Real estate technology pioneer stirs up Manhattan market

In 1994, after a career in banking and fashion consulting, LaLa Wang turned her attention to the real estate market in New York City. "My husband and I were interested in selling coops and condos. We saw that the market was kind of inefficient. The more we became involved in looking to sell we thought, 'Why wasn't there a (multiple listing service) for consumers in Manhattan? In Manhattan there wasn't even a broker MLS," she said. The first step was to design and develop in-house databases. "We were using data feeds exchanged by bulletin board systems and FTPs." The initial effort, called Principal Connections Ltd., evolved into Manhattan Listing Xpress or MLX.com, an Internet-accessible database of thousands of New York City listings of for-sale and for-rent apartments, co-ops, condos and townhouses. The site is intended to connect renters, buyers, sellers, landlords and brokers. Wang is also founder and CEO of BrokersNYC, a company that offers Web services for brokers. And this year...