We’re excited to announce our expanded relationship with Regus. The following press release was issued earlier today. This gives our business audience the ability to find even more office space listing content on Rofo.com and Linkedin.

ROFO ADDS REGUS CONTENT TO ITS REAL ESTATE PRO APP ON LINKEDIN
Businesses Benefit More than Ever by Using First & Only Real Estate App on LinkedIn

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, December 14, 2010 — Regus, the world’s largest provider of innovative workplace solutions, and Rofo, a leading real estate technology company, today announced a newly formed relationship that will extend Regus’ extensive, nationwide business center listings to Rofo’s new Real Estate Pro application on LinkedIn.

Launched in July, Real Estate Pro is the first and only real estate application on LinkedIn. It’s a free app that provides for residential and commercial listings on the network – for the first time.

Regus, the world’s largest provider of workspace solutions, will dramatically increase the number of fully equipped offices, professional meeting rooms and business lounges available for users of Real Estate Pro to consider.

“We’re extremely pleased to establish this strategic relationship with Rofo. Adding our locations listings to Rofo’s Real Estate Pro is a great complement to the strong presence that we already have on LinkedIn,” said Rebecca Tann, vice president of marketing for Regus. “We’re continually looking for innovative ways to make finding office and meeting room space a simple process. Now individuals and companies can tap into LinkedIn to quickly find out about Regus office space availability in their local markets.”

In addition to being available on Real Estate Pro, Regus’ content will also appear on Rofo’s real estate and office space search engine found at www.rofo.com, and on the company’s augmented reality app.

“We are honored to work with an industry giant like Regus,” said Alan Bernier, chief executive officer of Rofo. “We know that professionals in today’s tough economy are seeking creative alternatives when it comes to office space, so Regus’ robust listings will be extremely beneficial to a great deal of our users.”

Real Estate Pro is an extremely easy-to-use, yet sophisticated social media tool for real estate professionals, entrepreneurs and small businesses, as well as residential buyers.

Help for Businesses Seeking More Affordable Office Space
As the economy remains tough, securing a more affordable option to leasing traditional office space is one way to improve the bottom-line. Business owners looking for space have the ability to identify commercial real estate professionals in their market, browse market activity and available properties by zip code or region. They can keep track of new listings, pricing and transactions in order to help negotiate a lease with confidence or discover a better deal for their changing needs.

Social functions promote a better user experience, whether one opts to use the ‘share’ feature to inform a connection about a hot property or check for client recommendations on an agent or broker.

Click here to download or learn more about Real Estate Pro on LinkedIn.

Once you’ve found an office space for your business, it is important to address insurance requirements. Below are some tips I pulled together to help you identify your business insurance needs.

As you begin discussing a lease ask your landlord early on what types of insurance coverage are required. A lease will often have specific language spelling out the amount of General Liability coverage needed. There may be a specific requirement to name the landlord directly on the insurance policy. In addition, a landlord may also ask to see a certificate of Workmen’s Compensation insurance, which is required by law.

Once you know the requirements of your lease, contact an insurance provider (if you need help we recommend NetQuote.com) and be prepared to provide key information including:

• A description of your business and the number of years in business
• The reason for insurance (provisions in your lease)
• Information about your new building (address, year it was built, number of floors, etc.)
• A list of your business equipment, inventory and furnishings with estimated values

You should also take the time to review other insurance options including, an Errors and Omissions policy. This type of policy protects your business in the event that a client holds you responsible for a mistake, or failure to perform a service as promised in a contract.

Drop us a line if you have any questions or want even more specific advice.

We rolled out a new look and highlighted new features today for our commercial real estate listing pages. When we’re considering product updates/redesign we usually do five things:

1- Listen to our users
2- Think about the features we want (since we do eat our own dogfood so to speak)
3- Look at related industries and see who has just nailed it as far as usability
4- Use other websites in our space and see what isn’t working (I’m not naming names)
5- Listen to our users some more

The image shows a couple of changes (click here or on the image to see more details).

Here’s a quick rundown on the changes and why we did it:

1- Feature the map and reviews from Yelp: our old listing pages featured the interior/building photo of the office space. The problem is that a large percentage of listings do not have photos. So we decided to feature something in this space that we can always deliver (a map, a street view of the building, and reviews from Yelp about nearby amenities that are important to a business).

2- Reviews: we had this feature before but it was buried. It’s now more prominently featured because the users who could find it before really liked it. Keep your eye out for another upcoming product announcement related to office space/building reviews – we like this feature a lot and plan to do a lot more with it.

3- Similar listings: we finally rolled out the original Amazon concept of “people who viewed this also liked this”. We’ve been talking about this feature since the beginning. Really glad we finally got to it. We have some more ideas around this including the ability to see the most popular spaces/buildings based on company type.

Stay tuned for some more announcements relating to the product as well as some big partnership announcements. And keep sending us your feedback (positive and negative welcome).

Andrew Bermudez of Lee & Associates in Irvine, CA, shares his thoughts on using social media for business. As a specialist in the lease and sale of office and commercial properties throughout Orange County, Andrew often uses his knowledge of this marketplace to drive new business.

What are your thoughts on using social media for business?

Social media is important, because it enhances word of mouth. I get multiple referrals from my personal Facebook page, where I am connected to clients, friends, vendors and other CRE pros.

How are you using social media to market your services?

We use a blog, www.finditfillit.com. We get some pretty good feedback on the articles that we publish to our blog. They are relevant posts related to the current state of the CRE market, trends and insights on how to negotiate the best deals or find the best market opportunities.

I use twitter to inform my followers of interesting articles related to commercial real estate. I also inform them of great buildings for lease or sale. I develop relationships with my followers, by having real-life conversations.

Any insights you can share on using the Real Estate Pro application on LinkedIn?

It’s a great tool to streamline my CRE activities, whether it’s leasing out a building, selling a property, or listing a new CRE opportunity.

What websites or social networking platforms do you visit to get the latest CRE news?

Mashable.com is a great site

I also have many friends who are social media pros, like Mirna Bard (http://www.mirnabard.com/blog/)

LinkedIn groups are a great way to share thoughts or get information on commercial real estate topics from other CRE pros or users

We recently asked, Mike Cobb of Colliers International to discuss how he uses social media to expand his presence online.

As an expert in the lease and sale of office, industrial and R&D properties in the San Francisco Peninsula, Mike also shares his thoughts on the outlook of the commercial real estate market in 2011.

How do you use social media to market your services online?

Social media is a great tool for strengthening my brand. I am an established expert within my local market (the SF Peninsula). With the various integrated social media tools that I am using (Twitter, LinkedIn, My Blog), I am able to provide news and, more importantly, commentary on topics that will interest a local audience. I can also deploy my market reports to an audience well beyond my mailing list.

Any insights you can share on using the Real Estate Pro application on LinkedIn?

If someone wants to check up on my professional credentials, they are almost certainly going to go to my LinkedIn profile first—that’s what I do! Having the ability to feature properties that I represent right on my profile page is a great tool.

What social networking platforms do you visit to get the latest news?

Twitter has become a key source of information…I pick the people that I ‘follow’ to cover a wide variety of my professional interests—big-picture market news, Green buildings, local information, maybe a little Cal sports mixed in, too…

What exciting deals have you recently closed?

Well, I recently closed what I believe to be the biggest industrial deal on the Peninsula this year (90,000 sqft in South San Francisco at an AMB-owned property), and I also just handled a 30,000 sqft expansion and renewal in a long-term client’s building in San Carlos. 

What I’m most proud of, though, is the fact that we have recently reached 100% occupancy in the office portion of the Town and Country Village center in Palo Alto. We managed to keep attracting tenants to this project—at very strong rents—even at the worst of this market cycle. I attribute our success to a strong, collaborative relationship with the client, an exceptionally well thought out renovation of the project, and a great marketing team.

What are your thoughts on the outlook of the commercial real estate market in 2011?

I think that it will be an interesting year. Right now, we have this ridiculously bifurcated local market. In the core downtown locations up and down the SF Peninsula, rents are actually higher now than they were before the wheels fell off the financial markets. At the same time, lease rates for the broader markets are just bouncing along the bottom. I don’t think that the growing gap between rents in the top markets and the broader averages is sustainable, and I don’t see Class A office rents going down, either. I expect to see multi-tenant office rents to start tracking up over the next few quarters. I don’t see similar movement coming for big floor plate R&D buildings, though, for at least 18 months—in fact, that submarket may well degrade a bit more.

Allen Buchanan is a commercial real estate professional specializing in the Orange County industrial market. As a Principal at Lee & Associates, Allen is always exploring new and innovative uses of social media, including ways to: enhance current business relationships, grow his professional network and share his business knowledge online.

How are you using social media to market your services?

I blog on a daily basis through http://www.allencbuchanan.blogspot.com. I experiment with different content based upon my experiences, contacts, companies that I have represented, etc.

Once the blog posts, I then tweet it which posts to LinkedIn. I then share the blog to groups [on LinkedIn] that I believe would benefit from the content. My blog posts automatically are shared with Facebook. My blog is hyperlinked to Postlets for my listing inventory, my company website and contains links to Facebook and Twitter.

I use past blog posts to introduce clients to one another and/or to market their businesses.

Do you have any creative ways you prospect online?

LinkedIn Groups, birthday cards from Plaxo

Any early insights you can share on using the new Real Estate Pro application on LinkedIn?

I like the ability to post listings and done deals on my LinkedIn profile, so that a user can view them.

What blogs or websites do you check daily?

Coy Davidson, Duke Long, OCBJ, and Orange County Register

What deals have you closed in the last 3 months?

#1- Sale of a property in April that took me 6.5 years to close
#2- I helped relocate a sunscreen manufacturer and saved him $40,000 per month in rent

What’s the most interesting property request you’ve received?

A buyer that buys and sells traffic from adult websites

Why do your customers enjoy working with you?

I am a business owner just like they are and promote myself accordingly. I provide advice…not just transactional help.

We’ve continue to accumulate a lot of good product feedback/ideas and, today, we’re pleased to introduce our new and improved search page. A lot of the changes are subtle but significant. We had a few goals/requirements with this update:

1) simplify the design: we eliminated some under utilized features
2) better highlight key search filters: these are the most important criteria for a business searching for space
3) improve results: the search is now blazing fast and we show the most recently added/updated content FIRST.

Here’s a screen shot for Phoenix office space for rent that highlights the changes:

The ability to do a radius search from your home address and/or current office space was somewhat of a hidden feature before. We’ve now added it as a key search filter.

We’re adding some great new features in the coming weeks which we’ll be announcing. As always, keep sending us your product feedback and thanks for using Rofo.

Alan

Tracey Johnson from Norris & Stevens Inc. discusses how she markets her services and CRE experience online. 

How are you using social media to market your services?

I have a website- www.pdxbrokerscommercialinsights.com that I incorporate with all the social media I use: Twitter (PDXComBroker), LinkedIn, Facebook, and my blog which like the website is also titled “PDX Broker’s Commercial Insights“.

How have you marketed your service online? What’s working and what isn’t?

I market myself all over the web and I am constantly trying new websites and advertising platforms. In addition to my website, some parts of the web that I market on more frequently than others are Craigslist, Twitter and Postlets.

I also write as a community blogger for an online news magazine called The Portlander (www.theportlander.com). I find I get a lot of extra traffic to my website every time a new article I have written is posted to The Portlander website.

While some platforms target the audience I am seeking more so than others, all have their differing levels of success. The only things that I feel aren’t working for me are typically the older, non-web based newspaper advertisements.

Any early insights you can share on using the new Real Estate Pro application on LinkedIn?

I feel that it is a great addition to my LinkedIn profile. Not only does it keep my contacts on LinkedIn up to date on my most recent deals and listings, but I can select certain people to send targeted property information to, as well as share trends in the current Portland CRE marketplace.

Why do your customers love you?

From the letters of rec I have received the main reasons I get for why my customers appreciated my work was a) they could reach me at any time and never felt I was ignoring them b) I was never too busy to explain the leasing or sales process to a client, despite how many times I may have already explained the topic to them c) I was very personable, attentive, and upfront with what was needed from them at what time, and what the next step was.

Justin Carlucci from Sperry Van Ness in Seattle discusses business, social media marketing and how to get a new brokerage business launched!
 
How is your new team, Jansen Commercial doing?

We are very excited about the team and how quickly we have gotten off the ground.  Already we have over a dozen deals under contract in both sales and leasing, as well as in King and Snohomish Counties and including nearly every asset class.

What is the toughest property request you have received?

I was recently working for a medical marijuana collective that was involved in providing information to individuals who have been prescribed medical marijuana. Finding a space for this type of user is an extremely delicate situation since many people have strong stances for or against the use of Marijuana in general.

What blogs or websites do you check daily?

www.JansenCommercialTeam.com
www.commercialmls.com
www.svn.com
www.globest.com

How are you using social media to build a presence online and market your services?

I have a personal Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook account, as well as a Twitter account for my Team (Jansen Commercial Team).  These accounts are linked to our Coast|Sperry Van Ness/Jansen Commercial Team Blog and notifications are sent out to each social media account when something new is posted on the blog.

Do you currently have the Real Estate Pro application on your LinkedIn profile? What is your LinkedIn profile address?

Yes, http://www.linkedin.com/pub/justin-carlucci/5/857/958

Any early insights you can share on using the new Real Estate Pro application on LinkedIn?

Have the Rofo team help you to set it up.  From there Real Estate Pro does the rest of the work for you!

What good deed have you done in the past three months?

I paid for a mentally challenged man’s breakfast on Saturday morning when I was out to eat.  He was sitting and eating alone and looked like he could really use the help.

Coy Davidson from Colliers International gives us a few tips on how he uses Real Estate Pro to market his available listings on LinkedIn and keep tabs on professionals in his market.

In addition to adding your listings on LinkedIn using Real Estate Pro, you can feature up to two listing on your LinkedIn profile. Each time Coy feature’s a new listing on his profile, a LinkedIn network update is generated, announcing the new listing to his connections. There are other “social features” to the app as well, such as sharing a listing with up to 50 of your LinkedIn connections.

The app, he says, “…acts as a broker’s professional activity dashboard, populated with real-time property listings, recently closed deals, market data – directly from within a LinkedIn user’s profile page.” Making it easy for Coy to see what professionals in his market are working on.

The application also benefits Coy’s customers and connections, using Real Estate Pro, Coy’s connections can easily stay in touch with his market activity in Houston.

To learn more about the app and its features watch this short video.