CoStar and the property market: a great investment - Propex

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CoStar case study: Michael Rogers LLP

I understand you have gone ‘paperless’. Yes, and proud of it! I remember the bad old days of carrying around heavy briefcases full of paperwork all too well. Even then, I probably wouldn’t have all the right information with me. But now I can easily work out of office – in the car, on site, with a client or at home – using nothing but a laptop and a mobile phone, with all the files, correspondence and data I need, right at my fingertips. It’s a huge productivity increase, and CoStar Suite integrates with paperless operation perfectly by adding to my online resources and functionality.

And on the subject of cost, how would you rate the value for money of CoStar Suite? Well, it’s true that we invest quite heavily in our CoStar subscription, and we fully intend to go on doing so. Because in this case, you definitely get what you pay for. Ease of use, accurate data, quick response to clients, good training and support – all the things I have already mentioned.

So – your verdict on CoStar Suite? I can say that without it, life would become a lot more complicated and everyday tasks would be more timeconsuming. Equally important, it is a key factor in ensuring the quality of service that we take pride in providing to quality clients. The fact is that, if for some reason we tried doing without CoStar Suite, within a couple of weeks we’d be desperate to have it back!

Mike Lewis began his career working for a local estate agent in the Croydon area. He then moved into a property management role at International Stores supermarket group, followed by a stint at the London Borough of Lewisham during which he qualified as a Incorporated Valuer. Having met his three future business partners while working for a commercial estate agent, all four founded Michael Rogers LLP in 1990.

We work to put you at the centre of the commercial property industry by connecting you to the UK’s largest database of buildings and transactions, and a powerful suite of online services. What has always set us apart is the way we research the market. Our highly trained research associates interview everybody from agents to owners and property managers to gather and verify thousands of property records in our database. This is the only way to ensure the data our clients rely on is unbiased, extensive and fully up-to-date. CoStar Suite today is helping over 1,100 UK companies, organisations and Local Authorities to benefit from significant,measurableimprovements in data access, response times, cost savings, revenue gain and value for money.

Contact us for more information and a live demonstration 020 3205 4600 [email protected] www.costar.co.uk Copyright © 2016 CoStar Group UK

CoStar and the property market: a great investment

Every day, a new firm signs up to CoStar Suite, eager to benefit from a full market inventory of properties and spaces, available as well as fully leased, and searchable by market and submarket. Commercial property consultants Michael Rogers LLP is a long-standing CoStar client. Mike Lewis, the firm’s remaining founding partner, talks about the many benefits of having a wealth of instantly available property information at his fingertips.

CoStar case study: Michael Rogers LLP

“If we tried doing without CoStar Suite, within a couple of weeks we’d be desperate to have it back!” Mike Lewis – Partner, Michael Rogers LLP

Established in 1990, Michael Rogers LLP is an independent firm of commercial property consultants specialising in office space, retail and industrial properties, and property investment opportunities.

“CoStar helps us make that all-important first impression, with prompt, professionally presented and visually appealing reports to prospective clients.”

You need to jump on it before anyone else can get in first? Exactly. And this is where CoStar Suite proves so useful. It takes us only a short while and a few clicks to generate enough data for an initial response. Our enquirers typically receive a report from us well within an hour of their first approach. And of course, when we save time, we save money too.

The firm’s services are provided by highly experienced teams offering Agency and Professional advice from three strategic M25 locations – Reigate, Richmond and Sevenoaks, serving the property market across southeast England and beyond. Activities include the sale and leasing of office space and industrial properties, property

acquisition, identifying property investment opportunities and property investment sales, property management, rent reviews, lease renewals, valuations, business rates, surveys and dilapidation claims, and residential house surveys and valuations.

CoStar Focus an 1990, switching to CoStar Suite in more recent years. Founding partner Mike Lewis talks to CoStar about how CoStar Suite is helping his firm meet the demands of quality clients and win new business in today’s challenging commercial property environment.

Michael Rogers is a long-standing client of CoStar, having adopted

CoStar: Commercial property has been through turbulent times over the past twenty years. What is your foremost challenge today? Mike Lewis: Our main concern – which I’m sure we share with others in the business–is a shortage of new instructions. Commercial rents are, at long last, on the rise again. But Permitted Development, which can allow change of use from commercial to residential without normal planning permission, has taken many office buildings out of the market. We lost an estimated 70/80,000 sq. ft. in the Bromley area alone and whilst the majority of the stock was pretty poor as far as office use is concerned, there was one good quality building which we lost and which was a great shame.

The result is that we need to work harder than ever to secure new business, in an increasingly competitive market.

Your main focus at Michael Rogers is on office agency. Does that involve specific demands of its own? Yes it does. The key element in successful agency operations, office or residential, is speed. You really need to move fast. The moment a new instruction comes in, I’ll drop whatever I’m doing and prioritise my response. After all, we know that most potential clients will be making multiple enquiries to other agents, so we can’t afford to keep them waiting.

That sort of speed is impressive. It is – it makes an all-important great first impression, not only with the swiftness of our reply but also because CoStar reports are very professionally presented and formatted. Not just raw data but clear, concise, visually appealing documents that are easily understood by our enquirers. So there is usually no need to change anything in them before sending them on. I can also mention two other important advantages of using Suite. One is that we don’t want to invest a whole lot of time and effort at this early stage, until we see how serious or valuable the enquiry may turn out to be. CoStar reports are an excellent first response. Then, depending on the enquirer’s reaction, we’ll decide whether or not to do our own more detailed research and reporting. Here again, CoStar Suite helps us be that much more cost-effective day to day.

tie us up for hours. Instead, it takes us only a few minutes to get all the information we need. As a result, we avoid losing potential business just because it involves properties outside our patch.

How else do you find yourself making use of CoStar Suite? A couple of examples: I can use the CoStar database to create availability schedules for our clients. It’s also a great tool for looking at recent comparables when setting asking rents and sale prices for disposals. In each case the job is done very quickly and easily, compared to any other method. More generally, CoStar Suite enhances our market knowledge and keeps us up to date. That in turn helps us identify new opportunities as soon as they arise. And even when we are not actively working with it, CoStar Suite ensures that we stay visible to developers and their agents, which is obviously a good thing from a business development perspective. To sum up, we are so used to working with CoStar that I don’t really know how we would do without it now.

So did you to CoStar?

ever

consider

alternatives

No, not really. Right from the start of Michael Lewis in 1990 we were running CoStar Focus and we continued to do so for many years. So it was a natural progression when we decided to subscribe to Suite more recently. As for the competition, I’d say that CoStar easily wins on its functionality, and on training and support. The CoStar helpline is always very willing to answer questions and talk me through using new features of Suite, so that we can make maximum use of our subscription. Plus we have had several training sessions with our CoStar account manager to show us new features and keep us generally up to speed.

The other benefit is when we are asked to look at areas we are not so familiar with. Without CoStar, that could easily

“CoStar is a key factor in ensuring the quality of service that we take pride in providing to quality clients.”