Commercial realtors list in Catylist database

Commercial realtors list in Catylist database

The online multiple listing service of the Commercial Alliance of Realtors West Michigan features thousands of properties. Photo via carwm.com

There’s a new online database of commercial real estate in West Michigan.

As intended and promised, the Commercial Alliance of Realtors West Michigan has found a new technology provider for its multiple listing service.

CAR President John Francis told the Business Journal in early August the organization was looking for a new company to operate, maintain and expand its online MLS.

Catylist

Francis said then that CAR was leaning toward bringing Catylist, an Ann Arbor firm, aboard, and that’s exactly what the organization has done.

“Catylist has a tremendous amount of experience in the MLS type of technology platform,” said Francis, also an associate broker at Prime Development.

The 400 realtors that belong to CAR took their first look at the new service, at carwm.com, this month.

CAR operates one of only six commercial multiple listing services in the nation.

The service’s monthly subscription fee is $38, and Francis said the charge wouldn’t go up now that Catylist is the provider.

Francis also said Catylist, founded in 2001, is the nation’s leading provider of this service.

“CAR supports one of the most cooperative commercial brokerage communities in the country and is committed to providing a first-class commercial MLS service that directly benefits its members and puts them in control of their valuable data,” said Richard Maxson, senior VP of sales and marketing for Catylist.

The listing platform

CAR said its members will receive a full-featured marketing system, with the ability to simultaneously market properties on more than 40 websites.

They’ll also be able to promote their expertise, create marketing presentations, communicate with other industry professionals and access integrated marketing tools in the “members-only” section of the website.

Real estate data

The vendor for the CAR MLS had been eProperty Data, but the firm merged with Xceligent last year.

Francis said he believed Xceligent was more focused in acquiring and selling commercial real estate data and competing with the CoStar Group, which recently entered the West Michigan market, than being a technology provider.

So Francis and the CAR board felt a change needed to be made.

“Their technology platform is not necessarily geared toward a MLS platform, where there is a compensation piece to it,” said Francis of eProperty Data.