Filling the technological void in New York real estate

Agorafy is an open platform for aggregating and disseminating real estate data in New York. The site launched this past year and offers high volume exposure for marketing commercial listings and access to accurate property data. It's upon this platform that Agorafy is pushing to fill voids within the commercial real estate community. Earlier this year Agorafy launched the Professional Profile looking to bridge the gap between different disciplines within the real estate community and help professionals make connections and build relationships. The bedrock of these connections will be tremendous amounts of accurate data which maximizes transparency and greases the wheels of the deal making process. Q: The trend toward Big Data has been building in within commercial real estate for some time, what changes are on the horizon for commercial real estate and where do you see Agorafy fitting into the shifting paradigm? A: Access to large amounts of listings data has been available in the residential market for quite some time, and beyond increased exposure for individual listings brokers have realized that more informed customers and clients can actually aid in the deal making process. This shift will be even more dramatic in commercial real estate as brokers and property owners have traditionally been the only participants who are well informed in the marketplace, and have actively resisted the flow of information. Agorafy is working to increase transparency by building an open platform where by marketing their listings with published asking prices, brokers and property owners gain tremendous exposure to all market participants and save time not having to educate and screen uninformed customers. Beyond increased exposure the data needs to be accurate and complete for it to be actionable, which is what our system requires. Brokers and property owners then collectively take advantage of the increased accuracy, timeliness, breadth and depth of data that is crowd sourced real-time. Q: Increased transparency with listing data is a start, but what other categories of data will Agorafy provide access to? How will this assist market professionals? A: Agorafy focuses on aggregating publicly available property information with accurate listing data which is typically more scattered and time consuming to verify and bring together. Incredible value is provided by bringing disparate streams of information into one central location for each property in New York. With verified listing data searching for space and researching different market segments for comparables becomes less arduous and opens the flow of information to a broader range of market participants. Big Data can mean big challenges for users if they are unable to work through the information or they view the information as out of date or not trustworthy. Agorafy addresses this by providing an easy to use platform and employing a team to continuously verify available information. We recognize that a large amount of information is only useful if it is accurate and you can make reliable decisions based on it. The data itself is only a foundation where professionals can connect and work toward successful transactions. Q: Up until now, crowd sourcing and social networks have had a limited influence on commercial real estate and bringing professionals together, how do you see that changing in the near future? How will Agorafy look to fill that void? A: The vast majority of commercial real estate professionals haven't fully adopted social media as a tool for both retrieving and disseminating market information and building relationships within the industry. Age and comfort with technology definitely of market participants definitely plays a role in this, but also there is nothing within the industry that provides the space to let professionals highlight their areas of expertise and specialization that's backed up by their exclusive listings and a verified track record. Agorafy's Professional Profile provides a platform for users to manage their public facing profile and connect with others in the industry. Professionals have the ability to manage their current exclusives and submit details on closed transactions. Users have the ability to search for professionals based on the amount of properties they represent, neighborhoods in which they concentrate, and services they provide. Our Professional Profile caters to commercial brokers but will grow to accommodate everyone involved in commercial real estate; property owners, building managers; tenants; architects; attorneys and contractors. Agorafy is driven to integrate commercial real estate data with the associated market professionals and give the commercial community a place to call home. Richard Du is the founder and CEO of Agorafy, New York, N.Y. .