REonomy.com offers information on both residential and commercial properties in New York City's five boroughs as well as most of the state of New Jersey. It launched earlier this month to what its founders describe as rave reviews. "All the feedback has been really positive," said Jonathan Arnold, who co-founded the site with Charlie Oshman, 24.
The founders say many of the tools REonomy.com offers are unavailable anywhere else. In addition, they add, the site's $500 to $560 annual membership fees are less than half the cost of fees charged by leading competitors.
REonomy.com offers 30 day free trial memberships, and also allows users of competing sites to transfer remaining months on their current subscriptions to a new REonomy.com membership. The site offers free memberships to users who just want to post events and listings or access the site's directory and network event calendar.
Arnold said the site was born in part from his work as a broker at a Manhattan-based boutique CRE firm. "The tools are a combination of things that I'd wished for and things that others in the industry said they'd like to have available," he explains. "The site combines a number of tools through a single platform, which allows data to be cross-referenced more easily. That enables CRE professionals to obtain information that would have taken hours or days to gather in a matter of minutes," he explains.
The site offers mobile reports that can be sent to clients' cell phones and BlackBerrys, social networking capabilities and income, expense and property tax reports. It also offers 3-D bulk renderings, which can help users visualize zoning and explore a property's potential for development and expansion, Arnold said.
"With the very confusing zoning laws of NYC, it's often difficult to figure out what potential, if any, a property has for development, redevelopment or expansion. REonomy.com has created a program that allows users to click on any property in NYC to generate a comparative 3-D rendering of the largest possible building that could be built on the site as of right," he continues.
Oshman says the site was designed to provide users maximum data with minimal effort. "We spent an enormous amount of time and effort developing applications that are very simple to use, engaging, and often self-explanatory," he adds. "I am not worried whatsoever about our users' ability to use REonomy.com's tools. These tools are not unessential--they fill a void, are extremely user friendly, and instructions can be found on every page of the REonomy system."
Oshman was especially proud of the fact that a Microsoft Corp. review described REonomy.com as a "robust, exploratory user experience."
"Professionals in leasing, investment sales, development, and private equity, as well as real estate professionals of all ages are using REonomy.com, which shows we've done a tremendous job of understanding their needs," he continues. "REonomy's tools happen to be more advanced and more tailored to our clients needs than others, which may be why we have begun to catch on so quickly."
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