More inventory, more knowledge, more deals.

When I first started to expand Dumann Realty beyond the first group of agents, I immediately saw that my agents needed a detailed database of every available retail space in Manhattan at their disposal. Simply put, they needed more inventory.

By canvassing Manhattan on a rotating schedule, agents were able to learn each neighborhood’s characteristics and pricing, spot opportunities, and ultimately contribute to a single internal database from which they and other agents could benefit. The database included not just listings, but verified listings with prices and availability. When the quality of the information is high, it is easier to learn the market, serve your clients, work more efficiently, and ultimately turn potential into success.

To make a long story short, each agent would contribute to just a portion of the database. But the collective effort results in 100% benefit in return. I like to think of how each individual snowflake is unique and fragile. A snowflake in your hand immediately dissolves and melts away. But bring more of them together and they can form a snowball or an incredibly powerful avalanche.

It is quite similar for real estate agents. If a firm isolates its agents, he or she is at risk of melting away and failing. But collectively, they can achieve much more, closing more deals. Every agent brings their unique strength and style to their firm with respect to business sourcing and negotiation. Leveraged together they become powerful and create value for their company and their clients.

To expand beyond a singular firm and look at the commercial real estate market as a whole, when every agent from every real estate firm cooperates and works together, the market is stronger and everyone benefits. Every commercial firm with their unique strengths and areas of specialization brings crucial knowledge to the market. The more this information is shared, the stronger the market becomes.

Small amounts of inaccurate, segmented information is often very unreliable. However once this information is centralized, verified and made available to everyone, it too becomes incredibly powerful.

Agorafy works with property owners and brokers to bring a mountain of segmented commercial real estate data together in one centralized location, eliminating the need for brokers to aggregate and verify on their own. Accessible from anywhere, this saves professionals time and allows them to focus more on what they do best—identifying opportunities, servicing clients, and negotiating and closing transactions.

Every firm and their respective agents should work together and reap the benefits. With Agorafy’s open platform, we are striving to increase cooperation and transparency. This creates market efficiency, enables price discovery and boosts space absorption.

This summer Agorafy will be expanding its platform beyond commercial listings and will expand to residential availabilities. This will further our long term goal to provide a crystal clear profile of every building in Manhattan and allow professionals to access high quality data they otherwise wouldn’t have access to.

Richard Du is the founder and CEO of Agorafy, New York, N.Y.

Rilke (0.18) - Revamped User Controls

Rilke is live! This release continued to build on the site redesign we launched in April. Our last release focused on improving the user experience by streamlining navigation. This month we focused on revamping and strengthening our user controls.

Our goal with every release is to provide users with a more intuitive experience and allow them to take advantage of the features and high quality data of Agorafy. All users can quickly access the expanded search box at at any time while on the site. We wanted the most frequently used features to be just as accessible.

Easy Management of Listings and Profile

The first thing our users will notice when they log in is that their former Dashboard has been replaced by a "Manage" dropdown menu. From this menu, users can more easily choose from managing their listings, their professional profile, and subscriptions. 

Easily manage your listings, profile and subscriptions.

As always, from the My Listings page, users may continue to:

• Update listings with new photos, flyers and floor plans
• Report listings as leased or off-market
• Schedule an open showing for any of their listings
• Add new exclusive listings

Access and manage listings

The My Profile page allows users to easily:

• Update or complete their professional profiles and contact information
• View their public facing profile to see what other users see when viewing their profiles

Expanded Subscription Management

One of the best ways for our users to save time and get the most value out of Agorafy is to create subscriptions for frequently run searches or for specific listings.

Whether just a quick neighborhood filter like "Retail in Soho" or a more specific advanced search, users can subscribe to that search criteria and constantly be updated through their subscription feed. Users may also subscribe to specific listings and be notified of any changes to that listing.

View all your subscriptions.

Agorafy is committed to building out features which allow users to get the most out of our data. This month we took a big step forward in improving the accessibility to those features. 

So far in 2013, we have focused on refining Agorafy and the user experience. This of course will continue as we move forward. But be on the lookout this summer for additional improvements to functionality and data. 

Send us your thoughts!

Filling the Technological Void

Agorafy doesn't just view itself as a data provider to the commercial real estate community, but an open platform for filling needs and creating value for the industry's professionals and helping them become successful. 

Recently, Richard sat down with the New York Real Estate Journal (NYREJ) and shared his thoughts on how technology is shaping commercial real estate and how maximizing transparency greases the wheels of the deal making process. He also did a follow up Q&A session to discuss how Agorafy positions itself as a tremendous tool for commercial real estate professionals.

You can find both articles published in the NYREJ below:

Filling the Technological Void

Question & Answer Session

Quasimodo (0.17) - A New Look For Agorafy

Agorafy's newest release, Quasimodo (0.17) goes live this week! We're especially excited with Quasimodo, as it introduces a fresh redesign that aims to streamline and improve the user experience. 

Based on valuable feedback we received from our users, we improved the overall usability of Agorafy. Not only does the redesign highlight specific tools and features, but it introduces new navigational links across the site, making some of the more common and widely-used features more easily accessible. The goal is simply to provide users with an enhanced, more intuitive site. 

All users can now quickly access the expanded search box from wherever they are on the site. As usual, they can still search by neighborhood, street, or address across all listing types, as well as navigate to advanced search criteria and property search. 

Both Log in and Registration links are more prominently featured so registered users can log in directly from this page, and unregistered users have the option to learn more about the benefits of registration before signing up for an account. 

Start searching immediately, or log in or register for added features.

The Dashboard is the brokers' and owners' most utilized tool on Agorafy. And now they will have easy access to it whenever they're logged in. As usual, registered users can easily review and manage their subscriptions, print reports, search for other professionals, and manage all of their listings directly from their personal Dashboard. And it's never been easier for a professional to ensure the best public facing profile on Agorafy and connect with other members of the industry. 

Access to your personal Dashboard is even more convenient now.

For unregistered users and first time visitors to Agorafy, we have expanded on content educating professionals on what Agorafy is and the benefits of registration. Quick links make it easy for all users to get to what they need--whether it be a search for listings, for properties, or to submit their listings.

Search listings, property information, or submit listings quickly and easily.

We're committed to increasing the value that is created for our users by not only improving the commercial real estate data available on the site but also by increasing the features that allow our users to use the data to build relationships, look for new opportunities and close transactions.

At Agorafy, we are continuously looking for ways to improve how users interact with the site and with each other. have any questions, comments, or suggestions? Drop us a line to let us know how we can keep improving our product for our users. Or just to say Hi. 

Poe (0.16) Brings Broker Search & Report Customization

Agorafy rolled out its newest release, named "Poe" (0.16) this week and looks to further its goal of becoming the digital home for New York's commercial real estate community. Among the newest features is Broker Search, giving users the ability to search for professionals by areas of expertise. Also, Custom Reports gives users the ability to customize the reports they print from Agorafy prior to sending or presenting them to a client.

Broker Search

The Broker Search feature allows property owners, tenants, brokers and other professionals to search for specialists in the area where they need representation. Users can select which borough and neighborhood they are focused on as well as the areas of concentration (Landlord Representation/Tenant Representation) and area of expertise (Retail Leasing/Office Leasing/Building Management).

Broker Search

Agorafy populates and ranks the results based on the number of exclusives brokers have in the selected neighborhood(s). This gives property owners and commercial tenants a very strong idea of who is the go-to expert in the selected neighborhood.

Broker Search ResultsAgorafy also uses information provided by each broker in their Professional Profile to populate search results and ranks them accordingly. This feature is especially important for brokers who specialize in Tenant Representation and Building Management and may not have a large number of exclusives on the market.

Customized Reports

The newest release "Poe" also gives users the ability to customize the reports they print from Agorafy. This feature comes in extremely useful when brokers want to present clients with available listings via e-mail or when taking them on a tour of the property.

Users can select properties to be included in a report and then have Agorafy generate the pdf.

Add listings and properties to a printable report.Agorafy users have the option when printing a report to generate the report "As Is" with the exclusive brokers contact information, or they can customize the report with their own contact information which is pre-populated by Agorafy. 

Customize reports with your contact information.Both the Broker Search feature and Custom Reports are live as we speak. Remember to update your Professional Profile so that property owners and tenants can find you via the Broker Search.

Any tenants out there feeling brave? Use the Broker Search feature and tell us what you think.