THE BITS BYTE BACK

Paul Marples' Propex PrimePitch empire is nothing new. It is built out of building blocks that have been covered several times over the past few years in these pages, all of which sprang out of ideas by people within the property industry. Aside from the two sites mentioned in the company name, he also has possession of Shopproperty and PrimePA.

The latter is the most recent aquisition.

Marples is typically disarming as he describes himself as not really knowing what to do with PrimePA. It is, after all, a piece of software that sits on users' PC's, rather than a website. However, he quickly comes around to the point; the software is just the thing for people who like the idea of property websites, but get nervous at the idea of all the information sitting on a server a long way from thier offices. Marples doesn't have the luxury of the Sheperd aaproach to technology adoption, so he opts for gentle wooing with a well-established piece of software.

Another shiny new toy
But does he want to talk about his old software? No, he has a shiney new toy to show EG. Shopproperty Professional. This takes the concept of Shopproperty - essentially a specialist listings site for retail property - and turns it into a property marketing platform, also dedicated to retail property. Anyone familiar with the Propex system, which is slowly developing into a trading system for investment properties, will grasp the idea of the new site rapidly.

It allows agents marketing shops to enter details, upload particulatrs and quickly buy the appropriate part of a GOAD plan to attach. These details can be printed out, outputted as PDFs, listed on the main site, or e-mailed to prospective buyers. The system also outputs the all-important activity report to prove to clients just how much work you've been doing on their behalf.