Brownfield Listings Updates Beta Test Progress

CHICAGO - March 26, 2015 - PRLog -- CHICAGO, Illinois, March 26, 2015—Today Brownfield Listings provided an update to the ongoing soft launch of its national real estate redevelopment marketplace and project workspace, a new way to market properties with unique features and share due diligence for more complex or complicated real estate projects.

The first class of selected beta testers is currently working with Brownfield Listings to create the first generation of property, project and profile content on the platform. Reception has been “universally positive,” said Dan French, CEO of Brownfield Listings. “Working hand-in-glove with our first users has provided tremendously valuable feedback, some of which we’ve already implemented,” French continued. “They are learning what our platform can do and we are learning just how quickly they can assimilate the due diligence they already have and take off from there.”

Asked if working with real users provided any major surprises so far, the Brownfield Listings team reported nothing generally unexpected. Rather it’s the Beta testers who’ve been surprised by the breadth of the functionality in the beta test. “We took our time in development to build enough tools to set the table properly, so to speak,” French said, “and there’s a lot of meat and potatoes already in Version 1.”

“BL’s Betas” don’t need much help, French continued, with most off and running after a small demo. “We’ve focused on user interface from the start,” he explained, “and we knew what user experience paradigms were working generally, so everything feels clean and familiar even though you’re doing the dirty job of redevelopment due diligence.” With an intuitive online platform, Brownfield Listings is aiming to break down the difficulty barrier preventing property owners from taking on the due diligence that can be the catalyst for their property or project.

Sellers are also enjoying the confidentiality afforded during the beta test and experimenting freely with platform. Still for sellers only, Brownfield Listings is restricting access to its beta site from buyers, vendors and redevelopment professional until a later stage. The Brownfield Listings team believes such a free environment is crucial to create the most valuable feedback from sellers. So crucial, in fact, that sellers will always be able to work up their due diligence in confidence by keeping listings in “draft” status—holding them out of the marketplace—and taking time to collect their due diligence or create it from scratch.

“No one gets their taxes done on Turbo Tax in one sitting,” French noted, “so it’s essential people are able to work on drafts freely for as long as they need.” And because users must create an organization to list properties, they are able to invite other users to join. This way the entire redevelopment team can collaborate on “draft” listings until they are ready to post into the marketplace or publish openly online.

Visibility settings are user-controlled and a key aspect to how listings are handled inside Brownfield Listings’ marketplace. If confidentiality is paramount to a seller even after a draft listing is finished, then the user can enable privacy settings to restrict view of their listing only to those buyers they pre-qualify and invite.

Soon Brownfield Listings will open the beta test to the next class of property owners and redevelopment teams to create their own property listings, user profiles and project boards. Selected beta testers will enjoy free and privileged use of the platform and their content will be featured in Brownfield Listings' live release later this year.

Registration for the Brownfield Listings beta test is open and acceptance is ongoing. Apply to participate in the beta test at BrownfieldListings.com.