Despite the growing mass of commercial real estate information on the Internet, investors aren’t exactly sitting in bed with their laptops buying and selling buildings.
A survey by Marcus & Millichap Research Services indicates private real estate investors are beginning to use the Internet to search for property for sale, but most of them still prefer to get their information via the U.S. mail.
The survey of 300 investors who own a cross-section of apartment, retail and office properties in 20 markets reported that 83 percent use the Internet, but only 41 percent of those search for investment properties that way.
That means only about 35 percent of the total are looking for real estate investments on-line. And some 56 percent of the investors prefer regular mail as the ideal way of receiving information.
“Expanded utilization of the Internet beyond simple usage for e-mail is currently limited and will require more time,” concluded the survey by the research arm of San Francisco-based Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Brokerage.
However, “the number and the sophistication of users will most likely increase steadily each year,” it added.
As that happens, there will be more and more talk about disintermediation (effectively meaning disappearance) of brokers, but this month’s issue of Investment Property & Real Estate Capital Markets Report quotes Peter Pike, who oversees an on-line directory of real estate services, on a new buzzword,
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“re-intermediation.”
That’s when transaction-oriented brokers get into supplying Web-based services involving financing, due diligence and property management, according to the publication.
So brokers, prepare to get in bed with the people who are in bed with their laptops and be re-intermediated.
Letting go: Meanwhile, a lot of getting out of bed seems to be going on as well.
Westchester-based Podolsky Northstar Realty Partners LLC says 7 of the 11 partners are leaving “to pursue separate business interests and opportunities” as of Dec. 1.
Four of the partners, Randy Podolsky, Steven Podolsky, Richard Levy and John Homsher, will remain with the firm, concentrating on services for industrial and office properties. Podolsky & Associates was founded in 1971 and became Podolsky Northstar in 1996.
Randy Podolsky said partners “felt it was best to do things a different way because we weren’t all on the same agenda page.” He added that the break-up was amicable and the partners remain friends.
Such is not entirely the case at Hiffman Shaffer Associates, a bigger, Chicago-based outfit where some bad blood is curdling as the holiday season approaches.
Sources say one top manager came to work Monday, found he couldn’t get into his voice mail or sign on to his computer, and then was told that was his last day and that he had to leave the office.
The 200-employee firm, one of the most active locally based services companies, has decided to spin off its brokerage division from its development, investment and property management divisions, according to company President Robert Smietana. The brokerage unit, with about 30 people, will likely move to the suburbs.
As part of the restructuring, jobs have been re-evaluated and a couple of people have been let go, including the manager fired Monday, Smietana said.
Parking meter: The city’s reported plan to raise parking fees 16 percent or more at O’Hare International Airport underscores the fact that the rates have actually remained steady for the last five years.
A report on the operation says revenues went up 89 percent to $87 million from 1993 to 1998, with only one rate increase during the period. Chicago’s Standard Parking (now APCOA/Standard) took over management in 1993.
Some of this surge has been due to the economy, of course, but the report says the increase in cars parked greatly exceeds the rise in plane trips taken from O’Hare.
From 1993 to date, the number of cars parked annually has gone up almost 25 percent, to about 5 million, while “enplanements” have gone up less than 11 percent.
The report also says there were no burglaries from cars and only one car stolen in 1998.