ICIWorld was the first real estate information service on the Internet in 1994.
The idea grew out of a CCIM Chapter where brokers would stand up in a networking Have and Want session and talk about their properties for sale and for lease, what their buyers wanted, and then brokers would match up in that session to follow up and do business. In that one chapter over 65% of members did business with other members in the chapter.
In 1989 a bulletin board was started much the same as real estate boards had phone lines, people could call in with their computers on the phone lines, one real estate salesperson, one phone line, if you had ten phone lines that was the maximum people the system could handle.
Today ICIWorld has grown to one of the largest real estate information services in the world with thousands of people accessing real estate information all at one time. We literally have the power that was previously available to only those who could afford it like the Fortune 500 companies.
The service is not like a real estate board listing service. Rather it is more like the classified ads in a newspaper. It is more limited information enough to trigger a qualified buyer or seller to call you. You can then qualify the caller, develop a business relationship that leads to doing business.
The true strength of the service is not the listings but rather the people. Many times someone will call a member on one listing that may not suit that person, but they discuss other things that may not be on the service and go off and do a deal. 44% of the deals in one recent month were done that way.
The service is supported by licensed real estate brokers and salespeople world wide and is free to the public.
- Once a real estate salesperson has a web site, we recommend they never send people to ICIWorld ever again. They should only send people to their own web site where the listings compiled by ICIWorld world wide for the industry can be searched.
- it helps collect information world wide;
- it provides this information for real estate salespeople world wide to place on their own web sites;
- it distributes information world wide by way of various EMail list servers;
- it has become a teaching organization;
- training organization;
- it provides concepts and ideas in real estate that help salespeople serve the public and make money;
- it provides technology tools to make it easy for the real estate industry to serve the public;
- more.
ICIWorld also is learning about tools that can help real estate salespeople in their market areas no matter where in the world they are located. That is because we are all connected through the Internet.
One such tool is a powerful web site that we supply to members.
This web site is a storefront for real estate salespeople to the public.
When it contains content such as the content that ICIWorld has been collecting for years, and this content is placed on these web sites with a simple link, and it is structured so that the public can not click on the ads but must call the salesperson, this generates quite good leads. The reason? People already know the general area, price, and type of property.
Internet users are more sophisticated than average real estate buyers. They do their shopping and research. So when they call, it can result in a faster, quicker sale.
ICIWorld has been known as a commercial real estate network but with the advent of the Internet and our official distributorship with the company providing the web sites, it is now providing residential services through the web sites.
Whether a real estate salesperson is doing residential or commercial, big or small, there are tools that can specifically assist the member to develop business in their specialty and market area.
There are new tools being developed regularly and ICIWorld aims to make them available to all members by way of a nominal annual membership fee.
The resource center is an example of a collection of links throughout the world to valuable tools to benefit every member, their prospects, clients and families.
For a biography on the original startup creator click here.
ICIWorld.net
Since 1994 |