Interview with Dan Sanchez, Managing Partner of ApartmentComps.com

Q -What does www.ApartmentComps.com do?

A -"In only 3 mouse clicks, ApartmentComps.com provides the results of property specific rent surveys online, across the country. Over 1 million Sunbelt apartment units are in our system. A user simply enters a partial property name, address or intersection. The next thing they see is a map of the 20 closest properties to that location. On that page, they can click any property to get detailed information including rents, amenities, zip-code level demographics and in some cases tax records."

Q-Who are your subscribers?

A-"Our information is packaged for a very niche audience: multifamily professionals that conduct business across the country. Our customers include management companies, real estate brokers, lenders, appraisers and investors."

Q-Why is this useful to them?

A-"Frequently these people are presented with opportunities with very limited information all over the country. As a broker I have wasted a lot of time investigating deals that might be for sale, only to find out that the neighborhood wasn't suitable or that the market rents were too high for the subject property. With our system you can find out all this in only 3 mouse clicks"

Q-Why not use one of the rental listing sites for this?

A-"Try it and see, if you have the patience. Their information is presented in a way that is useful for their audience of renters. It would typically take 30 minutes or more to get something from Springstreet that would be comparable to our offering, which you can get in 30 seconds from us! We also have demographics and some tax record data. Furthermore, if a subscriber can't find his subject property, our staff will try to get online for him within 24 hours. We want to be the person in that other market that you would ordinarily call for this information prior to working on a deal, except you don't have to play 'phone tag' with us!"

Q-How can you respond to users directly like this? It must be very difficult.

A-"People have asked me this before. I would like to say that we care about our customers more than other Internet companies, but I think the real reason is that our system was designed for Internet from the beginning. Our data never touches the ground. Our researchers enter the data directly into a database server that is concurrently being accessed by our users. This make it very easy for them to stop what they are doing and enter a property for a specific user. We are happy to do it because it helps us create a more robust and better database. I think other companies have a difficult time doing this simply because they are working on an old fashioned infrastructure."

Q-Why don't you make your information available to renters; you already have the information they need?

A-"Well that is a good question. Renters need the information formatted in a way that is useful to them. As you have seen, brokers and renters have entirely different needs. Having said that, we are considering offering a renter search page. I don't understand why properties should have to pay to have their information on the internet when companies such as mine already have the same information required to offer to renters and could offer it free as a service to our management company friends who participate in our surveys. We are still considering how this may work."

Q-How does your pricing compare to your competition?

A-"We really don't have any competition. REIS reports just starting offering a similar product for which they charge $79 per month and is very difficult to use. RealFacts on the West Coast offers a very good CD-ROM product, which is also more expensive and requires software installation. We are actually offering big discounts right now to encourage people to test drive our system Vs REIS."

Q-Since your system is less money than the competition it also must be hard to use, right?

A-"Our system is easy to use because it was designed by real estate professionals for real estate professionals. Too many sites require input from the user, which is not necessary. For instance, apartmentcomps.com allows partial property names or partial addresses. Our programmers expended the effort to do this for the users. We have focused on getting professionals relevant answers in 3 mouse clicks."

Q-Tell us about the special you are offering for readers of Bison Tales?

A-"Users currently have FREE access to the 'lite' version of our site through www.bisonfinancial.com/special/AptCompsFrame.html . Readers of Bison Tales that want to upgrade to the premium site can click a link from the Bison site and save 17% off the regular price."

About the Interview

Dan Sanchez is the managing partner of www.ApartmentComps.com one of the Internet's premier information service providers for real estate professionals. He is a licensed real estate broker that has closed $250 million of real estate transactions in 9 markets over the past 11 years. Dan can be contacted at dsan@apartmentcomps.com.