From my unique experience of operating the ICIWorld service for over 30 years, I share some of the experiences members relate to me.

A 25 million dollar portfolio of properties was sold due to Database 2 FSBO Area. A member called a doctor who placed a Want for a medical building several years ago. He was not only still looking for more medical buildings but had purchased two since he placed the Want on ICIWorld in this Database 2. Another member did business with a buyer who placed a Want for an income property. He showed him his listing, which did not suit the buyer. Found one on MLS that did suit the buyer and sold it. So you see how ICIWorld can work hand in hand with MLS. 

We call it prospecting to look at older listings in Database 1 or Database 2 FSBO Area. If you do not want to see listings, Haves and Wants older than three months or 90 days old, don’t look at them. Everything on the service is dated. However, we will not remove the older listings for the following reasons. 

• members report doing business on the older listings.
• the buildings are still there.
• although the circumstances have changed, the contact person may still be available for networking purposes.
• if a building was sold, could it be of value to learn how much it sold for?
• is it possible the building could be coming back for sale?
• if you develop a good relationship with the contact person, is it possible they know about other opportunities not on the service you may be able to do business?
• if you develop a good business relationship, is it possible that person my have exactly what you are looking for, three weeks from now and call you back and do business? 
• in one respect, it is like a gold mine. However, much the same as mining for gold, you have to dig through some dirt to get to the gold, but the gold is there. Over time and with future development, we hope to add comments on the listings so that if the phone numbers are dead and contact cannot be made, we can say so or remove the listing. But the price of our service is kept low. To do all these things takes a great deal of money, time and effort, and we have our hands full as it is trying to design systems that keep the price down. ICIWorld is built without advertising popping up in your face on purpose. Is it worth paying .83 cents per day for this?  These brokers think so. They are serious about doing business. All have families to support. They are not about wasting your time. 

One survey we did, found that 50% of the transactions were done with listings older than 90 days.

However, we only display listings initially in Database 1 less than 90 days old. If you want to talk with brokers on listings older than 90 days old, simply change the Have Want Age field.  This is particularly helpful when searching for business opportunities or harder-to-find properties.

Wants are almost always looking even past 90 days old.

There is a responsibility upon the real estate brokers and salespeople in this real estate profession to keep their listings, Haves and Wants up to date to serve the public. We recommend updating listings, Haves and Wants every 31 to 60 days, but in no case let them go longer than 90 days old, or they do not get displayed to the worldwide audience when they search initially.

Everyone is still learning how to use the database. But we find everyone is getting better and better at it over time. That is why we are hearing more stories of sales occurring very quickly. 

It has taken 30 years to get to this point where if you have a business for sale, for instance, you can search the Wants, contact the broker who placed that Want because they have a qualified buyer, ready, willing and able to look at your business, within a very short time, hours to a few days.  It can be that fast!