Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Sold on wireless solutions

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 22:04:31 -0500

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Sold on wireless solutions

Source: Internet World

Publication date: 2002-11-01

Arrival time: 2002-11-19

The real estate industry has embraced wireless technology
allowing agents and deals to move quickly and more efficiently
through the value chain.

REAL ESTATE REMAINS ONE OF THE nation's most successful
industries, thanks largely to low mortgage rates that are still
encouraging homebuyers to part with their money in exchange for a
relatively safe investment. But real estate is also a highly
competitive business, and timeliness is critical if realtors want to
close sales. They need to receive offers as quickly as possible,
because a potential deal can easily fall apart if a buyer or seller
doesn't hear an answer fast enough.

The single-family housing industry is contributing to an overall
boom in the residential market. "Construction is at high levels, and
mortgage lenders are seeing business that they've never seen
before," says Andrew Wright, senior consultant with Reis, a New York
City-based research firm. "Mortgage rates are at 30-- year lows, and
people are rushing to make sure they get in on it while the getting
is good. Refinance interest is strong."

Mortgage providers, realtors, property management companies, and
construction businesses are taking advantage of technology to make
the process run more efficiently, and consumers shopping for homes
are turning to the Internet in record numbers. In a recent survey by
the National Association of Realtors, 41 percent of homebuyers said
they used the Internet to search for homes-the same percentage that
said they searched via newspaper ads.

At Countrywide Home Loans, based in Calabasas, Calif.,
salespeople (known as home loan consultants) need to find the
current mortgage rates for clients interested in loan products.
Countrywide is the nation's largest independent residential mortgage
lender, with a loan portfolio of more than $265 billion and revenue
topping $2.6 billion. The company has more than 500 branch offices
and 13,000 employees, including nearly 2,200 field salespeople.

Both salespeople and customers use the Countrywide Web site to
check the mortgage rates. Countrywide has also set up a mobile Web
site formatted for cell phones and other wireless devices. The site
provides that day's rates, a branch locator, affordability
estimator, home value calculator, and information on loan status and
insurance.

Home loan consultants and customers can access this application
from their mobile phones or run a special wireless application
designed for the Palm VII. Countrywide began rolling out its
wireless initiative around March 1999.

"We were one of the first companies that offered information via
wireless technology," says Doug Aguiar, senior vice president,
national sales and customer service. "We're constantly evolving the
wireless site and the types of information we push out to the
consumer."

Many of Countrywide's home loan consultants use Palm VII
handhelds, or other models such as the Palm III, V, or i7o5. Others
carry BlackBerry wireless handhelds from Research In Motion (RIM),
Handspring Visors, and Pocket PCs such as HewlettPackard's Compaq
iPaq. Aguiar estimates that approximately 30 to 40 percent of the
sales force use these devices, which they purchase for themselves.
In addition, he says 8o percent use Skytel pagers and all are
equipped with wireless Compaq laptops.

The Palm VII wireless application took less than five weeks to
build. Consultants enter a small amount of customer information and
the application connects to Countrywide's Web site. In a few
seconds, they can find out the loan amount that a customer can
qualify for, the monthly payment, principal, interest, estimated
taxes, and insurance.

The mortgage process includes up-front and back-- office
processes, such as performing credit checks. "The key to
qualification is making sure the credit is okay," says Aguiar. "We
run it through a point-ofsale system on the laptop and then it goes
to a processing center."

DOUG AGUIAR, senior VP, national sales and customer service for
Countrywide Home Loans.

Countrywide has no specific ROI figures, but Aguiar estimates
that the wireless tools have made Countrywide salespeople 30 to to
qo percent more productive. "It helps us service the customer, which
is the overriding principle," he says.

Appraising the Dwelling

Another mortgage source is the Department of Veterans Affairs
(VA), which provides government-- guaranteed home loans to veterans.
A crucial part of the process is reviewing the appraisal of a home
to assess its condition and verify that it fits the description.

The process was often inefficient. Appraisers would have to carry
a briefcase full of folders during their visits to groups of
properties. For each property, they would have to fill out a two-
page form by hand.

"They would make their notes on the papers and the appraisal form
itself," recalls Rob Reynolds, project manager for loan guarantee at
the VA. "Then after they made all the visits on their trip, they
would have to come back to the office and input that information
into the appraisal system." Re-keying the data often led to errors.

To help VA appraisers do their work more efficiently, LRW Digital
created a customized wireless application for the RIM BlackBerry
that enables workers to update the appraisal database wirelessly.
LRW created electronic forms that appraisers can fill out. A local
database on the BlackBerry stores the information until the form is
completed and a wireless signal is available, then transmits it
directly to the VA, so it doesn't have to be re-keyed later.

More than roo appraisers currently use the BlackBerry devices.
The VA began working on the system last July and it took just over a
year to implement. Reynolds hasn't calculated ROI for the project
yet, but he knows the wireless application reduces errors and
estimates it shaves between a couple of days to two weeks from the
process.

Realty in a Hurry

Real estate agents need to respond as soon as possible when a
buyer or seller has an urgent question, or the business can go to
another agent. At the RE/MAX Results office in Wayzata, Minn., the
husband-and-wife sales team of Bob and Mary Ritter keeps in close
touch with clients who are looking to buy or sell upscale lakeside
properties. There's a great deal of competition. RE/MAX Results has
nine offices in the Twin Cities metro area, and the Ritters' office
has between 25 to 30 agents. Only four are on the Ritter team.

A link on their Web site allows a client to send a direct message
to their RIM two-way pagers over the Motient wireless data network.
It uses technology from WhereToLive.com, a Minneapolis-based company
that hosts the Ritters' site and sells the RIM 850 and 857 devices
to about 1,000 agents. WhereToLive.com charges $40 a month for
wireless service, or $100 a month for a bundle of services that
includes a digital camera for conducting "virtual tours" online that
display photographs and videos of homes.

The Ritters show photos of the interior and exterior of the homes
they sell on their site. "We can get notified when somebody hits our
site or e-mails us and wants information," says sales executive Bob
Ritter. "They can telephone us, e-mail us directly, or e-mail our
regular address. For immediate response, it goes to the BlackBerry."
Ritter says his site attracts many more hits than his other sites
have in the past.

Ira Serkes, a certified residential specialist with RE/MAX Bay
Area in Berkeley, Calif, is wirelessly connected through a Motorola
i1000plus cell phone that can send e-mail over the Nextel network.
He also has a Palm device and a Handspring Treo 270 communicator
that runs on the Cingular network.

"I have programmed the inquiry form on my Web site so it goes to
my cell phone," says Serkes. He takes between 100 to 200 photos of
properties for his Web site and shows the buyers his comments and
ratings. He also runs private service sites where clients can find
listings that fit criteria for the properties and cities they're
interested in. Once a client is ready to buy a home, he or she can
download the contract in a PDF file, sign it, and fax it back.

TODD CLARKE, New Mexico Apartments

"Clients can reach me anywhere. I'm on 24 x 7. Wherever I am, an
e-mail will get forwarded from my ISP."

ANN BARTON, Barton Realty

"When I'm out in the field and somebody wants to know about a
home, I can click on my listings and pull up the information I
need."

Feedback for the Asking

Century 21 Real Estate is the largest franchisor in residential
real estate, with more than 6,600 independently owned and operated
broker offices and 110,000 sales professionals in more than 30
countries. A subsidiary of Cendant, which also owns Coldwell Banker,
the Parsippany N.J.-based company includes many franchisors who have
their own established identity. One example is Sussex & Reilly, a
Chicago-based firm that joined Century 21 late last year.

Quick responsiveness is important to the firm. One of the
problems agents experienced was with juggling the many showings they
had to schedule throughout the week. Century 21 Sussex & Reilly
hosts more than 350 showings and open houses per week, and sellers
couldn't always find out how well the showings went.

The firm previously scheduled the showings manually, using voice
mail and appointment books, but communication often broke down
between clients and agents. Agents at Sussex & Reilly now use Palm
VIIx handhelds for wireless e-mail and to schedule showings. HDU, a
Palm solutions provider, created a custom schedulin\g application
that sends e-mail messages about new appointments and opportunities
to agents' Palm devices.

"We have a function on our Web site where consumers can request a
showing after viewing a property on the Web site," says Sussex &
Reilly chief technology officer Steve Bohn. "The property showing
goes to a scheduler who dispatches an agent to meet with the client.
We developed a Palm Web dipping application that allows agents to
peruse the database and see what visits they have scheduled and
where they are. If they need to reserve time on a property, they can
do that wirelessly as well."

Agents also elicit buyer feedback during the walk-throughs and
use the wireless devices to send real-time evaluations of how well a
showing went. Sellers can check the Web site to see if the walk-
through was favorable, neutral, or unfavorable.

"We ask questions about price, finishings, and location, and if
they feel positive, negative, or neutral about them," says Bohn.
"That information gets posted back to the database and it's
available for other agents to see, as well as the seller."

Back-end servers running transactional software enable the sales
team and clients to exchange information. Microsoft Exchange Server
and Palm's ThinAir Secure Client support the collaborative
application.

"When we schedule an appointment with a client or buyer, it goes
through our scheduling desk," says sales associate Kenneth Dooley,
who has used the system for more than two years at Sussex & Reilly.
"It's sent via e-mail to us with the location, time, and who we are
meeting with. We can accept that appointment, or if there's a
conflict, we can decline it. The schedulers know our calendars and
will generally schedule an appointment that won't conflict. If
there's a situation where an agent can't make an appointment, that
appointment will be forwarded to another agent. We don't decline
showings. Because of the network of Palm Pilots, there's always
somebody to do them."

Calculating Realtors

Real estate price calculations can be complex, often requiring
the help of a computer. It's not always convenient to access a
laptop in the midst of a walk-through, so having the tools on a
handheld device makes the process faster. Ann Barton and her son
Lewis Barton, the proprietors of Barton Realty, in Orem, Utah, use
Palm V handhelds to perform these calculations. Their firm is part
of the @Home Realty Network, a group of realty firms in Utah.

They run the In-Hand Realty Tools Suite to calculate payments,
prices, closing costs, agent commissions, buy proceeds, and title
insurance rates. The Top Producer real estate application from Top
Producer Systems keeps track of their contacts and listings. They
also use In-Hand's Pocket APOD, which has tools such as cash flow
analysis for commercial realty agents.

"When I'm out in the field and somebody wants to know about a
home. I can dick on my listings and pull up the information I need,"
says Ann Barton. "It makes it very easy to help somebody know what
their costs will be on a house and whether they can afford it or
not. Rather than carry a day-timer around with a breakdown for each
home price, I enter the cost of the house, punch a button on my rate
sheet program, and it immediately calls up the appropriate title
insurance for the house."

She has used a Palm V for more than two years, and began running
the In-Hand tools last fall. She recently began using Pocket A-POD,
which is handy for clients who are buying properties for investment.
"I input the information about an apartment and it tells me in the
end if that's a good investment or not," explains Barton.

Performing the complex calculations needed to quickly satisfy
clients' questions is an important part of a realtor's job. Nancy
Warren, a realtor with Prudential California Realty in Mission
Viejo, Calif., has Pylin.com's RealtorEZ loaded on her Compaq iPaq
Pocket PC H3950. Prudential California Realty, a member of the
Prudential Real Estate Affiliates network, has more than 3,200 sales
associates in 127 offices, and more than $8 billion in sales volume.

RealtorEZ helps estimate closing costs, as well as accrued
interest and payments. "They can say, 'I want my payments to be
$2,000, and I have $15,000 to put down," Warren says. "I can tell
them how much of a loan they can get for that money."

Pictures in Their Pockets

Todd Clarke, a certified commercial investment member (CCIM) and
owner of New Mexico Apartments, in Albuquerque, has sold large
apartment buildings to investors for 14 years. He has a wireless
network installed at his home and office, and uses a Handspring Treo
270 communicator to send and receive e-mails, make phone calls, and
access the Internet. He also uses a Sony Vaio PictureBook laptop
with a wireless interface. Clarke has all of his e-mail messages
forwarded to his Treo, which helps when he travels to locales such
as China, Moscow, and Poland to teach seminars.

"Clients don't need to know where I'm located," says Clarke.
"They can call up the same mobile phone and reach me anywhere. I'm
on 24 x 7. Wherever I am, an e-mail will get forwarded from my ISP."

Clarke uses AvantGo to download real estate listings from his Web
site, including images of the apartments he is marketing, along with
maps. He can display them on the color screen of the Treo 270. "I've
got my Web site in there with all my listings," he says. "I can pull
up a picture and map and share it with my clients."

Clarke's wireless Vaio laptop is stocked with aerial photos of
New Mexico real estate, and a complete appraisal of properties.
"It's replaced the office full of files," he says. The Vaio includes
a wireless network card that Clarke uses at both his business and
home offices. Some of the companies he works with have Wi-Fi
networks inside their buildings, and Clarke sometimes logs on while
he's outside in the parking lot.

Kahleetah Girdner, who owns Income Property Services in
Albuquerque, also has a color Handspring Treo communicator, and runs
one of the businesses where Clarke connects to the wireless network.
Her firm manages condominium communities.

"I use the Treo frequently on site inspections to take notes,"
she says. "You can transfer the notes into a Word document for board
meetings. When I'm out, the staff e-mails me all my telephone
messages and they show up on my Treo, so I don't have to go back and
check what paper messages have come in."

The rest of her staff members have Handspring Visors. Using a
product called WeSync, an Internet-based calendar-sharing program,
Girdner keeps a copy of everyone's calendar on her Treo so she can
schedule their work for them. The next time they sync their Visors,
it dumps the schedule into their PDAs.

Girdner sometimes uses the Wi-Fi network at her office. "If I
don't have time to go into the office, I can pull up outside with my
laptop and jump right on," she says. "It makes it so much easier not
to deal with wires. You can go into a meeting and show them what
you're doing online or check e-mail during a meeting."

One of the communities that Income Property Services manages is
Towne Park Homeowners Association, also in Albuquerque. Two of its
workers use Handspring PDAs to read the water meters. "We read them
every month and input the information into a Visor," says office
administrator Patty Diltz. "We sync it into a program on our
computers that helps us calculate our water bills. Then it goes into
our billing software and the bills get mailed out to the property
owners."

Towne Park has used this system for about six months. "It's a big
job, but it's more efficient than carrying a clipboard with 20
sheets of paper," adds Diltz.

BRE Properties, a San Francisco-based property management
company, operates more than 80 communities throughout Arizona,
California, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, and Washington State. The
central office needs to communicate with its dispersed maintenance
workers efficiently and dispatch repair jobs while they're taking
care of the buildings. It decided to use Nextel mobile phones from
Motorola with Corrigo's CorrigoNet system to send service requests.

"It keeps people out in the field so they don't have to come in
and pick up the typewritten work orders," says Tyler Lenz Kemmer,
vice president of ancillary services at BRE. "The residents don't
have to call our leasing office. They can reach a call center that
is totally automated and sends a work order to the Nextel device, or
they can log on to the Internet and send their request to the Nextel
device."

Approximately 300 people at BRE use the Nextel phones. The
Corrigo system allows BRE administrators to track what types of work
orders are coming in and what maintenance is being done. "It gives
you a boost in budgeting and helps arrange manpower a little more
efficiently," says Kemmer.

PC to Phone

ERealty, founded in 1997, provides a team of local real estate
professionals who use Internet tools and technology to save time for
clients. When agents are sent an appointment, they receive a
wireless e-mail message via Sprint PCS with the client's name, phone
number, and appointment time. The message interfaces with eRealty's
back-end client management system.

All 14 agents in the Dallas-Ft. Worth office use Palm OS-based
Kyocera Smartphones that operate over the Sprint PCS network."When
clients log on to our Web site to make viewing requests to see
property, our client coordinators will call them," explains Sonja
West, eRealty market director in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. "They
will then send out those appointment requests via the Smartphones to
agents. They'll know if it's a new client or an existing client.
When we get offers on properties or are waiting for executed
contracts, it e-mails those contracts or offers so there's no time
lag in getting those presented to our clients. They're notified that
they need to log on someplace there's a printer and print them out."

The Smartphones expedite the way e\Realty can do business.
"Notifications are faster, and document handling is a lot more
efficient," says West. "Real estate has always been an industry
where time is of the essence."

Wireless technologies are helping real estate businesses cope
with client communications and make sure property gets sold quickly
and maintained efficiently. In this fast-moving industry, agents,
sellers, buyers, and lenders need to stay in close touch.

CONTACT

01 Communique; Mississauga, Ont.; 905-795-2888; www.01com.com

AvantGo; Hayward, Calif.; 510-259-4000; www.avantgo.com

Corrigo; Redwood City, Calif.; 650-306-1419; www.corrigo.com

Handspring; Mountain View, Calif.; 650-230-5000;
www.handspring.com;

In-Hand; Orem, Utah;

Commercial Real Estate Goes Wireless Too

The commercial real estate industry is also making wireless
technology pay off.

Jay R. Lucas, of Harry B. Lucas Co., a commercial real estate
firm based in Dallas, Texas, uses the Handspring Treo 300 with
service from Sprint PCS. "When I'm out and about, I can have
messages forwarded to me, and my important clients have access to
this e-mail address."

Terry LeGrice, owner of LeGrice Real Estate Service, a six-
person industrial commercial real estate investment firm in Markham,
Ontario, enjoys remote access to his PC from his Motorola cell phone
over the Rogers AT&T wireless network. The 47-year-old real estate
agent uses I'm InTouch from 01 Communique, which costs him $120 per
year.

"I'm able to access my e-mails, and in our business, half your
communication is done via e-mail," says LeGrice. He can also
remotely control his desktop computer from another computer over the
Internet. Oxford Properties, a property management company based in
Toronto, Ontario, employs 600 RIM BlackBerry wireless handhelds to
manage service and maintenance for its tenants in office buildings
across Canada. Oxford used to depend upon cell phones to send
service requests to its staff. Since Oxford began using BlackBerry
devices, it has improved response time and reduced calL-center
costs.

"We have maintenance staff on site that respond to these requests
throughout the day," explains Stephen Smith, vice president of
business applications at Oxford. "Any of the occupants in our
buildings can call our national call center. We Log the requests and
they get dispatched to our mobile work force, who are on our
properties across the country."

Maintenance workers answer the message with status indicators
that show when they receive the work order, when they start the
work, and when they complete the job. Tenants can check the status
over the Web.

Since automating the system, Oxford was able to reduce its call
center staff from 31 people to 18, saving the company approximately
half a million Canadian dollars a year. On the other hand, Oxford
had to invest extra money to boost the wireless signals in about 25
of its buildings. That cost approximately $22,000 per building.

Jay R. Lucas, Harry B. Lucas Co.

801-859-2507; www.in-hand.com

LRW Digital; Glen Burnie, Md.; 410-766-5500; www.lrwdigitat.com

Palm; Milpitas, Calif.; 408-503-7000; www.palm.com

Research In Motion; Waterloo, Ont.; 519-888-7465; www.rim.net

Selected Wireless Products

Audiovox

Hauppauge, N.Y.; 800-229-1235; www.audiovox.com; Them PDA2032

Danger

Palo Alto, Calif.: 650-289-5000; www danger.coram; Hiptop

Hewlett-Packard

Palo Alto, Calif.: 800-282-6672;

www.thenewhp.com; Compaq iPaq H3950

Itronix

Spokane, Wash.; 509-624-6600; www.itronix.com; itronix com;
Itronix fex21

Kyocera Wireless

San Diego, Calif.; 800 349-4188; www.kyocera-wireless.com;
Kyocera 7135 Smartphone

Motient

Reston, Va.; 703-758-6000; www.motient.com; MobileModem

Motorola

Schaumburg. Ill.; 800-331-6456; www.motorola.com; Motorola T720

Nextel

Reston, Va.; 800-639-8359; www.nextel.com; Nextel i1000plus

Nokia Americas

Irving, Texas; 800-547-9810; www.nokia.com; Nokia 9290
Communicator

Novatel Wireless

San Diego, Calif.; 858-320-8800; www.novatelwireless.com: Merlin
G201

Samsung Telecommunications

Richardson, Texas; 972-761-7000; www.samsungelectronics.com;
Samsung SPH-1300

Sierra Wireless

Richmond, B.C.; 604-231-1100; www.sierrawireless.com; AirCard 550

Sony Corp.

New York, N.Y.; 888-595-8246; www.sonystyle.com; Vaio PictureBook

Symbol Technology

Holtsville, N.Y.; 800-722-6234; www.symbol.com; SPT 1800

Toshiba America

Irvine, Calif.; 949-583-3000; www.toshiba.com; Toshiba 2032

Senior editor Michael Cohn can be reached at [email-masked].

Copyright Penton Media, Inc. Nov 2002

Publication date: 2002-11-01

© 2002, YellowBrix, Inc.

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