How Commercial Real Estate Technology is Modernizing the Industry

June 23, 2022 • Commercial Real Estate

You have probably been hearing the word “proptech” thrown around a lot in the last decade as real estate technology has reshaped the way realtors and consumers think about the industry. At this point, most people have likely found an apartment or a house using Zillow, Redfin, or any number of services geared towards the residential real estate industry. But what about commercial real estate technology? How has proptech benefited brokerages that work in the office, industrial, or retail sectors? 

For years, commercial real estate technology has lagged behind their residential counterparts. As we noted in an earlier blog, tenant reps have been particularly late to the game of adopting proptech solutions. Now the industry is at a pivotal moment where commercial real estate technology is catching up to the needs of brokerages and their clients. We are beginning to see a shift in how brokerages and clients communicate and collaborate, enabled and empowered by commercial real estate technology.

What is Commercial Real Estate Technology?

Commercial real estate technology encompasses all software solutions geared towards streamlining and optimizing operations for tenant reps, listing agents, investors, property managers, or tenants. Each role in the commercial real estate industry requires effective communication, easy access to data, and streamlined operations. Commercial real estate technology, or proptech solutions geared towards the commercial side, help brokerages and their clients meet these needs.

Many brokerages rely on very little technology to operate their business. The methodology of managing commercial real estate transactions is old-fashioned, out of date, and overly reliant on email communications and PDFs. In today’s competitive landscape, brokerages need to branch out to stay ahead of the competition by building out their tech stack to include data services, transaction management, and more in order to ensure they offer the very best to their clients.

Proptech Solutions for Investment and Listing Management

For those who work on the investment or listing side of the commercial real estate industry, numerous services have emerged in the past few years to strengthen operations. VTS Lease enables brokers to manage their portfolio of properties from one central location, enabling users to have a digital portal to access and manage their lease agreements. Acting as a command center of active leases and properties, VTS helps brokers manage their internal operations as well as client collaboration.

Another major player in the listing side of commercial real estate technology is Buildout, a marketing automation platform. Buildout enables listing agents to easily syndicate their properties across a variety of platforms to increase exposure and help find the right tenants. AnthemIQ is one such platform Buildout syndicates properties through. Read more about our partnership here.

NavigatorCRE is a great example of a proptech company that aims to serve every piece of the commercial real estate industry. Across their six product offerings, they have solutions for asset managers, occupiers, developers, and more. Proptech solutions are geared towards bringing commercial real estate into the 21st century, elevating all aspects of the industry. VTS, NavigatorCRE, and Buildout are just a few examples of how commercial real estate technology serves the investment and listing management side of the industry.

Commercial Real Estate Technology for Property Management and Investment

Commercial real estate comes with a lot of data to manage from a variety of different sources. The industry is known for bad or stale information because it has lasted so long without adequate technological support. Now that this is finally changing, several new providers have emerged to help brokerages have easy access to information, have a single source of truth they can rely on, and have their plethora of data services effectively integrated.

To give a few examples, CompStak and Cherre aid brokers and their clients in acquiring and assessing information about available properties. Cherre is a data integration solution geared towards ensuring all of a brokerage's data sources connect to a single source of truth. This enables brokers and their clients to consistently have access to better, more up to date information and provides powerful insights and analytics. 

CompStak is a widely used tool that provides brokers and their clients with detailed information about the surrounding market of a given property. Understanding market trends and comparable available properties helps tenant reps and their clients get a better idea of their options and the quality of offers on the table. AnthemIQ has a partnership with CompStak. Read our press release to learn more about how AnthemIQ users benefit from CompStak data.

How Transaction Management is Changing with Commercial Real Estate Technology

Tenant reps and their clients have long relied on emails and PDF communications to handle every part of a transaction from providing market surveys to stakeholders to ironing out the lease details. Considering the complexity of a client’s needs in commercial real estate, how frequently client parameters or property availability can change, and how long a property search can take, relying solely on emails to handle a transaction is ill-advised. Thankfully this is changing as a variety of services have emerged in the past few years to fill the void that has left tenant reps with nothing but emails to serve their clients for far too long.

AnthemIQ fits into this ecosystem as a SaaS provider of integrated solutions where commercial real estate works together. The AnthemIQ platform enables tenant reps to manage their transaction workflow from a collaborative digital portal that not only reduces the need for email communications, but provides an interactive digital market survey for clients, similar to the experience residential real estate has provided for years through services like Zillow and Redfin.

In addition to offering users a digital market survey, AnthemIQ makes it easy to produce and export high quality PDF or PowerPoint presentations, should key stakeholders require a copy of the survey to keep on file. Beyond the transaction, AnthemIQ enables brokerages to manage their organizations and measure key performance metrics, as well as provides listing agents a platform to get their assets in front of as many eyes as possible. All of these components work together to bring every part of commercial real estate under one roof.

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Commercial real estate technology has changed the way the industry operates over the past twenty years. Still, commercial real estate lags behind other industries, leaving clients expecting more than what most brokerages offer. We live in an age where digital collaboration is expected, and every aspect of commercial real estate has to evolve to meet that expectation. Adopting new technology at times can be difficult and time consuming, but those who don’t evolve will ultimately lose clients to the ones who do. 

To learn more about where AnthemIQ fits into the commercial real estate technology landscape, contact our sales team to schedule a demo.