la Frontera In the News

Austin Business Journal

March 8, 1999

Click and sell
Some brokers turn to CD-ROMs to market their property

Matt Hudgins, Austin Business Journal Staff

Seconds after inserting the CD-ROM into a PC, the words "La Frontera" appear on the computer screen above a large red "Start" icon.

With a few mouse clicks, the user can call up a variety of descriptions for the 329-acre project planned for development northwest of FM 1325 and I-35.

Menus and icons lead to building lists divided by planned uses, breakdowns by square footage, computer-generated renderings, aerial photos of the site, and an array of maps showing the region, neighborhood and even smaller areas within the project.

Blocks of information describe area demographics, project access and a number of other topics important to potential users and investors. And, of course, one screen provides contact information for those interested in learning more.

A small number of commercial real estate brokers are using such multi-media technology to present properties to potential tenants and investors, either sending CD-ROMS out alone or accompanied by more conventional marketing materials.

Rather than search through thick offering booklets or make a trip to Austin, users anywhere can fire up a CD-ROM or perhaps log onto a Web site to see properties of interest.

"It's a lot cheaper than putting somebody on a plane," one broker says.

Don Martin, a managing partner developing La Frontera, says the CD-ROM enables potential users and investors to visualize the project, and has generated tremendous feedback.

Brokers who use multi-media presentations for their marketing efforts say the Internet can be a supplement to CD-ROM marketing tools.

Downloading a video presentation from a Web site is "memory intensive" and impractical for marketing, Martin says, but a CD-ROM can include panoramic video shots or other segments to satisfy curiosities piqued by still photos on a Web site.

Some real estate professionals put little stock in CDs, however.

Frank Niendorff, president of NAI/Commercial Industrial Properties Co., believes Internet technology will advance in the near future to allow average Web users to view video clips easily over the Internet, rendering CD-ROMs redundant for most real estate purposes.

"I believe virtually everything in the future will be browser-based," Niendorff says. "We are looking at using a Web browser for the majority of our marketing efforts in the future -- not all, but a great deal of them."

But Daniel Listrom of First Regional Properties, who is marketing La Frontera for the developers, says the CD-ROM works well in combination with the La Frontera Web site (la-frontera.com) and a marketing brochure. The CD-ROM's video sequences on the other two tools to give a better picture of what the development will one day become.

'The CD-ROM allows us to have a lot more detail than we could have on the Web," Listrom says. "The Web is an exciting and important communication tool as well, and the CD-ROM and the Web site are complimentary."

Listrom says the CD-ROM propelled La Frontera past several interim marketing steps that similar projects muddled through in the past.

"It allows us to communicate more clearly the definition of the outcome, so that people can buy into that outcome without having to wait for us to be further along on the product cycle," Listrom says. "Therefore, we were able to go into the market place at an earlier point in our product cycle with a full definition of what that product outcome would be.

"We don't have to wait until we have our roads in, [or] until we have all of our city approvals in place, for them to understand what the product will be like when it's completed," he says.

The memory capability of a CD-ROM also enables marketers to provide readily available information users need for due diligence studies, Martin says. The same information in a traditional format usually fills a three-ring binder.

"We can add all that onto the CD-ROM at no additional cost at all, because it's already text material," he says.

The same information, as well as drawings and other plans for components of the development, are available through the project Web sites and the sites of various contractors.

"All they have to do is call and get a password [to access the information from the Internet without requiring mail outs]," Martin says. "The world is changing rapidly right now in that regard."

And CD-ROMs don't necessarily require outside firms and big budgets to produce.

Can do it in-house

SynerMark Commercial Real Estate Co. broker Helen Jobes is experimenting with CD-ROMs to present a 70,000-square-foot office/service center property in Walnut Creek Business Park. She says multi-media systems offer savings of more than travel expenses.

Broker's Assistant Sam Jobes -- Helen's son, who shares her office -- made the Walnut Creek CD-ROM on his own computer system.

The initial effort is basically a video presentation compressed to a CD, but he says he plans to incorporate more interaction in future projects and is assembling two computers in his mother's office that will do the job easier and faster.

"All it takes is somebody who knows a little about what they're doing and the time to do it," Sam Jobes says.

Bulky offering documents can be as large as a book for some properties, and printing multiple copies can be expensive. Sam Jobes says a typical offering booklet complete with color pages may cost $11. [The marketing booklet for the Walnut Creek property cost closer to $30 per copy.]

A CD-ROM, completed on the Jobes' CD burner, costs a little more than $2.

Multiplied by 10 or 20, depending on the number of potential investors to receive copies, the savings from copying costs alone could buy at table at the Real Estate Council's "Fight Night." Add postage into the equation and the savings is even greater, due to the lighter weight of a CD ROM compared with it's paper counterparts.

Martin agrees, and says preparing a CD-ROM can be less expensive than putting together a typical real estate brochure. The La Frontera composition was prepared by the Fort Worth office of Carter Burgess and was a good investment, he says.

"It's relatively inexpensive to put together, in the overall scheme of things on a big project," Martin says. "We make the copies here in our office on a CD burner and mail them out."

The Jobes' CD ROM is a 10 minute presentation that walks through some of the buildings, with outdoor footage of the entire project and a quick overview of existing businesses in the area.

"We actually went into a tenant's space, so any prospective buyer can see what it looks like finished out for a tenant, and then we went into some empty suites," Sam says. "It helps the prospective buyer get an idea of what a project looks like without spending the money to travel."

Costs can vary

Jobes animated the SynerMark logo in the beginning of the presentation and added some animation in the introduction, "real simple stuff, just to jazz it up."

The entire presentation is narrated, but Jobes includes captions throughout for those playing the CD ROM on a computer without compatible sound capabilities.

He estimates the entire setup, with a video card capable of compressing the presentation to fit on a CD ROM, costs anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000. Sam burns the CDs himself, but says that work can be done by an outside firm without increasing the cost much.

Disc space is one of the most important requirements for converting video presentations to a CD-ROM, Jobes says.

A 15-minute segment of raw video took up about two gigabytes of memory, he says. A CD only holds about 650 megabytes, so such a presentation must be compressed with either a software program or a video card before it is ready to burn onto a CD.

Writing and editing take time, he says, but the final product is worth the effort.

"The costs are relatively inexpensive once you have the hardware in place, and it makes for a really good first impression," Jobes says. "For us, it's the extra edge."