are lost. It
is time-consuming and unreliable. Hard copies get misplaced, they are incorrectly
filed, or they are not filed at all. The location where PDF's and images
were saved on the computer is quickly forgotten.
The Real Solution to Gathering, Organizing and Storing Real Estate Data
We Admit It. Mea Culpa - Our Commercial Complete database was introduced in 2002 and has been improved
each year. It compares favorably to any other traditional real estate database
that is offered. Of course, we use our own product in-house every day.
But like most real estate professionals who have a computerized database,
we found that keeping it current is costly and it is a daily burden.
Our Database Revelation - Frankly, until we added a powerful image processor to our Commercial
Complete software, we also accepted the Great Fallacy of Real Estate Databases
as a fact. We assumed that to gain the benefits of a real estate database,
information about each property had be entered field by field. Field by
field data is important - if we will be using the property as a subject
or a Comparable. The Commercial Complete database does this well. But out
of thousands of properties that we have in our own real estate database,
only a handful qualify. Entering field by field data for the thousands
of other properties is a costly waste of time and money. However, that
does not mean that we do not need a real estate database to store information
on the thousands of properties because we never know when one of these
properties will qualify as a comparable or subject. Even when not a subject
or comparable, it is extremely useful to have detailed information on all
properties immediately accessible.
We have finally realized that what is important is that basic information
be entered for each property in the database so that we can find all properties
of a particular type that are located in a particular area. For example,
we need to find all warehouses that are located in Allegheny County. Sale
price, sale date, and building size, are also useful fields to search by
and we fill in those fields too. With the Commercial Complete database,
it is no longer necessary to fill in any other fields. We just attach an
image of the original source document to the property record.
The key to the Commercial Complete real estate database and the feature
that distinguishes it from other real estate databases is its ability to
store, manage and display images. Multiple TIFF files (faxes), PDF files,
JPG files and other common image types can be attached directly to a property
record.
For example, if a selling broker emails a PDF that contains listing and
sales information for a particular shopping center, a property record for
this shopping center is created in Commercial Complete and the PDF is attached.
The original source information from the broker can viewed when this shopping
center is displayed in the database. When we get information about a property
from the Internet (news article from CoStar, Loopnet, County recording
information, photos, maps), we create an image of the web page and attach
it to a record in the database. All of the original source information
is instantly available for recall. Usually, information on a property is
obtained from several sources. The original information from each source
can be attached to the same property record, creating a documented history
of where the information was obtained.
It only takes a few seconds to create a property record in the Commercial
Complete database. Since all of the information is in the PDF or webpage
image, there is no need to type it into fields in the database. This greatly
reduces the need to type data into individual fields. Instead of filling
in 25, 50, or 100 fields, only the fields that are important to you need
be filled in. Usually, this amounts to no more than 2 or 3 fields. Yet all of the original information that was sent from the broker or published
on the Internet is instantly available in a computerized database. When that property record is displayed, this original information can
viewed as though it was manually typed into the database.
Maintaining a real estate database becomes a huge benefit rather than a costly burden. Several videos are available that demonstrate the important information
gathering and storage features of Commercial Complete - See Video List. Whether you are maintaining your information in office folders or plodding
along with a computerized database (even ours), we urge you to spend some
time watching these videos. The methods of gathering information about
real property that are demonstrated will truly change the way that you
work. Much time can be saved, information from all sources can finally
be organized, and all original source information will be available for
instant recall. Even data that you presently have stored in office folders
can be easily added to the database.
Commercial Complete - Finally, there is a Solution
The beauty of the Commercial Complete real estate database is its ability
to quickly capture original source information from all sources into a
property record in a real estate database, while at the same time offering
traditional "fields" so that detailed information about a property
can be entered in the property record as needed. Whether the information
come from faxes, emails, office files, PDFs, or Internet webpages, it can
easily be made a part of the property record.
The computer age placed a treasure chest of real property information within
easy reach of real estate professionals. But until now, there has been
no solution to the question: How can information that is gathered from numerous and varied sources be
easily entered into a computerized real estate database where it is organized
and easily accessible when needed? The traditional "field by field" approach has proved to be inadequate.
The 2,000 year old method of storing information in office folders is -
well, it is 2,000 years old. Hourly wages are a little higher now than
they were in the days of the Roman empire.
Commercial Complete is the COMPLETE SOLUTION. It is the solution for one-man
shops and it is the solution for large real estate offices.
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