Recently I was on iTunes at the iTunes Store, doing a search for “commercial real estate,” mainly to see what our “competition” might be doing no there. You would think the only results you’d see from that kind of search would be for audio and video podcasts that somehow touch on CRE (including ones from Sibdu), right?

Well, you’d be wrong. I was a bit surprised when I was proved wrong, too. Actually, I found several interesting results — including three for the iPhone — that you can read about after the jump.

Probably the most interesting items I found were in the App Store — you know, the section in the iTunes Store where you can download applications specifically designed for the iPhone and the new version of the iPod — the iPod Touch — that looks like the iPhone. (In other words, don’t download these and expect them to work on earlier iPods, etc.).

There’s three applications that can be used specifically for commercial real estate. One’s free, while the other two are low-cost ($5-$6). I didn’t buy the paid ones, only because there’s no way I’d really use them. And as for the free one? I didn’t download it because … well … I’ll explain why below:

1) Geotags (free, published by Fasterre services-conseils inc.) This works with Google Maps and the GPS technology in the iPhone/iPod Touch. You can use it to locate a property, and then attach photos, voice and notes to the location. After you have several locations, you can even export it all to Google Earth. So you can put together a “virtual tour” of sorts of properties you own, manage, have listings for, etc. I would have tried it in my office, but AT&T’s network is so bad I don’t get coverage here (a shock, he said sarcastically). That means no GPS, so no test.

2) FastFigures Financial Calculator ($5.99, Infinity Softworks Inc.) This one’s cool, but only if you don’t already have a trusty HP, TI or other calculator. This app has templates for all kinds of financial computations, including time value of money, cash flows, fixed-rate mortgages, area conversions, percent changes, and so on. It even has calculators for sales tax, fuel economy, heart rate (!), “ideal weight” (!!) and tip with splits (!!!). This is pretty heady stuff, to be sure. But at six bones, it may be worth it, especially if you don’t have the requisite HP 10BII calculator. By the way, the $6 price is supposedly a “special introductory price,” so (putting on my Vince from ShamWow voice) ACT NOW! Or maybe not.

3) iSite ($4.99, Red Ink Apps) Another calculator app, but this one is “developed by a commercial estate broker/developer in need of quick and dirty numbers while on the move.” This app will save and retrieve data for use later in the office. This app actually includes four separate sub-apps (for lack of a better word):

• iSite - site selection help tool that computes width, depth, acreage, etc.
• iLease - computes price per foot, CAMs, term and (most important) commission
• iInvest - determines price-per-foot, NOI and cap rate
• iOwn - computes equity, principal, debt service and cash flow

I’d recommend that you look at both calculator apps and your goals for using them before buying one over the other. Or, heck, just buy both — it’s cheaper than purchasing a 10BII. I’m not guaranteeing anything, though, because I didn’t test them. This is an informational post-only blog entry. And we’re not making a dime off of any of this, either.

Just to be sure that there weren’t other apps I missed in the store, I did a search for “real estate,” and came up with a bunch of stuff for residential-types. Nothing else for the commercial / investment side, though.

Three other areas popped up, too. Besides the should-be obvious Podcasts section, I saw results in the iTunes U section. This is an area where universities can upload presentations, lectures, discussions and so on from their esteemed faculties.

For commercial real estate, two from the City University of New York popped up. One is called The Stoler Report. Hosted by Michael R. Stoler, the monthly show covers real estate and business issues in the area with roundtable discussions. There’s a lot of programs there, too.

The other one is just called Business. There’s no description there, so I can’t tell you a lot more about it. But it does look like some real-estate issues were covered in the past; one recent program was called “Capital Leases,” for example.

The funniest one came up in the TV Seasons section. For some reason, A&E’s TV show Intervention was a result. Intervention follows people with addictions to alcohol, drugs, shopping and other areas through the intervention process.

Soooo … I’m guessing the thought, “what the heck does this have to do with commercial real estate?” went through your mind just now, as it did mine when I first read it. The page for the show within iTunes doesn’t help in answering that question, either - I don’t see those keywords anywhere in there. Maybe a CRE type had an intervention … ? Sorry, I don’t have an answer to that one. And I’m not buying Season 1 of the program to find out, either — reality TV is not my cup of tea; I like scripts, actors and quality storytelling.

To find all of this stuff in iTunes, just log into the program, go to the iTunes Store, and type in “commercial real estate” (without quotes) in the Search iTunes Store box. Enjoy!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 @ 8:18 am on the category Helpful Hints, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.