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A Rock-Solid Network For Prudential Real Estate

By Mona Litt Anxious buyers and sellers may feel the real estate business moves at a snail's pace when it comes to implementing technology. But don't tell that to Prudential Real Estate Affiliates' Walt Clark. He's built one of the first large-scale commercial extranets to support affiliates nationwide, resulting in lots of happy customers and even happier affiliates.

Prudential Real Estate Affiliates (PREA) uses its extranet, the PREA Center, to provide the tools for all affiliate offices to serve potential buyers and sellers. "The real estate industry has been slow to adopt technology," says Clark, PREA's vice president of information technology. "Our network provides tremendous benefits by making the most updated and useful information available in just a few keystrokes."

Clark's job is a big one. He has to keep a far-flung network of affiliates in the field updated with myriad information. According to Clark, not only can an affiliate download current news on the real estate market, PREA and Prudential Insurance Co. of America (PREA's parent company), he or she also can obtain leads on property deals nationwide and receive data on how his or her office's performance and profitability rank among the rest of PREA's locations.

The Prudential Referral System processes specific leads through the PREA Center to affiliates. The custom application maintains all referrals for real estate services, Clark says. PREA's new Affiliate Information Management System (AIMS) provides immediate access to pertinent information, such as data f or press releases and assistance on business expansion plans and installing a new network.

Managers can keep careful watch over affiliate financial activity through PREA's Executive Information System. They can call up data on any office, stored in this live database, and determine the operation's strengths and weaknesses, according to Clark.

PREA's PRISMS/IOS (Integrated Office Solution) integrates all office functions and processes transactional information, Clark says. It even lets agents conduct virtual home tours. This solution also generates comparative market analysis and loan prequalification.

PREA looks forward to even better communication with the implementation of Lotus Notes--what Clark refers to as the "next-generation application"--and Sybase SQL Server. "Even more information will be at our fingertips, and we will be able to set up live databases whenever a number of people are involved in a specific project," he says.

1998 will see further evolution as the PREA Center becomes a "true extranet" by letting affiliates order supplies online and have the referral system directly on the PREA Web site for immediate dial-up access. Clark also hopes to move the field-based support staff from the AT&T Software Defined Network it uses to connect to the PREA network, to just using the parent company's Web servers.

Updated November 10, 1997

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