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Commercial real estate has CoStar and LoopNet. Why does it need QuantumListing?
Our team has had multiple requests to share more about the story behind QuantumListing. There is no better person to interview than the man behind the mission, Founder David Perlmutter.
What motivated you to start QuantumListing?
I started QuantumListing because as a long-time broker, I saw that the commercial real estate industry had a problem that needed to be solved. It has been too reliant on one company, CoStar Group, for its listing information and online marketing of those listings.
The result is that they’ve been able to increase the price of their information while further limiting access to it, in an effort to generate more paying customers. It is a good company with a solid product portfolio, and I still use LoopNet in my brokerage. However, I think the quality/price ratio is less than optimal for many in our industry.
They are a public company and therefore have a responsibility to create shareholder value, even if it is at the expense of their customers. For independent brokerages and real
estate professionals, this becomes a very large financial commitment.
The lack of competition in the CRE information market also led to a lack of innovation, in my opinion. More and more members of our industry have come increasingly reliant on their mobile devices. My initial thought was to provide a greatlow-cost mobile solution, starting with an iPhone app. It soon became evident that phones and tablets were great for finding information, but not as convenient for data entry.
As a result, we now have a feature-rich mobile responsive commercial property website. As we grow, we continue to add new features, many in response to the great suggestions we get from our member community.
How is QuantumListing helping the CRE community?
As a broker and shopping center developer, I have benefited from being part of the CRE community. Giving back to that community is really important to me and has always been part of the QuantumListing mission. Our team gives back on several fronts.
First, we offer a great service at an incredibly affordable price. For $89.99 a year per agent, you can add an unlimited number of listings. Because we’re constantly working on improving the site and optimizing it for search engine visibility, our members are getting great exposure for their listings, especially because there is no paywall or registration required for visitors to see your listings.
We have also added an array of features to increase the number of views your listings get, many of which are included in your membership and others for which there are additional fees, but none of them expensive. You get to decide how much you want to spend and when you want to deploy those additional features, so you are totally in control of your budget.
Additionally, we spend a lot of time and effort in creating free resources for real estate professionals to learn and grow.. Our weekly blog posts and webinars are filled with information and actionable tips about other CRE technology, social media, branding and so much more.
One of my favorite types of blog posts we do is the Quantum Lister series, in which we profile a member of our community, including an iFrame with their profile and listings. As an example, last week, we interviewed one of our Quantum Listing members, Roxy Klein of Progressive Real Estate Partners.
What have been the biggest achievements for QuantumListing in the last year?
I am really proud that we increased our organic search traffic by more than 150% year over year in 2020. People are finding our members’ profiles and listings in web searches. The number of leads coming in have skyrocketed.
This is in the context of a global pandemic and troubled economy. That’s a huge accomplishment of which we are very proud.
We increased our member and active listings base tremendously as well. We don’t spend a lot of our resources on advertising, so our growth is predicated on the great word of mouth we get from our membership. A referral from a colleague is so meaningful to us. It means that our community appreciates what we do and value it enough to share that with their colleagues.
Another big accomplishment last year is that we added and improved many features on the site. This past January, our blog post, The Ultimate Guide to Our New Features from 2020, covered all the great new features added last year, as well as some tips on best practices. Be sure to check that out to learn more how we continue to work to get you more views, clicks and leads.
Given recent growth, what is next for QuantumListing?
We will continue to work to grow our membership, the number of listings, and the traffic to the website. As COVID vaccines become more readily available, stimulus funds get distributed, and the economy continues to recover, I think demand for commercial real estate will increase substantially.
That puts us in the position to increase our reach and have a positive impact in the real estate listing information sector. We have an amazing collection of real estate tech partners with which we collaborate, and will be adding more. Together we’ll have the ability to create an even greater impact on the real estate community.
We are focused on making it easier for real estate professionals to generate the quality leads they need, bringing us closer to our goal of providing the real estate information service you need at a reasonable price.
