Real estate agents' best friend

Software replacing multiple listing books

6/6/04

NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Help is at hand for real estate agents who for years have had to grapple with telephone directory-sized books of multiple listings -- or run back and forth to their offices -- in their efforts to show home buyers what's out there on the market.

Now, thanks to a Santa Barbara software startup, all that information and a whole lot more is instantly accessible at the push of a button, anywhere, anytime.

Sam McKinney and Denny Bollay are the business partners behind MicroMLS, which enables details of thousands of properties, complete with color photographs, to be readily retrieved on a personal digital assistant.

The handy little devices, easily slipped into a pocket or purse, can contain six months of active, pending and closed listings, along with contact details for agents and other valuable information.

The software costs $129, and for a monthly fee of $19, agents can download updates as often as they like and search through the data with a user-friendly interface that follows prompts such as price, area and number of bedrooms.

"We've proved it works in Santa Barbara," said Mr. McKinney, explaining how a dozen local real estate professionals spent seven months last year test-driving the new system. "The response locally exceeded our wildest expectations.

"We got a lot of useful feedback, did some fine-tuning and added a few extra features," he said. In late January, the system was offered to all members of the Santa Barbara Association of Realtors.

In those early days, the sudden demand for PDAs quickly drained the available stock in Santa Barbara. Mr. McKinney ended up driving to Los Angeles to round up extra supplies.

To date about 200 local agents are using them. That's encouraged MicroMLS to seek $1 million in funding to roll out the system through California, which has more than 300,000 real estate licensees, and beyond that to the more than 1 million agents nationwide.

Mr. McKinney said nobody has yet called to say they are confused or cannot operate the new devices. "They are designed to be as intuitive as possible," he said. "Even nontechnical people can easily work them."

Zena Drewisch, co-manager of the Santa Barbara office of Village Properties on Calle Real, readily puts herself in the "nontechnical" category and confirms she hasn't had any problems. Last year, as executive vice president of the Association of Realtors, she was among those asked to test the new device.

"I was pretty skeptical at first, but as soon as I saw what it could do, then I knew Realtors would be very interested," she said. "The PDA is one more convenience, one more tool for agents to use."

She said the immediacy and compact size are big advantages over the listing books, which, because they are published only every two weeks, may already be outdated "the minute they're printed."

Bob Hart of Century 21 A. Hart Realty has no doubt about the future of the PDA system. "It's a fantastic device, and there's really nothing else that comes close to it on the market," he said.

Mr. Hart, chairman of the California Association of Realtors' MLS/business technology committee, said when he travels to meetings or conferences elsewhere and shows the device, other agents' first question always is: "How can I get one?"

He said listing books, which can run to around 300 pages, have disappeared in most places outside Santa Barbara, leaving agents to juggle listings at their office computers and perhaps with the help of laptops.

Mr. McKinney, a software engineer for about 20 years, said he began exploring the potential of increasingly affordable PDAs, and looking at professionals who need data but not necessarily while at their desks.

"Real estate was the ideal field," he said. "Agents are constantly on the move, and they are great consumers of data. The multimedia aspect, the data and the pictures, is a dynamic combination."

RAFAEL MALDONADO / NEWS-PRESS PHOTO

Zena Drewisch, co-manager of the Santa Barbara office of Village Properties, says she was skeptical at first but soon realized the benefits of the hand-held computer over the traditional directory of property listings.

The PDA displays color photographs, along with all the relevant information, for thousands of listed properties.