Mobile isn't a synonym for wireless, as many mobile professionals are beginning to learn. With some mobile Internet access systems, you are still required to download listing data from a cradle, or a hotsync, which puts you back in the office instead of out in the field where you prefer to be. That's why listings management services are headed to truly wireless PDA capability.

If you would like to download listings to your PDA, Airtreve's new service is worth giving a look, particularly if one of its competitors hasn't sewn up your market already.

Companies such as Supra, Pocketrealestate and Interealty are among the many companies to offer wireless listings services, which should lock up large customer bases as these companies have contracts with a substantial number of MLS organizations, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for a start-up. Interealty's wireless listings will only be offered in markets where Interealty is the MLS information service provider, while Supra's listings offering will be available as an upgrade to its lockbox contracts with agents. Pocketrealestate isn't debuting its wireless listings service until next year, according to their customer support center. And that leaves plenty of room for Airtreve to try to elbow its way into the national market.

According to Joel Kamerman, founder and president of Airtreve, his small privately held company has its own niche, and is happy to be expanding its customer base with its first MLS affiliate RMLS in Oregon. "We do not do anything with lockboxes, so we are not in competition with Supra," explains Kamerman. "With our product, if you have a data-enabled cellphone or wireless modem, you can download listings in real time to your PDA."

All you need is for your MLS to allow it to be available. To get MLSs to say yes, Kamerman has devised the program to work behind the MLS' firewall.

"We're not asking them to give us their data," says Kamerman. "We think our system is more advanced. Nobody has anything that downloads as much and as elegantly as ours," he says.

The Airtreve program has its enthusiasts. Realtor trainer Rob Levy says it makes agents more competitive.

Says Oregon Realtor Larry Janson, "I think it is fantastic. It is the best program I've ever had for data on a Palm. I can sort out the properties and filter them for each client, because it is a real time download."

Explains Janson, "I was at an open house and some people came in and wanted to know if there were other homes available in the area. I can activate the infrared on my cell phone, open the Airtreve program, click on the "find," put in the perimeters of the search, and then click on the connect to Internet, a globe that dials in to the MLS and downloads those perimeters to my Palm. So I used my cell, Airtreve and my Palm to find several homes in the area. They bought one, and we've closed it already."

Janson says he pays about $150 a year for his Airtreve service. "Then I use a Voicestream 8290 infrared phone, and the data service portion (from cellular provider) is about $30 a month for unlimited access," adds Janson. "You have to have the data stream portion of it to make it work."

He says he also likes the fact that Airtreve allows display of contact information and showing instructions. "That's important if you are sitting in front of the home and want to get in. If you have the data in the Palm, you can contact the other agent and you have the sellers' information," says Janson. "This is the cleanest. When I was in Chicago for the convention and I wanted to look up properties, I did it wirelessly from Chicago."

The product works - now all Kamerman needs is a national roll-out. His plan is to build and sell companies, which he has already done with two other start-ups. "We're interested in creating the technology, not selling it," he says. "The MLSs or value-added resellers are in a much better position to do that than us. Our objective is to build the product, and prove the concept, and then find the customer, which we did with RMLS," says Kamerman. "Now we are trying to find value-added resellers to sell for us, and deploy in other communities. We can also license the product to the MLS, and they could create their own business model. We would install it for them."

The irony of the technology isn't lost on Kemerman. The Internet allowed agents to get away from carrying quickly outdated MLS books. Now they are carrying the books again on their Palms.

"The fundamental difference between us and other products is that MLSs are protective of their data. Each MLS will have different rules about which fields of data can be shown. Our product installs behind the firewall of the MLS, it is non-invasive. We don't say give us your data and if we slip up, sorry. We don't put your data into a package that is outside of your control and then repackage it to agents. They talk to the system just as they would to their legacy or Web-based system. It is more comfortable for the MLSs because it makes sense," he says. "It's also a flexible, configurable system that the MLS can present the data however they want, and can change it quickly and easily. The agent can change which fields of information they want to display based on how they like to do business. For some agents, having square footage is very important, for others, it is not a priority."

"Our solution is based on a concept that you have a database for an enterprise, and we attach to any database and provide wireless access to the database. It is more flexible and as the information needs change, we can make them. I was in a meeting, and was asked, 'Can you add price per square foot to the display?" We did it in less than 10 minutes, because we didn't have to rewrite the program. We can go from an ocean-front MLS system to a desert MLS without having to rewrite anything. It just adapts to their data."

The company has a long way to go, but it is making progress. "We are focusing on Oregon and getting more customers," says Kamerman. "We have 70 agents using the product."

Published: December 3, 2001

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