Rofo Powers First LinkedIn Real Estate Application

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – July 22, 2010– Real estate professionals are now, at long last, ushered into the world of social media, thanks to the new Real Estate Pro LinkedIn application launched today by Rofo (www.rofo.com), a leading real estate and office space search engine.

The Real Estate Pro application is the first-ever plug-and-play social media tool for real estate professionals and landlords, creating a powerful localized social media marketplace for brokers, and businesses seeking office space. Available for free, the application acts as a broker’s professional activity dashboard, populated with real-time property listings, recently closed deals, market data – directly from within a LinkedIn user’s profile page.

Turnkey Social Media Solution for Real Estate Professionals

With more than 70 million LinkedIn users, Rofo was selected as part of the social network’s strategy to expand its applications portfolio and provide professionals with relevant tools to better promote their real-time work activity directly to their professional network, while also reaching prospective clients.

Real Estate Pro allows users to quickly import property listings, view and follow other professionals in their market, as well as share their latest deals with property photos, square footage and amenities, for example.

Brokers and agents can update listings anytime, choosing which properties to highlight – showcasing not only the quantity of their listings, but the quality. For the first time, brokers and agents are able to provide a business networking community of millions with an objective sense of who among them is a top performer.

Additionally, updates made within Real Estate Pro trigger LinkedIn Network Updates on a weekly basis – providing an easy, sophisticated way to keep business connections apprised of recent work activity. Real estate professionals can now leverage LinkedIn to create more relevant and meaningful connections based on their local real estate markets.

Social features, such as sharing a listing or announcing a completed transaction, along with the ability to follow a real estate professional’s updates, creates a powerful discovery mechanism for all players in the marketplace, including mortgage brokers, moving companies, office supply providers and attorneys. 

Help for Businesses Seeking More Affordable Office Space

As the economy remains tough, securing a more affordable lease is one way to improve the bottom-line. Business owners looking for space have the ability to identify commercial real estate professionals in their market, browse market activity and available properties by zip code or region. They can keep track of new listings, pricing and transactions in order to help negotiate a lease with confidence or discover a better deal for their changing needs.

“Working with LinkedIn to provide this app ensures that together we can very rapidly bring a large category of professionals into the world of social media, which is a very important, exciting development,” said Alan Bernier, chief executive officer of Rofo. “This app provides the right features and functionality for enabling real estate professionals to deepen and expand their professional connections, ultimately creating a much richer experience on LinkedIn.”

Also today, Rofo issued a joint press release with Cushman & Wakefield (www.cushwake.com), the world's largest privately held commercial real estate services firm. Cushman & Wakefield's brokerage professionals can now provide their exclusive office listing content on Real Estate Pro, ensuring that the application's users easily find relevant office space in their region of interest.

About Rofo 
Founded in 2007 and based in San Francisco, California, Rofo is a leading real estate technology company. Its flagship product, Rofo, is a real estate and office space search engine, (www.rofo.com). The privately-held company displays listings from local landlords, regional and national brokerage firms, such as Cushman & Wakefield, and institutional landlords such as Hines. With its application Real Estate Pro, the company is the first and only real estate app on LinkedIn and launched the first-ever U.S. commercial real estate augmented reality app for iPhone and Android devices. To learn more about Rofo visit www.rofo.com.

To download or learn more about Real Estate Pro on LinkedIn, please click here. To view a short how-to video, please click here.