Commercial Real Estate listing and search database service for public use debuts.

February 20, 2007 (PRLEAP.COM) Business News
MarketSpaceOnline.com is a new website dedicated to providing open public access to a commercial property listing and search database service.

Vic Bruno, President of Vic Bruno Co of Albuquerque, NM, an industrial and office properties specialist for over thirty years, is the founder. Bruno indicated he has been monitoring the status of technology and its implications for commercial real estate since he purchased his first desktop computer in 1983. “So far, the commercial real estate industry remains traditionally positioned in the status quo of the last fifty or so years”, Bruno said. “The internet and technology have done little to change old methodologies. That translates to inefficient, wasteful and costly service delivery to corporate and individual consumers.”

Bruno also notes that the general public remains locked out of the broker’s database system, commonly referred to as an MLS or Commercial Information Exchange. Now, his MarketSpaceOnline.com allows consumers even parity with listing brokers.

“Consumers can now add their own listings to the system for all eyes to see 24/7 worldwide”, Bruno said. The cost for publishing a listing is presently free. Consumers can often save half or more of the traditional broker’s commission by doing it themselves or they can hire one of the new ‘consultants’ who are emerging from the ranks of traditional contingent fee brokers.

“This is not ‘discount brokerage’ where consumers still have to list with a broker to get it in the MLS or CIE”, Bruno said. MarketSpaceOnline.com serves as a public form of MLS and allows the consumer to takeover the marketing element most brokers tout as their biggest activity in selling or leasing a property.

Traditional brokers are at risk of being replaced by Consultants who are paid flat or hourly fees, not a percentage. Bruno, whose primary client base ranges from small local investors to some of the largest corporations, began changing his own business model two years ago toward single client advocacy. He finds clients don’t mind paying for services as they go and they recognize his approach is more on the order of professional attorneys and accountants since he is no longer in the listing business. “MarketSpaceOnline.com allows me and other brokers making the transition to consultancy a way to increase the value proposition to clients interested in eliminating the contingent broker’s commission, Bruno said.”