Real Estate in Real Time

Another Holy Grail... Next week I'm headed to IDRC in Orlando, and I'll guarantee you that I'll hear the expression "just-in-time space." That's something that corporate real estate directors and landlords have talked about for many, many years. After all, isn't it a mismatch to sign a five or ten-year lease when business plans can change every six months or so? So I smiled last week as Mark Wiatrowski showed me OfficeQuest.com, his new web site aimed at creating a national (even international) reservation service for executive suites. Yep, it's for relatively small amounts of space, but it's certainly just-in-time. In fact, you can pay with a credit card, making it "real time" real estate.

Here's how it works. You choose the type of space (e.g., private office, meeting room, workstation, or video conference). You select the date and time (like you would for an airline ticket). You can filter the search by provider (e.g., Executive Office Club, HQ, Regus). OfficeQuest then generates a list of alternative locations. For example, in Washington, DC, an Executive Office Club space in Georgetown is at the top of the list. You'll find a map and eventually a list of services. Click the "Quote" button and you'll see the exact cost and full contact information. Click the Reserve button and pay for the space online. Eventually, Wiatrowski says that you'll be able to order catered lunches and other services. Full Disclosure: OfficeQuest is in "beta" (testing). Therefore, "Locations represented here are under no obligation to honor any reservations made using this site."

While each executive suite provider could design its own online reservation system, that would mean that you would have to search, for example, each Washington, DC vendor web site -- assuming that you knew their names -- a cumbersome process at best. Incidentally, Regus does operate its own online reservation system. ... An intriguing alternative to executive suite space is Jeff Landers' Offices2Share.com web site. I did a search in Washington DC and found three shared office spaces available for immediate occupancy, each with lots of amenities. Neat service.

Farkas and MacKinnon Webcast... And speaking of real time, we had a few hiccups early in the PikeNet Expo webcast. Over 300 folks logged on simultaneously, forcing EventsDigital, my telecom provider, to point to a server with more capacity. Sorry! But the good news is that the interviews are archived at PikeNet. Click the Expo Webcast link in the Events box on the home page. Log in (with just your name, company and e-mail address) and click the See Webcast button. The webcast is about an hour long. Andrew Farkas, Founder of RexOffice and Chairman of Insignia Financial Group, is my guest for the first half-hour. If you want to go directly to the interview with Donald MacKinnon, CEO of The REALM, during the second half-hour, simply drag the "clip" halfway across the scale located at the top of the RealPlayer box. You can actually jump around to any place in the program. It's pretty cool.

--Peter Pike