Big Data

We live in the age of Big Data, and many people make their livings seeking out trends and truisms.  We do a lot of that in real estate, and most clients begin a search for property by trolling the internet for information.  There are many services that compile data (perhaps not surprisingly, many of them are owned by the same parent company).  Some choose to look at the listings themselves.  Others seek out recent sales in a given market, or compare rental rates or vacancies across metropolitan areas. 

Of course, when you Google a property, what comes up may be old, or outdated, or even wrong.  Area averages may not apply in certain cases, for any number of reasons.  That's where agents come in.  At the end of the day, or the transaction, we are still in a people business.  Clients are buying our negotiating expertise and local market knowledge.  Whatever the issue that arises, we've probably seen it before.  If not, we know where to seek the answers.  If you need the help of other professionals, we know them, and can refer you out.  Perhaps the day will come, although I doubt it, when entire transactions will be done on line, with no parties ever laying eyes on each other, but we are certainly not there yet.  So take advantage of what's available on the internet, and then call a Realtor.  We're here to provide the rest of what you need!

Lots of Hits

For all that Connecticut is being labeled as the place to leave for doing business, we are getting lots of inquiries about our listings.  In fact, "commercial real estate" is the number one thing that people Googling Pearce type into their search line.  We also get as many Ready Chat leads (those who talk to the little person who appears on the screen when you get to our site) for commercial real estate as we do for residential.  Since that doesn't correspond to what the general impression of the state of the commercial market is, I thought it was worth passing along.

People looking at properties on LoopNet are also a big source of leads for our commercial agents.  Those who search through LoopNet can be either local or not.  While calling or emailing about a property is obviously not the same as buying it or leasing it, and not all leads result in sales or leases, it's a promising start.

So feel free to join the crowd, and look for us at www.hpearcecommercial.com. 

More Good News

We've been watching the numbers go steadily up on our various sites and feeder sites.  More viewers are logging on to our website from Trulia, from Google, and directly to our address.  The numbers week to week and month to month are going up in the 50% range for page viewings and leads.  So we've known for a while that people are looking at real estate again.

Now we have the first concrete evidence.  Our commercial originations in January--meaning contracts that we now expect to close in the near future--were 75% of what we originated ALL of last year.  One month, 75% of last year's total.  Now that's an increase! 

While it is obviously true that most of those transactions were begun months, and sometimes years, ago, that is true from year to year; there's always a long lag time.  And, for the past few years, the lag time has gotten longer, as people and banks and institutions dragged their collective feet.  However, the fact that we are pulling the trigger on originating them now means that much more is getting ready to close. 

More evidence that we are past the bottom--make your move now!