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turnover."
The Apartment Niche
After another broker in the office shared an apartment listing, the two men started a Lotus spreadsheet database of available apartments--"all 20 of them," Clarke says. "Remember it was a really soft market."
Today, the database, which is broken up into several tables, holds 108,937 units in 5,012 communities, 2,000 color photographs of properties, 4,760 owner/investors, 6,579 contacts, and some 1,709 digital files. "It contains basic physical information--units, sites, addresses; previous sales; availability; appraisal history (some going back 20 years); most recent rental breakdown; vacancy information; grading information; demographics; aerial photos; and much more," he says.
Clarke started this collection of facts and figures with a goal in mind. "After interviewing and researching my competition," he says, "I was able to determine that on average, it took four days from the day they met with a potential seller to the day they made a listing presentation. My goal was to turn around a proposal during the same day.
"Today we can turn around one with color pictures, demographics, aerial photos, owner and market comparables, rent comparables, and a marketing package, within 30 minutes of completing an APOD on a property--approximately 45 minutes total."
Putting Information to Work
It's an impressive feat, compiling and spewing out data at the drop of an APOD, but the bottom line is whether or
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