The Princeton-based real estate business The Victor Company, which specializes in tenant representation, is an excellent example of utilizing a specific business approach within a crowded market. The firm is primarily run by the president, Victor Murray, but through focus and targeted media, he is able to be competitive against businesses that are larger and have merged with regional and national brokerage firms. There are other advantages as well. "The freedom to go in whatever honorable direction our business and our clients take, has been our incessant goal," Murray says. "Today's technologies can provide us with that freedom to rediscover and redefine our goals as we address our client's needs in new and exciting ways."
As a tenant representative, The Victor Company had historically prepared an annual office market study of office leasing activity in the greater Princeton area. With limited vacancies and the fewer lateral moves and new leases that this situation created, it was apparent to Murray that the only construction activity in the past few years has been to build to suit or single tenant buildings. Rather than focus on past leasing activity, the company direction moved towards providing detailed information on what is planned for speculative office development - something that the market had been lacking for a number of years.
Utilizing a self-developed interactive CD-ROM, Murray believes that this medium provides for a more useful, long-term study that is portable, can easily be shared with others, and through read/write capabilities can quickly be updated or customized to a particular tenant's needs. The intended audience for the study is primarily expanding or relocating office tenants in the Princeton area. "As these tenants are barraged with owners and listing brokers looking to fill their respective projects, our clients find that the best way to identify, compare, evaluate, and negotiate a long term lease is through exclusive tenant representation," Murray says. An effective way to starting this relationship is graphically depicting sites, floor plans, facts, and figures, which is where the multimedia capabilities of the CD becomes particularly useful.
Using off-the-shelf software applications such as Corel Presentations from Corel WordPerfect Suite, Murray is able to develop the studies quickly and experiment with different designs. The finished presentation is output via Corel Presentations Show on the Go player, which creates a single file that can be run from any standard Windows 95 or NT PC. No installation is necessary to review the study, as it runs directly off the disc. For those clients without CD drives, smaller site presentations can be made to run on standard 3 ½" disks or sent via e-mail.
The major hardware used for gathering data is a digital camera (from $150), which serves multiple input functions, including capturing photos, renderings, maps, sites, and floor plans. A high-speed CD Writeable Drive (less than $300) is used for output on CD-R media (a special writeable CD available for less than $2 each), which, when finished, works in practically any standard PC CD drive.
While there are still obvious typos and bugs that cause crashes, the early impression of the CD, which is still essentially going through a testing and feedback phase, is favorable. One presentation contained on the review CD called Development Sites, is particularly interesting. While there is an automated version of this presentation, the interaction inherent in controlling the direction in the manual format is the true realization of interactive media.
As the presentation begins, introductory text establishes what is to follow -- something that is a welcome and common feature throughout all of the presentations. After going through other introductory graphs, charts, and site maps, the main map screen appears. At this point you are able to click on a site of interest to uncover additional information, which includes square footage, photos of the site, and conceptual drawings. Since these are inherently slide slow presentations, options such as moving back and forth between slides and activating a virtual pen (for on-screen annotations) are available via a right mouse button click.
While each CD will be uniquely tailored to an individual client, other presentations found on the review CD that could become standards include Murray's resume, Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) measurements (the generally accepted standard for measuring office space), and an explanation of tenant representation - all of which are interactive to some degree and contain descriptions for even the most novice viewer. Background music is occasionally included with a presentation, but is a feature that is not really necessary and actually fairly distracting.
The Victory Company has also had a presence on the Internet long before most competitors. It would only seem natural that the studies would find their way there as well, for consumption by a wider audience. This is not the case, however. "The delivery of market studies on our home page would deprive us of the opportunity to meet directly with tenants and enjoy the interaction that is necessary in representing them," he says, "The CD-ROM format overcomes this and allows us to be more responsive to the needs of tenants in their search and evaluation of real estate alternatives."
The Web site, www.victor-co.com, shares certain similarities with the CD, such as offering detailed explanations of terms and what tenant representation is. While informative and to the point - which should be the main goal of any Web site - there is a notable lack of polish. To address this issue, updates are planned, including a few small, self-running presentations, as well as tools for performing calculations. Information sharing between the CD and Web site will be kept to a minimum, however, since making too much information so readily available becomes a way to miss out on personal interaction -- something Murray feels strongly about.
While Murray has openly embraced technology, he admits that he is caught between a generation of those less inclined to embrace computers and those who thrive on them. Technology has become a long time fascination and ultimate benefit, but Murray's interest in real estate dates back even earlier. This is not surprising as his father worked for a real estate development firm of commercial office buildings and his mother as a residential sales broker. "When I was a child, my father would bring home floor plans of the high rise office building that he represented," he says, "After coloring the backs, I found the designs, details, and plans on the blueprint side far more interesting."
Later, as a middle child caught between conservative and liberal brothers in the 1960s - a time of great public debate Murray believes - he learned there were two sides to every issue that must be acknowledged. "As only through communication can that gap be bridged, I learned that real estate brokering requires a great deal of similar skills, but with a concern for the welfare of both parties, since they still have to live with each other," Murray says.
This laser-like focus and understanding of real estate continued through college, where he began his undergraduate education at The State University of New York School of Management, ending up with a bachelor's degree in Real Estate from The Pennsylvania State University in 1976. His education has continued through courses at the Institute of Real Estate Management.
From 1976 to 1984, Murray worked in various real estate related positions for firms in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Princeton. In 1984, he decided to remain in the Princeton area and open his own firm. "Although little seems to have changed since 1987, much has changed within our industry and the way we do business. Unlike the mid-size, local brokerage houses that have merged with other firms, we have managed to stay independent," Murray says. "Our firm has since done more transactions in other cities and we have looked into network affiliation with tenant representatives at these locations to share resources and services. This is an area where we believe that today's communication technologies are making the greatest strides - connectivity."
Murray's interest in technology is a function of personal experiences over many years, but he credits his close association with his sublandlord, The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) - who helps electric utilities and other electricity suppliers promote the reliability of the electricity
supply - as being most beneficial. "They have advised and provided me with a wealth of insight as to what resources are out there," he says, "This is an area where other landlords should focus more attention in the next wave of development - the interconnectivity between landlords and tenants and tenant services.
"Although negotiating real estate transactions is a skill that may not require new technologies, to effectively negotiate you must be properly equipped with accurate and current information," Murray says, "My proactive approach to new technologies was born out of necessity and a belief that to remain competitive, you must either do it better or do it differently than your competition. Through technology and personal interaction, I feel we can do both."
