Recently we’ve been getting a lot of questions related to integrating property listings on a corporate website. Rofo offers many built-in tools to help our customers publish their commercial real estate listings wherever and whenever you’d like. And a flexible, light weight, listings widget is one of those tools. Our widget offers a clean, simple design that integrates well with any site and, more importantly, it keeps your website visitors on your website.

Here’s a sample widget from a commercial property owner in San Francisco:

The size of the widget is easily customized and we offer a few versions depending on how you want to filter and display the data.

We can also provide you with the raw data if you’re interested in creating your own app. Our friends at World Business Chicago are doing some really innovative things with commercial property data, enterprise zone data, and other tax credit data.

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been rolling out an entirely new way for commercial real estate companies (and teams) to control their data, market themselves, their listings, and their real estate activity.

Company pages:

Companies (brokerage firms, property managers, commercial landlords, developers) can now create a home on Rofo that promotes their portfolio of buildings, their latest news and activity, and their team.

Company pages also serve as a listings management platform. Once a portfolio of listings has been added you’re able to easily manage and share both online and offline. Quickly print a professionally designed flyer for a tour handout. Power your own website with a listings widget. Export your listings in multiple formats to easily share with partners, executives, and other systems and websites that require listing data. Take full control of ‘building pages’ on Rofo with photos, video, amenity info, tenants, and descriptions.

With company pages you can easily manage your listing updates, add/remove/reassign team members to properties/listings, and invite other team members to join.

Team Pages

Team pages work the same as company pages. Most commercial real estate brokers work in teams and now Rofo provides a flexible platform to market your team’s expertise, activity, and latest news. Your network can keep up with your team’s updates by following your page (and eliminating the need to email blast your contacts with attachments).

And with team and company pages you can share listings and updates with anyone (they do not need to be subscribers to Rofo).

Please contact us anytime to learn more about promoting your company or team and taking control of your real estate.

No, I’m not talking about our company or website. I’m referring to the leasing term that inspired our company name. This article was published today on Pepper Hamilton, LLP’s site. If you’re in the market to lease commercial space (and you’re lucky enough to be working for a growth company that is actually growing) then you should get familiar with this concept as it can be really help you plan accordingly for future expansion. And make sure you hire a broker that knows how this works and how to structure an offer. And hire a good real estate attorney:

A right of first offer (ROFO) to lease is a contractual provision granting a tenant a preemptive right to lease additional space during its lease term. A ROFO is particularly useful in cases in which a tenant expects to grow during its lease term. When carefully negotiated, a ROFO can be beneficial to a tenant and not detrimental to a landlord.

A ROFO should require a landlord to present a tenant with an offer to lease any vacant space before it offers to lease the space to third parties. In some instances the parties agree that the ROFO will only apply to certain spaces (such as space that is contiguous to the tenant’s existing premises) or will not apply to space that is vacant at the time of lease signing (at least until it is leased and becomes vacant again). Once presented with the offer, the tenant has a set time in which to accept or reject it. The landlord may only offer the space for lease to third parties after the tenant rejects the offer or fails to respond to the offer during the period of time provided in the ROFO provision. The time period the tenant has to consider the offer is a point of negotiation. Landlords typically desire a shorter review period to avoid any delay in dealing with third parties. Tenants usually desire a longer period since the decision to take additional space is not always easy to make.

The terms of the actual offer will also be negotiated by the landlord and the tenant. For example, the landlord and the tenant may agree that, if additional space becomes available for lease, the landlord must offer that space (the ROFO Space) to the tenant on the same terms and conditions as the tenant’s current lease. Tenants usually desire this arrangement since they have already approved the terms of their existing lease. In addition, this would mean that the term of the lease for the ROFO Space would be coterminous with its existing premises. Generally landlords do not like to be bound to the current lease terms for ROFO Space because as time passes, the existing lease terms may be more favorable to the tenant than what the landlord could get from a third party. Likewise, if the term for the ROFO Space will be coterminous with the existing lease term, then the landlord could have to forego a longer-term lease with a third party in exchange for a shorter (coterminous) term with the existing tenant.

If the parties are going to use the existing lease terms as the basis for any ROFO, the landlord should insist that those terms will only apply if the tenant exercises its ROFO right in the early part of its existing term or, alternatively, that the existing term and the term for the ROFO Space will both be extended for some minimal term. Other adjustments to existing terms of a lease with respect to the ROFO Space are also warranted. For instance, if the term of the lease for the ROFO Space is going to be shorter than the term for the existing premises, the landlord has a shorter period of time to recover concessions (such as tenant improvement costs). Accordingly, if the ROFO Space term is going to be shorter than the original term those concessions should be reduced to account for the shorter term.

In the alternative, landlord and tenant may agree that the landlord’s offer of ROFO Space to the tenant will be same as that offered to a third party. Generally this arrangement is preferred by the landlord as it prevents the existing tenant from taking the space at what the landlord might believe is a below-market rate. In this case, the landlord gets the same deal as it was willing to do with a third party. However, this may not be acceptable to a tenant because it will then likely have two or more separate spaces with different lease expiration dates. The tenant should insist on making the terms of the lease for the ROFO Space and the existing premises the same. As such, the tenant should be willing to adjust the economic factors with respect to the ROFO Space to account for the shorter term. The tenant should also be willing to agree to extend its existing term, if needed, to ensure the landlord has an agreed to minimum term for the entire space if the ROFO Space is being added to the existing premises later in the existing lease term.

A third alternative for the parties is to provide that the ROFO Space will be leased at the fair market terms. There are many ways to arrive at fair market terms, such as using appraisers and arbitration. However, a properly drafted ROFO avoids the need to use this alternative because a landlord should not be permitted to offer terms to the tenant which are then materially improved when offered to a third party following the tenant’s rejection of the offer. Once the tenant rejects an offer made by the landlord, the landlord should have to re-offer the ROFO Space to the tenant if the landlord concludes it has to make the terms more favorable to a prospective tenant, for example because it is asking for a rental rate that is too high. This procedure should effectively determine the fair market terms. Accordingly, a tenant should insist that the landlord be obligated to re-offer ROFO Space to the tenant if the terms change significantly. The parties need to consider the entire economic package, such as allowances and base years not just the rental rate, in order to be able to compare one offer to another. Typically, the parties agree that if the terms of a landlord’s offer to a third party are materially more favorable to the third party than those terms offered to the tenant, then the ROFO Space has to be re-offered to the tenant on such more favorable terms. The parties usually agree in the ROFO what is “materially more favorable” in terms of a percentage change in the economic package. In this case the tenant should expect to have a shorter period of time to accept those more favorable terms than it had when it received the first offer since at this point the tenant should have already determined the terms upon which it might be willing to lease the ROFO Space. This process should continue until the space is leased to the third party or to the tenant.

A ROFO should not be confused with a Right of First Refusal (ROFR), which permits the landlord to market the building/space to third parties during the lease term, without first offering it to the tenant. Typically, with a ROFR the landlord finalizes its deal with the third-party tenant before it has to offer the same deal to the tenant. The tenant is then given a set time in which to accept or reject the offer. Landlords prefer ROFOs over ROFRs because ROFRs deter third-party interest as they leave open the possibility that a third party might spend valuable time and money negotiating a deal only to have the tenant swoop in at the last minute and take it.

ROFOs can be mutually beneficial to landlords and tenants, if drafted carefully. When negotiating a ROFO, it is important for both parties to understand what is important to the other party and to be flexible so that each party’s goals can be achieved.

Post a client tour on Rofo (toured 5,000 sqft at 123 Main Street with a law firm) and the following happens:

1 – a Tweet goes out with a link back to you.
2 – an update is added to your profile on Linkedin.
3 – your activity is added to 123 Main Street so that prospects can see your expertise.
4 – your local real estate network is updated on Rofo.

The same with listings, local news, completed transactions, and any other projects that demonstrate your activity and expertise. It’s organized in one place. You have complete control of your data and marketing and its simple and efficient.

Today we officially launched our app for Twitter. And I want to take a few minutes to explain why we think it’s important, helpful, and pretty damn cool.

Our mission at Rofo is simple – to help you build more meaningful real estate connections. We’re focused on building tools to help you share the right information with the right people at the right time. Your network wants an organized and timely way to hear about your activity.

Your extended real estate network wants to receive information in different ways, on different platforms, and in different formats. And the challenge for you is that you can’t be everywhere at once. What information do you Tweet (if anything at all)? What do post on Linkedin? And what information and updates do you share through email? RSS, PDF, CSV? You’re covered. We think you should post once and then get to your offline business.

With your Rofo profile you can now have your listings and updates sync with Twitter. This is in addition to Linkedin (through our one-of-a-kind real estate app). Your connections can also receive updates directly through Rofo.

When you sign in to Rofo, you are prompted to link your Twitter account and add our Linkedin app. Once your accounts are linked, you’re done. As you add updates like recent tours, completed deals, local news, and listings, your updates will sync with Linkedin and Twitter.

Everything is organized and mapped on your Rofo profile and gets tagged to building pages. Its a win for your network and for prospects searching for a local expert. And its a valuable time saver for you. Please take test drive.

As always, more to come…



We’ve been busy introducing a lot of new features for commercial brokers, property owners, and tenants to connect. With the launch of our new commercial building pages and real estate profiles there are now more ways to make our platform work for you no matter your role in commercial real estate.

We’re thrilled with the amount of listings and profiles being added everyday. For those of you outside of the US, we’re listening. I can’t give a firm estimate on our international expansion but know that it is coming soon.

Lastly we’re excited to be working with 2 new local landlords who have a combined portfolio of 8 million square feet: Wareham Development and Dollinger Properties. Both companies have a diverse portfolio of office space, lab space, r & d, and retail.



A real estate Update on Rofo is any real estate activity related to a space or property outside of marketing a listing. Samples of Updates include a property tour, a sale, a completed lease, or any project related to a space or property. Just like property listings on Rofo, an Update gets attached to the property/building page on Rofo as well as your profile. And with our real estate app for Linkedin, updates will also appear on your Linkedin profile.

Post an Update

Updates appear on your profile page

Updates also appear on building pages

Here’s how it works:
1) sign in to Rofo and click ‘post a new update’
2) select the type of update and some basic info about the property
3) add a description to the update
4) post

Your activity now gets mapped on your profile. And it also gets added to our searchable building pages.
Building pages on Rofo are searched by tenants, buyers, brokers, property owners, and service providers. And its great way to make very targeted real estate connections related to a specific property or neighborhood.

We surpassed 265,000 listings added to Rofo over the weekend. Thanks to our most recent members for joining Rofo and adding the following listings:

Industrial space in Escondido

Investment property in Glen Park San Francisco

Corner retail space in Chicago

furnished office space in Fremont

Owner user office building in McLean, VA

Retail building in Mount Pleasant, SC

Furnished office suites in El Dorado Hills

Office space for lease in Gainesville, Fl



Since our initial site launch (more than 3 years ago – wow) our goal has been to simplify the search for real estate/office space/a new location. Our approach has been listings focused – make them easier to find, easier to search, and surround them with helpful info like maps, similar listings, and local amenities. And we’ve partnered with some great companies to make it even easier to discover available properties.

Introducing profiles

We’ve been quietly introducing real estate profiles on Rofo over the last few months. They’re now jam packed with functionality and supporting the idea of building more and better real estate connections.

Rofo real estate profile

Since launching our real estate app for Linkedin about 18 months ago we’ve spoken with many thousands of people in real estate (tenants, brokers, landlords, buyers, investors) about profiles geared for real estate. One of the key features was designing a profile that demonstrates where they are experts – everyone wants to know they’re working with the right person. Listings come and go but being able to show the buildings you tour, the leases you’ve signed, the sales you’ve made, the active requirements you have, and the projects you’ve completed provides for a lasting (hate to say it) timeline.

Building pages

Which leads us to building pages. Over the last few years Rofo has been building a very very large database of searchable properties in the US. With your Rofo real estate profile you can literally ‘tag’ all of the properties you have toured, leased, sold, etc.

We think this has so much benefit for all stakeholders in the real estate transaction. Its sharing just enough information to generate more connections (and hopefully successful transactions) without compromising any proprietary info you want to keep for your inner circle.

And it all integrates with Linkedin (through our app) so you can keep your Linkedin professional connections in the loop know.

We welcome you to start building your real estate profile on Rofo, build more connections, and tagging the properties and markets that you know.

We have a long list of features we’ll be adding over the coming weeks. And, as always, welcome your feedback and suggestions.

Rofo, like many other companies, will fall into the trap of pitching new features and functions as the reason to join, subscribe, pay, register, etc.

We’ll promote things like:

>>seamless and exclusive listings integration with Linkedin

>>widgets that allow you to insert your listings on your website or blog

>>compete control and ownership of your data (you can even export it into excel with images, lat/long, etc, etc.

>>the most active marketplace of tenants

>>page views, impressions, unique visitors

>>augmented reality

>>really cool profiles that capture your knowledge and expertise like no other

And then you’ll get a call or email from a customer (in this case a commercial real estate broker) telling you about the quality connections they have made, the business they have closed, and the positive impact you’ve had on their business.

And you’re once again reminded of the number one reason.

This is our first blog post/product announcement for 2012. So a delayed Happy New Year to you all! Hopefully the commercial estate industry will continue to improve in 2012 and build from CRE momentum we saw in Q4 2011.

Rofo has introduced many improvements and changes to the site over the past few weeks. Most notably we improved the navigation and ease of search. Our original design allowed for basic search based on cities and states. That’s an easy way to organize commercial listings data but not really how users want to conduct a search. I may want to search by intersection, neighborhood, current address, landmark. Well, now you can. We also stuck the search bar in the header of the site so you can easily perform a new search from any landing page.

The second major upgrade has been to our search results pages. This is perhaps getting too detailed but now a search for 5500 Stewart Ave. in Fremont will take you to all of the other listings and tenant requirements nearby in Fremont.

Lastly, related to search, is a new option for agents and brokerage firms to promote their brand. We’re pleased to announce some recent work we completed with NAI Kilpatrick. All of their listings are branded and all of their brokers can display branded listings and updates on their Linkedin profiles. Linkedin usage by the commercial real estate industry has really taken off and we’ve seen a tremendous amount of interest and installations of our app (the app puts your listings on your Linkedin profile page).

We’re unveiling some other major upgrades this week and next which will greatly enhance how commercial real estate brokers can further promote their expertise and activity.

As always, we welcome and appreciate the feedback and ideas for improvement.

-Alan