Note to all who use ICIWorld

Search Help Foreword

ICIWorld provides a service that permits as much or as little information as you want. More properties are identified as a result when one can be limit the information that others see. It is not restricted by having to have a signed listing such as on a real estate board as long as you do not identify the property. For instance a licensing body in one province says it this way:

Identification of a property without consent

Registrants must not include anything in an advertisement (such as an image or text) that could reasonably be used to identify a specific property, unless the brokerage has the written consent of the owner of the property to do so. The provisions of a listing agreement signed by the seller are typically drafted to give authority to the listing brokerage to advertise the property and may include permission for that property to be advertised on a real estate board Multiple Listing Service (MLS®) system and/or other media. Registrants should be familiar with the terms of their standard listing agreements in this regard.

Full text advertising guidelines of one provincial real estate licensing body. RECO

If you place a Have, ie: a property for sale or for lease on ICIWorld, and if you do not have a signed listing, then you should never place an address or anything to identify the specific property.

But if you say you have a "Restaurant in Toronto for $350,000 making money", that could be any restaurant and that is networking information and is okay. You simply indicate you know about one. Or you may have an exclusive listing.

ICIWorld has been doing it this way since 1994 and in fact commercial real estate brokers and salespeople having been doing this since the beginning of MLS. Our CCIM Chapter exchanges Haves and Wants but in many cases they are exclusive opportunities. Simply place the type of a property and a general area is enough to trigger interest from a qualified business person. You can put agreements in place later when you go to show the property.

For members we have a special video in the Training Videos section called Three Questions that every member should become very familiar with. It has helped some members make $50,000 within 90 days of learning about these questions.

ICIWorld calls itself a real estate Have and Want information networking service. From our unique position in the marketplace we see that there can be ten times as much "information" that can be worked in the marketplace than one can place on a real estate board. It is always best to get a signed listing where possible and place it on a real estate board, I too have been a real estate broker for forty years and served on MLS committees. But if you can not get a signed listing to place on a real estate board, then use the three special questions and place information on ICIWorld. Put an agreement in place before divulging an address or showing a property.

When searching it is the subject line that is being searched. It is helpful if everyone learns about keywords. The character string must be exact. If you spell restaurant wrong like restarant you will not find any. But if you type in resta as part of the word restaurant you have a better chance to find things. Four to five characters as part of any search word will find that word, be it a type of business, city, etc. One trick for instance is to search otel and this will find both hotels and motels.

There is a special Youtube video in the Training Videos Learning Center that show How To Search Advanced.

Ideally you will type in a key word in the subject line, choose a Business Category ie: Business Opportunities, a Business Area, select a Have if you looking for property ie: Haves and the properties for sale and for lease.

You will select Wants if you are looking for buyers.

If you are searching a Business Category, NO KEYWORD IS REQUIRED IN FACT IT CAN HINDER A SEARCH. However you can type Miami in the subject and choose a Business Category like Apartment Buildings.

If you are looking for a hotel or motel, otel is part of both so you can search that to get both.

CAUTION: Learn the Business Category that will include shopping centers and retail plazas for instance because typing in plaza in the subject line will not find them all. Use the Business Category for retail plazas. Learn the Business Categories and Business Areas that would include what you are looking for.

This is not like a real estate board type service but more like classified ads in a newspaper. The ability to provide as little or as much information means more properties are made available than just MLS type properties on a real estate board. In one sense a real estate board is quite strict about what goes on it and that in itself makes it restrictive. That is by design and as it should be.

However some say 90% of shopping centers, apartment buildings and many other types of properties are not on real estate boards. You as a real estate broker or salesperson can place that kind of information here as long as you do not identify the property. Put a listing agreement in place before showing the property.

On ICIWorld you can search motivations of owners, client information. Most any field on the form used to enter listings can be searched. We provide these capabilities because we too are learning from members and the public special searches that we never even thought of. We are all on the cutting edge of technology.

You can search the whole database for owners who will consider taking back a mortgage [see client will and select Take Back Mortgage], or search for cap rates. Members of ICIWorld will learn that information like this placed in their own listing can help generate a deal. Miss putting it in and you can be missing doing a deal and not realize it.

May we suggest search all the buildings in an area first to get what we call the "universe." How many are there in the first place, then whittle them down. Search a Business Area by Region to get an overview of what is in the database.

What this also means too is that it is up to the real estate industry, the members of ICIWorld to take responsibility for their information and fill in things that helps the public to find the Haves and Wants in different ways.

If you say a person has a Tim Hortons franchise for sale and do not place the word donut in the subject line, people may not find you if they search the word donut or coffee. So include all the key words that may apply in your subject line.