Speed, versatility will be keys to success in information age - real estate

"Fast response" will be the most important two words driving the real estate market in the rapidly evolving Information Age.

As we move toward the 21st Century, we find that not much has changed. Service is still the key to any real estate company's success; we are just being called upon to render that service faster and faster! Increasing the speed and efficiency of reporting budget and financial information, while retaining flexibility and versatility, will be the main challenges for the full-service real estate firm in the coming years.

Staying competitive, in an environment where the industry seems to be moving toward more specialization in management and brokerage, will be an exciting challenge for the tightly knit, familial real estate firm. I may be going against conventional wisdom when I suggest that the company that can do just about anything, and do it quickly, will have the decisive advantage in the long run over highly specialized "niche" firms.

I came to the Charles H. Greenthal Group in 1961, acquired it in 1965, and in all this time, I have not noticed much change in what people require of a full-service real estate company. What makes a company shine is its timely follow-up, and that's the way it's always going to be.

In management, if you don't follow up, you're out. The more you do for your clients, the longer they will stay your clients. As far as technology is concerned, you might buy a faster computer, but you still have to come up with answers to questions in a timely manner, as well as the obvious tasks of preparing a budget and making the payroll.

At Greenthal, our goal is to follow up better and quicker than our competitors, because not following up on an inquiry is where you can really damage yourself. A co-op board will forgive you if you did not sweep the 14th floor, but if you are not responsive to a shareholder's needs, the board is not going to forget. Response time and follow-through will always be the most important factors.

The challenge of managing a co-op or condo is that you are not dealing with one landlord. You are dealing with nine individuals - all of them with different goals for their property. Still, the best way to keep a board reasonably happy is to make sure the management of the building is smart, responsible and efficient.

In brokerage, the theme is the same: Follow up, fast and accurately. We have gone from the mimeograph, to the fax, to E-mail, in a relatively short time. We have to be responsive to our clients in minutes, not days. You just don't hear "Put it in the mail and I will get back to you" anymore!

Fortunately, all divisions of our firm have been set up to provide whatever the client, or the prospective client, needs - yesterday, and with pinpoint accuracy. There is, for example, an enormous audience of buyers and sellers who want information instantly. In response, our brokerage division decided to go "on-line" and market property in Cyberspace. We have been marketing on the Internet for the past two years, and have found that it has expanded our audience much more than conventional advertising the Net has brought the world to us.

We are now working with many more buyers from Europe and Asia. We even have a broker in Asia who primarily sells New York product to Asian investors. The fact that we do keep a broker in Asia bears out an idea that I firmly believe in: As useful a tool as the Net is, it will never fully replace face-to-face deal-making.

As fast reaction becomes more and more important, I feel that it is more and more essential for mid-sized companies, such as Greenthal, to combine their talents and services to maximum effectiveness.

At our two Manhattan locations (Four Park Avenue houses management, accounting, rentals, commercial brokerage and mortgage brokerage, while 488 Madison Avenue is the home to residential re-sales), we have more than 80 brokers and over 200 employees. Our management division currently administers to over 100 residential buildings, about 95 percent in Manhattan. Although Greenthal's management and brokerage concerns are housed in two separate buildings, the divisions work closely together. Our brokers learn a lot from the agents in the buildings where they sell, and the agents learn from a broker's experience - which helps them to anticipate a board's needs and reactions.

This kind of flexibility is what it will take for any real estate finn to stay competitive in the years ahead - both in brokerage and in management. And I am confident that as time goes on, the hard-working, flexible companies are the ones most people will want managing their buildings and doing their deals.

COPYRIGHT 1997 Hagedorn Publication
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group