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Promoting and supporting initiatives that educate, expand,
and enrich the commercial real estate community.
Jeff Bender, SIOR, CCIM
Mobilizing
the Industry
William Froelich, SIOR,
CCIM, JD
By Steve Bergsman
How SIORs are Taking Advantage of New
Steve Kapp, SIOR
Smartphone and Tablet Technology
The advances of technology can be daunting in
unusual ways.
“I was at a cold storage company in Atlanta,” begins
Paul Waters, SIOR, CCIM, CRE, FRICS, an execu-
tive vice president for NAI Global in New York. “Six
guys from the client side all came in with iPads. As I’m
speaking, they are all looking at their iPads, not concen-
trating so much on the specifics of what I was saying
but checking up on square footage and years remain-
ing on the lease. They did this throughout the meeting,
using iPads to be better informed. Technology makes
you smart.”
There are thousands of new technologies affecting
the business of being a commercial real estate broker,
but the two that most people in the business talk up
today are tablets and smartphones, and the apps, cloud
services, social media connectivity, and mobilized
websites that come with them.
The reason is obvious, in fact, at the tip of your fingers. Data, information, communication are now more
mobile than ever and perhaps more importantly, twice
as accessible as ever before.
“What is really helpful to me,” says William
Froelich, SIOR, CCIM, JD, a senior associate
with Colliers International in Honolulu, “is a (Hawaii)
Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs web-
site. If I need to make a cold call and I’m sitting in front
of that business and I have that website on my iPad or
smartphone, I’ll type in the business name and the site
gives me the names of the principals.”
Let’s say one of the principals is named Frank;
Froelich will then go into the office and ask directly
for Frank. The secretary might ask, “Do you have an
appointment,” and Froelich will respond, “No, but I’m
with Colliers and I think he’ll want to talk to me.”
It might sound like a simple ploy, but Froelich
exclaims, “That has been phenomenal for me.”
Froelich also uses a mapping app called, “Hawaii
Information Service.”
“If I’m in a particular area I could pull up the parcel
in front of me by its address and a map will pop up
allowing me to scroll over to the next parcel and next
parcel to get ownership information,” says Froelich. “If
I’m touring with a client and he says, ‘Who owns that
property?’ I don’t have to say, ‘Let me go back to my
computer to find out.’ I can pull up the information in
my car.”
Gary Joel Schacker, SIOR
Christopher Sheehan, SIOR
Paul Waters, SIOR, CCIM,
CRE, FRICS
