Article on ICIWorld Association of Real Estate Brokers and Salespeople as a Global Real Estate Networking Internet Service for the real estate industry worldwide to serve the public. Sales by members from small businesses, condos, to setting record sales of commercial property and land $50M+
Since 1994, Nusca, a 40-year-plus veteran of the real estate industry, has been at the forefront of creating a unique platform and database of information with his ICIWorld Commercial Real Estate Network.
Nusca developed the online global information listing service from his home basement in 1994.
He was involved with the residential real estate industry for a number of years before looking at the commercial side of the business through the Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) program.
“That was a significant major reason of why I’m doing what I’m doing today,” he says. During early networking sessions with the CCIM, there were opportunities to share properties for sale and provide information about buyers.
But Nusca felt there were deals everyone was missing because they weren’t at those networking sessions to pass along the information. Even the people at those sessions couldn’t keep up to date with all the info they were getting while networking. So he decided that rather than seeing all these missed opportunities go to waste, he would create a platform to house the information.
“These are not listings. These are pieces of information that are in the industry,” says Nusca.
“ICIWorld is an information listing service. I have websites that I’m building and my hope some day is that real estate boards and organizations could theoretically adopt our service or we could become affiliated with them somehow, because we have similar membership requirements. We only allow licenced real estate brokers and salespeople to join. We handle information and we share that information. That’s the big difference from any other services in the world. We share the information,” says Nusca.
“How we share it is by not placing the address or identifying the property. So if it’s a $4-million plaza we will simply say $4-million plaza, Greater Toronto Area. That’s it. Because we’re similar to classified ads in a newspaper in a real estate section. You can advertise your regular real estate board listings like we use it for networking information. We now have about 40,000 listings there that are not listings. We call them have and want opportunities. These are opportunities to do business.”
Nusca says that on the commercial side, about 75 per cent are exclusive opportunities with about 50 per cent on the residential side.
On the ICIWorld website, it says Nusca has built a service that has over $40 billion of commercial real estate opportunities and up to $11 trillion of buyer wants, with over 30,000 have and want opportunities.
Nusca was chairman of the 1999 CCIM International Commercial Real Estate Conference in Toronto. He is past president of the Central Canada CCIM Chapter and has served in many capacities for over 20 years. He is past president of the Junior Chamber of Commerce and past chairman of Hamilton’s 125th Anniversary Committee with the Jaycees (Junior Chamber of Commerce). He has organized, conducted and attended have and want marketing sessions where more than $200 million worth of real estate has been presented over a one-day session, nationally, internationally and locally.
He is also a well-known public speaker and leader in presenting seminars and webinars about the industry.
“A lot of residential people think that the only way you can sell real estate is through a real estate board. We say that’s the best way, but you should also include ICIWorld for networking,” he says.
“The bottom line as far as I’m concerned is that it contributes to the economy of a nation because every trade in real estate contributes to the GDP of a nation. When there’s that $50-million piece of land there’s going to be an office tower development going up there. Look at the jobs being created. And it’s a real estate salesperson that’s helping make that happen. I kind of think it’s the real estate people that can help us out of this pandemic.
“I think that the industry and real estate boards have overlooked 50 per cent of the industry – namely the buyers. Because if you go to ICIWorld, you’re going to see the wants there. They’re not listed on MLS but they are here. And some of the biggest deals in the land are started from a want.
“The beauty of information. Information is what I call the gold on the internet.”
