Over the summer a wave of announcements about companies offeringnew infrastructures and forming new initiatives and the integrationof these by major real estate companies were made. One suchannouncement came in August as Insignia Financial Group'ssubsidiary Douglas Elliman formed a joint venture with the CorcoranGroup to develop a multiple listing system for Manhattan. Thesystem would attempt to centralize the residential brokeragecommunity through one Web site. Halstead Property Company alsocommitted to becoming a member of the project. The MSL is scheduledto be up and open for new members in early 2001.

Insignia followed this announcement in late September with newsthat it was opening a retail business, through its Realty Onegroup, that would act as an information center where customerscould surf the Internet in a cyber café-like environment. The newvirtual resource bank real estate office is in the warehousedistrict of Cleveland. The new office will serve as a testingground for the prototype business and will spread across thecountry if successful.

Insignia Financial Group then announced that it was joining CBRichard Ellis, Jones Lang LaSalle and Trammell Crow Co. in ProjectOctane. Octane was launched in March as an alliance to further thedevelopment of an on-line service delivery platform that wouldsupply procurement, transaction management and enterprise resourceplanning platforms. Octane plans to launch a transaction servicesplatform within the first quarter of 2001. It will function as ahardware and software application service provider offering anInternet based marketplace, communication, collaboration andprocess management tool for the commercial real estateindustry.