World Business Chicago, the economic development department for the city, unveiled a new app called Site Selector this week. The site mashes up real estate listings with other city specific data to help businesses navigate the beginning stages of their location search. We’re always very excited to get involved in innovative projects like these and feel fortunate that we connected early on with their team. Please go a check out the site and tell your city’s economic development department to have a look and get inspired.

You can read more articles about it in our news section.

Today we announced a new partnership with ABCN and are really excited about the value it will add to our platform. The press release appears below but I also want to explain what it all really means for our users.

Choice: ABCN has a global network of members. Their members offer flexible office space solutions for entrepreneurs, small teams, and small businesses. They have such a large member base, chances are there’s a location in your market.

Flexibility: They also offer part time offices where you can rent space based on limited use (this is often referred to as a virtual office). This is great for the business that may have a distributed team that only needs to meet a few times per month, etc.

Service: When you contact ABCN through Rofo they can present you with a variety of solutions from their members. A much better experience than contacting each office one by one.

Here’s the full release:

ABCN and ROFO Partnership Will Boost Services to Mobile Clients

The Global Business Center Network and Leading Real Estate Technology Company
Establish New Relationship, Maximizing Value to Customers

September 2011 (Irvine, CA): Alliance Business Centers Network and Rofo are joining forces in hopes that their combined resources and strengths will improve how each company services its target customers. The announced partnership between the two companies will bring a range of office space, virtual office and technology solutions to small business entrepreneurs and mobile professionals worldwide.

“We are delighted at this ability to work so closely with the team at Rofo to bring significant benefits to Alliance Network members and to our clients,” remarked Frank Cottle, Chairman of ABCN and Alliance Virtual Offices. “We are also actively planning a number of other projects with Rofo and look forward to these future opportunities to better service the market.”

Through the new relationship with Rofo, Alliance will continue its expansion into new markets and improve its ability to serve its current membership. The partnership will position Alliance members to gain additional exposure for their business centers and related service offerings on Rofo’s award-winning platform which includes, Real Estate Pro, the company’s one-of-kind application for Linkedin. For the thousands of businesses and entrepreneurs using Rofo to solve their office space location needs, the partnership with Alliance means more choices, access to a dynamic global network and flexible virtual and serviced office space solutions.

“We’re honored to be working with Alliance in creating unique value-added solutions for our customer base and visitors,” stated Alan Bernier, CEO of Rofo. “Finding the right location for one’s business is a critical and often long-lasting decision. During a challenging business climate when reliable solutions are needed most, Alliance’s global network of office space solutions will provide for greater flexibility and choice for Rofo customers. We are very optimistic about our current projects together and look forward to finding new ways we can create value in the future.”

About Alliance Business Centers Network
Alliance Business Centers Network is a global leading provider of executive suites, fully serviced offices and meeting rooms. Also, through Alliance Virtual Offices, it offers a range of virtual office services to small businesses, entrepreneurs and mobile professionals. The worldwide business center network is represented with more than 600 locations in over 40 countries.

About Rofo
Founded in 2007 and based in San Francisco, CA, Rofo is a leading real estate technology company. Its flagship product, Rofo, is a real estate and office space search engine, (www.rofo.com). The privately-held company displays listings from local landlords, regional and national brokerage firms, such as Cushman & Wakefield, and institutional landlords such as Hines. With its application, Real Estate Pro, the company is the first and only real estate app on LinkedIn and it launched the first-ever U.S. commercial real estate augmented reality app for iPhone and Android devices. To learn more about Rofo, visit www.rofo.com.

Rofo was selected by the city of San Francisco as a partner to help promote the up and coming Central Market neighborhood. This neighborhood has received a lot of press attention recently with high profile tenants like Twitter, Burning Man, and most recently Zendesk signing significant leases as part of a broader initiative to improvement the district.

The city approached Rofo about collaborating to help promote additional business relocation to Central Market. We were naturally excited to participate as a civic partner. We had also recently launched a customizable listings widget to power any website. The city was able to cut and paste a line of code and easily add available properties to their new neighborhood website.

The city then approached local landlords and brokers with vacant office spaces, warehouse spaces and retail spaces and who were interested in further promotion and exposure of their buildings. The effort seems to be paying off with nearly a dozen inquiries within 30 days of the launch.

We look forward to rolling out and announcing some similar programs with other cities and economic development groups in the weeks ahead.

A couple of weeks ago we wrote a post about nearing 200,000 total office space listings. This morning we hit listing number 207,864 – a retail space for lease in Manistee, Michigan.

Despite the recent slide and uncertainty with the US economy we’re still seeing positive signals from both the supply and demand side of commercial real estate. We’ll focus on some the positive key indicators we’re seeing in a subsequent post.

The countdown to 200,000 listings added to Rofo is officially on. Not really sure what we’ll do when we hit the milestone and we welcome any ideas. As for now, the plan is to pull a Jeter: hug it out for a moment and then get back to work.

We’re particularly proud of this mark because these listings are home grown and naturally fed. We have great partners, customers and users who have decided that Rofo is where they want their listings. Building the number one platform for businesses on the move is our way of saying thanks (as well as the tens of thousands of qualified tenant tours).

Listing 195,260 was added by our new friends Mack Cali – a 167,000 square foot headquarters building in Greenbelt, MD. Welcome to Rofo and we’ll do our best to promote it!

We’re coming up on a year since Rofo launched Real Estate Pro for the LinkedIn platform. We’ve seen tremendous use and adoption of an app that, at the time of launch, was completely new and different. Many sources told us, and I quote, “brokers and agents aren’t engaged with their listings online and they’re not on LinkedIn.”

Fortunately, we’re seeing something quite different – brokers engaged with their data and real estate professionals recognizing the importance of LinkedIn in the development of their business. I’m connected to a few brokers on LinkedIn and, throughout the week, I’ll see listing updates and deal announcements generated through the app. Its an easy way to generate updates and to stay top of mind with your trusted connections.

Suite 110 at 950 South Coast Drive in Costa Mesa is available for lease. This 751 square foot office space features a reception area and two private offices.

This Costa Mesa office space is located in a Class A office building. The Metro Point building offers tenants access to numerous onsite amenities, including: banking, restaurants and shopping. Metro Point also offers convenient access to the 405, 73 and 55 freeways.

To request more information about this space, click here.

A communications firm is looking to sublease two private offices in this class A building. The available Stamford office spaces are great for 1-3 people and range from 100-200 square feet.

Located in downtown Stamford, this office building features: access to internet, WiFi and phone system, free shuttle to the Stamford Transportation Center, designer furniture, 24/7 building access, an on-site gym and much more.

Click here to request more information about the available office spaces at 750 E Main Street in Stamford.

The Jay Suites at Penn Station currently offer 400 and 500 square foot offices for lease. Located at 1370 Broadway, this New York office space borders Manhattan’s Times Square South as well as the Garment District.

The Jay Suites at Penn Station offer tenants:

• Friendly receptionist services, to greet clients, answer phone calls, and do your administrative work.
• First-class, luxuriously furnished offices with desks, chairs and filing space.
• Access to two conference rooms, equipped with ergonomic chairs, frosted glass meeting tables, video and teleconferencing.

Click here to request more information about the available office spaces at 1370 Broadway in New York.

Businesses looking for office, industrial or retail space online often use Rofo.com to begin their search for space. With hundreds of listings to choose from, it’s important that your listing stands out amongst the crowd.

In our experience, we have found that detailed listings receive more inquires from businesses searching for space, than those listings with minimal information. Below are some tips to help you optimize your commercial real estate listing on Rofo and drive more leads.

Optimizing Your Listing

1. Write a catchy listing title
   • Catchy listing titles help draw attention to your listing. Keywords tenants often look for in a listing title include: special pricing (1st Month Free), lease terms (Month to Month), location descriptions (Hwy 101 Access), unique uses (Lab Space with Hood).
2. Include pricing information
   • Tenants make decisions based on their budget; pricing is one of the main qualifiers a tenant uses when reviewing a space.
3. Provide a detailed space description
   • Turn searchers into prospects with detailed property descriptions. Detailed descriptions make it easier for tenant to decide if your space is a good fit for their needs. Here are some suggestions of what to include in your listing description: specific details about the unit (number of private offices, conference room access, dock door availability, yard space), information about the property (24/hour access, security, management onsite, parking, nearby amenities, major freeways).



4. Include photos and video of the space
   • Photos give tenants a quick idea of what the space looks like. Adding internal and external photos to your listing will improve the number and quality of inquiries you receive. Using your digital camera take some quick shots of the available unit and the building.
   • Videos are another great way to market your available space. Videos offer a quick snapshot of the available space and tenants like the idea of a virtual tour. Simply create a short video using your digital camera. Post the video to YouTube and add the link to your listing on Rofo. Your video will automatically appear on the listing detail page. To see examples of listings on Rofo with videos, click here.