Category: CRE Technology

Top 11 Tenant Experience Software and Apps

Posted on by Sergi

Tenant experience software and apps empower both property owners and tenants.

On the owner side, they give you unparalleled data about your property. With detailed insights on tenant satisfaction, overall space usage, amenity demand, and more, you can better monetize your building and drive long-term retention and revenues.

For tenants, they mean easier rent payments, more accessible amenities, and a more convenient leasing experience as a whole. They also encourage a better sense of community and give businesses an edge when recruiting and retaining talent.

Are you looking for a way to differentiate your building experience and keep long-term tenants in the fold? Tenant experience software can help.

Here are the top 11 tenant experience (TeX) tools you’ll want on your radar:

HqO

HqO commercial real estate tenant experience app

HqO is a tenant experience platform that helps owners of commercial real estate deliver a transformative experience for users of their space. It’s a command center that unifies building technology and data for individual assets and across global portfolios.

The platform powers HqO’s tenant experience mobile app, which puts new conveniences, amenities, and a sense of community directly into the tenants’ hands. With a white label building app tenants can use features like: space booking, building access, visitor management, parking and transit, event and amenity booking, and order-ahead at on-site restaurants, retailers, and service providers.

Bengie (Building Engines)

Building Engines’ Bengie is the easiest way for tenants and property management teams to communicate with each other through the tools they already use every day such as text messaging. Tenants can quickly and simply make service requests and register visitors through Bengie, while property managers can communicate building wide announcements directly to their tenants’ mobile devices. All without downloading yet another mobile application or the need to fill out complex web forms. Bengie represents the next evolution of tenant self-service and an improved user-experience while reducing administrative work for property management teams.

Equiem

Equiem commercial real estate tenant experience app

Equiem offers tenant communications and space reservations like most apps, but it also ups the ante a bit, enabling new revenue streams through its built-in ecommerce platform, services marketplace, and vendor management system. It also comes with pre-loaded news and other content that can be shared with tenants, as well as automated email newsletters to keep lines of communication open.

Comfy

Designed specifically for office buildings and workplaces, Comfy lets tenants book meeting and presentation spaces and control their area’s temperature and lighting. There are also built-in maps and navigational instructions for getting around the office — a huge perk if your buildings are on the larger side.

Spaceflow

Spaceflow helps landlords to attract and retain top tenants by combining the tenant experience platform and community management.

Spaceflow creates a “space-as-a-service” experience that allows landlords and space operators to customize services and improve tenant satisfaction. Occupants have amenities, services and community life just one click away in the mobile app and community managers ensure the best experience possible – through attractive content, events and personal communication.

Sharry

Sharry tenant experience

 

Sharry is a PropTech developer of innovative software for premium office buildings based out of Prague, operating in Central Europe.

They specialize in integration of smart solutions such as access, parking, digital signages, community app or shared services.

Lane

Lane commercial real estate tenant experience app

The Lane app aims to streamline core building activities by enabling instant communication and automating processes like guest registration, parking, maintenance, on-site screens/displays, and building access. Tenants can also use it to book rooms, enroll in events or programs, or take advantage of concierge services, while landlords can send out news updates, launch tenant appreciation events, and even enable loyalty programs or special offers.

Rise Buildings

Rise Buildings (acquired by VTS) is a robust occupant experience and property operations platform that consolidates multiple software and hardware solutions into one, fully-integrated platform.

With seamless access, a captivating user experience, robust operations tools, and advanced capabilities, the Rise Buildings native platform replaces all other property technology solutions – improving staff efficiency, elevating occupant experience, and increasing NOI.

Bixby

Bixby commercial real estate tenant experience app

Bixby streamlines rent payments, maintenance requests, and repairs with a single, handy app. There’s also a community message board for instant communication, as well as an amenity marketplace where tenants can book dry cleaning, dog walking, and other local services to improve their experience.

Office App

Office App commercial real estate tenant experience app

Office App is designed for professional and office space tenants, offering on-demand room booking, maintenance requests, food ordering, and more. It also allows for real-time availability and occupancy updates throughout the building and parking lot, as well as full access control. There are also built-in messaging features, public transport updates, and floor plans.

hOM

hOM commercial real estate tenant experience app

hOM is a technology-enabled amenity provider that partners with residential and office properties to provide on-site fitness programming and unique events for tenants.

Healthy employees reduce benefit spend and are more productive at work — and your tenants want to encourage both.

The Bottom Line

Technology can improve your tenants’ experience, reduce your workload, and serve as a valuable marketing tool to bring in new customers.

How to Add Property Listings to Your Website with SharpLaunch

Posted on by Sergi

Your company’s “Properties” page is the single most valuable digital asset you own.

Displaying your properties on your company website provides a great value to your prospective clients (buyers, tenants, partners), helps boost engagement and elevates your brand awareness.

There are several ways to add property listings to your website, but which is the best option?

In the past, displaying property listings required the involvement of a web development agency that could develop a completely tailored solution. However it is prohibitively expensive and time-consuming for many commercial real estate companies.

Due to these barriers, some existing third party CRE portals started offering subscription-based widgets that can be embedded in your website with an iframe, sending visitors to external pages, away from your domain. Apart from that, the major downside of these solution is the lack of customization options and poor SEO for your own website. While they serve the basic function of listing properties on your website, they don’t help in other key areas.

That’s where the SharpLaunch Property Search Engine comes in, using a “white label” approach that uses an API to connect your property inventory directly with your company website through a WordPress plugin.

Let’s take a closer look at what it offers and how to get one installed on your website.

What is the SharpLaunch Property Search Engine?

The SharpLaunch Property Search Engine pulls all of your property listing information through a data feed (API) and displays it on your website, allowing visitors to search within your portfolio, click on individual properties, and view information about them directly on your own website.

Because it uses a WordPress plugin instead of an embedded iFrame, it becomes part of your website and is better for both user experience and search engine optimization.

It also includes a variety of customization options, to give you the freedom to design the user experience based on your branding and design preferences, and seamlessly integrate with your company website. You can select from different layout options (maps, grid and list views), dynamic search filters and various sorting options.

How Does It Work?

The SharpLaunch Property Search Engine utilizes a database of property information that can be updated inside of a content management system. The API allows all the listing data entry and management to be completed in one CMS.

When a change is made to a listing or a new property is added, the API automatically updates the property listing information displayed in the listing on your website. This keeps the instance of your Property Search Engine and the individual listings updated at all times, reducing management time and guaranteeing accuracy.

The Property Search Engines provides the first-class search experience that your visitors expect while keeping them on your site. You can subsequently cross-list your properties without a third party site involved, reducing the risk of competing properties appearing in the same search results.

Why Do You Need It?

With the SharpLaunch Property Search Engine, you can control exactly which properties your prospective tenants or investors see, when they see those properties, and the information you want to provide them.

By eliminating third-party tools that take visitors off of your website, ensuring a fully responsive mobile experience, and customizing your property search engine to match your branding, you elevate your entire website user experience and provide accurate information for your prospects.

This has a number of benefits, including:

  • Higher visitor retention rate
    By utilizing a search engine that displays property listings on your website, you can move prospects on your website and away from outside sites like LoopNet where they will see other listings alongside yours. This keeps them on your website and property sites for longer.
  • Improve brand consistency
    Unlike some apps or widgets, a custom property search engine allows you to adjust key settings to match your website’s branding, seamlessly integrating it into the user experience. It is embedded on a specific page of the site and becomes a part of the site’s structure, including your custom menu and footer.
  • Maximize search engine optimization
    The content displayed in your property listings is unique to your website. This can have a positive impact on your efforts to improve the ranking of your property listings and your company website in Google search results.

Learn more about how a commercial property search engine works and how you can start leveraging it on your website to house your properties and improve your overall user experience.

A Guide to Matterport 3D Virtual Tours for Commercial Real Estate

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In the era of social and physical distancing, 3D virtual tours are becoming more prevalent to help aid during the sell/lease decision making process for commercial properties.

Virtual tours are digital recreations of a physical space, be it an office, retail space or industrial warehouse, that allow leads to get a sense of a property before spending time to tour it in person.

Specialized cameras can shoot still images and 360 video and then stitch the images/video together to create the sensation of walking through a space either through an app, web browser or VR headset.

We asked the experts at Matterport, a leader in immersive 3D technology, for some key guidelines every CRE professional should consider before starting their project.

How to: Find out how to add a Matterport virtual tour on your own SharpLaunch property site.

Why should commercial real estate owners and brokers use virtual 3D tours for marketing?

Transparency is a key factor in selling or leasing a property. Virtual 3D tours provide the transparency that translates into the trust that’s sought after in today’s market.

Virtual 3D tours enable brokers to offer remote, 24/7 open buildings. This can save time not only for prospects but also for brokers as they offer a greater level of information about a property that will stand out and close commercial properties faster.

With Matterport, our partners are arming their brokers with the tools they need to prove they are the best in the industry with the best technology.

How do virtual tours help sell/lease commercial properties?

Many prospects simply do not have the time to tour buildings in person. A visit can take weeks to schedule, and just one visit often does not provide enough information for an investor or someone leasing a space to make a confident decision.

Brokers can solve these time-consuming hurdles in the sell/lease process by using virtual 3D tours to inform and engage prospects from anywhere, anytime, on any device.

Virtual 3D tours offer an immersive and accurate view of the property before the customer ever schedules a visit. With Matterport, brokers can provide a personalized view of the property, providing more information about specific areas with Mattertags as they explore within the tour.

When prospects do come in for a visit, they will be more knowledgeable and better prepared to make a confident decision that day.

How do you create a virtual tour with Matterport?

Brokers have two options for providing virtual 3D tours: they can scan properties in-house by purchasing a 3D camera like the Matterport Pro2, or a compatible 360 camera, or they can contract a professional capture technician from Matterport’s network.

These scans enable us to create a 3D model or “digital twin” of the property, from which we can generate the complete visual asset package for any home listing, including 4K photos, short videos and schematic floor plans.

From this digital twin, brokers will have everything they need to promote their properties – an inclusive package of high-resolution photos, video assets, floor plans and the market’s most immersive and accurate 3D tour.

From Matterport real estate gallery

A unique web link is generated so that the broker can simply post the 3D virtual tour to their own brokerage website or other sites, email it to prospects and stakeholders, and easily share on social channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Who needs to be involved in the project?

The property owner or manager, along with the broker will be involved in the project. A capture technician would also be involved if the owners or broker chooses to contract a professional from Matterport’s network.

From Matterport real estate gallery

Do you need to hire a professional photographer?

The all-in-one Matterport 3D platform can be easily managed by brokers who want to capture properties themselves.

Otherwise, they can quickly and easily contract property scans through Matterport’s national network of local capture technicians.

How do you prepare/stage the property?

It’s best if the property is clean, organized and arranged to make the space appear exactly as the broker or manager would want it to look for an in-person viewing.

From Matterport real estate gallery

The property will be immersive and photorealistic in the Matterport 3D viewer, which is accessible on any device.

How much does a Matterport virtual tour cost?

Cost varies depending on the size of the property, location, and other factors.

What’s the best way to showcase a Matterport virtual tour?

You can always share a link to a Matterport virtual 3D tour and even customize the link.

Another option is to directly embed it onto your property website. This way your Matterport 3D virtual tour will appear in the middle of your webpage, just like a YouTube video does. You can also share your Matterport 3D virtual tour on social channels.

How do you add your virtual tour on a SharpLaunch website?

SharpLaunch clients can display Matterport virtual tours directly on their property website.

The SharpLaunch CMS includes a field in the Availabilities (Floor Plans) module to include a virtual tour for each available space or embed the entire 3D space for the entire property in the Video module.

The 3D walkthrough is opened in a modal window directly on the property page, keeping visitors engaged with the property website content.

Here’s a step by step process on how to embed the Matterport virtual tour on your website and some live examples below.

Matterport example 1: Courtyard Lofts

Matterport example 2: Ivanhoe – La Jolla

 

7 Commercial Real Estate Technology Solutions to Help Digitize Your Operations

Posted on by Sergi

The pandemic has accelerated technology adoption across industries and markets, and commercial real estate is no exception. Even those most resistant to change have discovered new transformative opportunities driven by the proptech boom.

As these tools become ever more pervasive, permeating every aspect of modern life, it is more important than ever to create a coherent and comprehensive strategy to harness their capabilities for your properties.

With so many commercial real estate tech platforms to choose from (many of which offer similar or overlapping services), we decided to compile the ultimate list of commercial real estate tools and software for building owners, highlighting the must-have platforms that are solving major pain points for landlords today.

CRE owner technology

In this essential guide to today’s top proptech solutions for CRE owners we’ll highlight the must-have platforms that are solving major pain points with fresh innovations in the following seven key categories:

  • Construction Management
  • Marketing & Sales
  • Lease Management
  • Building Operations
  • Tenant Engagement
  • Investment Management
  • Finance & Accounting

 

Construction Management

Procore

Procore is a cloud-based construction software that provides clients a suite of project management tools to manage all types of construction projects including industrial plants, office buildings, apartment complexes, university facilities, retail centers, and more.

Their goal is to help construction professionals increase their project success by simplifying project management with powerful collaborative software.

Construction management software can do the nitty-gritty work behind the scenes to make the entire process more efficient, compliant, and cost-effective.

Procore helps firms drastically increase project efficiency and accountability by streamlining and mobilizing project communications and documentation. This real time data and accessibility minimizes costly risks and delays — ultimately boosting profits.

Procore’s products include solutions for:

Project Management

Stay on schedule with real-time communication across project teams and access to the information you need to manage critical action items.

Quality & Safety

Improve processes and reduce risks related to construction and operation with streamlined mobile tools, built-in accountability features, and instant reporting on performance data.

Project Financials

Get detailed visibility and control costs and change orders for large or complex projects, with add-on capabilities for managing bidding and invoicing.

Marketing

SharpLaunch

SharpLaunch is an all-in-one commercial real estate marketing software that helps building owners stand out from the competition and streamline marketing operations for their entire portfolio from one single platform.

Owners can create and manage the digital footprint of their portfolio and centralize all property data to provide a single hub for both existing and prospective tenants.

The SharpLaunch platform includes the following capabilities:

Property Search Engine

Display your assets and vacancies on your website with a fully customized property engine.

Property Websites

Create beautiful individual property websites or listing pages for your entire portfolio.

Dashboard & Analytics

Centralize all your property information and track marketing performance.

Document Portal

Securely store all your documents and allow access to selected users.

Lead Management

Manage your contact database and automatically capture leads through your property websites.

Data Syndication

Automatically publish property listings across major CRE portals and listing services.

Lease Management

VTS

VTS is commercial real estate’s leading leasing and asset management platform, bringing together landlords, brokers, and tenants to make deals happen.

VTS software enables office, retail, and industrial landlords and brokers to transform their leasing process and convert leads to leases 41% more efficiently. MarketView™, the industry’s first market benchmarking product gives landlords real-time information to inform deal negotiations and leasing strategies.

VTS’ solution includes products that help:

Building Operations

Building Engines

Building Engines is a cloud-based provider of property management software for operations-minded teams at commercial office, retail, and industrial real estate properties.

The platform seamlessly connects property management teams with the activities, data and insights they need to improve efficiency and make better decisions.

Building Engines platform includes products covering areas like:

Tenant Engagement

HqO

HqO is a tenant experience platform and provides landlords with a mobile app that connects tenants to the building, its amenities, and each other.

The solution is designed to help landlords increase tenant retention, create a leasing differentiator, provide data to drive asset strategy and elevate portfolio and asset branding.

Investment Management

Juniper Square

Juniper Square is trusted by hundreds of investment sponsors to manage more than 14,000 real estate investments.

By using Juniper Square, clients such as Tishman Speyer, Rockpoint, and Beacon Capital improve investor satisfaction, boost fundraising productivity, and save time and money on investment operations.

Features include:

Accounting

MRI

Founded in 1971, MRI Software is a leading provider of innovative real estate software applications and hosted solutions for multi-family residential and commercial property, retail, office, and corporate real estate.

MRI’s comprehensive and flexible technology platform coupled with an open and connected ecosystem meets the unique needs of real estate businesses—from property-level management and accounting to investment modeling and analytics for the global commercial and residential markets.

Their product suite includes:

Conclusion

Why do you need a CRE tech stack?

Not sure where to start? Learn from other landlords and building owners who have already mastered their technology journey in this eBook.

The CRE Owner’s Guide to Technology

Download this guide to discover the leading CRE software solving major pain points for owners today.

Who Pays for What? 8 Types of Commercial Real Estate Leases to Know

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There are nearly a dozen types of commercial real estate leases out there, each with their own rent, fee, and expense arrangements.

What are the different types of commercial leases? Who pays property taxes on a commercial lease? Who pays insurance? That’s critical to understanding both your responsibilities and your risk as a tenant or landlord.

Which type of lease are you currently under? What are your responsibilities in a modified gross lease, net lease, or absolute lease?

Use this guide to light the way.

8 Types of Commercial Real Estate Leases

The breakdown of property expenses is the main differentiator among commercial real estate leases. In some, the landlord assumes all responsibility (and costs) for maintaining, powering, and insuring the property, while in others, tenants do — either in full or in part.

Here are 8 of the most common commercial leases and how responsibilities break down under each.

LEASE TYPE TENANT PAYS LANDLORD PAYS
Gross Rent Taxes
Insurance
All utilities and maintenance of entire building
Modified Gross Rent
Utilities and maintenance of individual units		 Taxes
Insurance
Utilities and maintenance of common areas
Net Rent
Utilities
Fixed portion of operating expenses		 Varies depending on what type of net lease
Single Net Rent
Utilities
Fixed portion of property taxes		 Portion of taxes
Property insurance
Utilities and maintenance of common areas
Repairs
Double Net Rent
Utilities
Fixed portion of property taxes and insurance		 Portion of taxes and insurance
Utilities and maintenance of common areas
Repairs
Triple Net Rent
Utilities
Fixed portion of property taxes, insurance, and common area maintenance		 Portion of taxes, insurance, and common area maintenance
Repairs
Absolute Net Rent
All property taxes, insurance, utilities, common area maintenance, and repairs		 None
Percentage Rent
Percentage of monthly sales		 Taxes
Insurance
All utilities and maintenance of entire building

 

Gross Lease

Also called a “full service” lease, gross leases put all operating expenses in the landlord’s hands. These include taxes, utilities, maintenance (outside and in), cleaning, and insuring the property, while tenants only pay a basic rent.

Modified Gross Lease

A modified gross lease is one step down from a gross or full service lease, requiring the landlord to handle insuring the property and maintaining common areas, but leaving the utilities, cleaning, and maintenance of individual units to the tenant. The tenant also pays a base rent.

Net Lease

With a net lease, the tenant pays rent plus a fixed fee for operating expenses — things like common area maintenance, taxes, insurance, etc. There are 4 different types of net leases (see below).

Single Net Lease (N Lease)

In a single net lease, the tenant pays their rent, plus a share of the property tax burden. They’re also responsible for the utility costs, maintenance, and other fees associated with their individual unit.

Double Net Lease (NN Lease)

A double net lease is one step above a single net lease. In addition to paying rent and a share of the property taxes, they also pay a portion of the property’s insurance premiums.

Triple Net Lease (NNN Lease)

Triple net leases are one of the most widely used types of commercial real estate leases. In this arrangement, the tenant pays rent, a share of property taxes, a share of insurance, and a fixed fee for common area maintenance and operating expenses.

Absolute Net Lease

Also called an absolute lease or an absolute triple net lease, these agreements put all of the building’s financial responsibilities on the tenant, including taxes, maintenance, insurance, repairs, and more. This gives them control and freedom on the property, but it also means full liability in the event of a catastrophe or total loss.

Percentage Lease

This is a common lease in shopping centers in malls and retail spaces, requiring tenants to pay a base rent, plus a percentage of their monthly sales. The percentage goes toward building operating expenses and maintenance, though there is no set fee for these costs.

6 Things You’re Missing If You’re Not Using A CRE Marketing Software

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Embracing marketing technology is undeniably critical for any modern commercial real estate company. At a fundamental level, commercial real estate marketing software can help you streamline, automate and scale your property marketing activities. It will continue to be an essential building block of productivity for landlords and brokerages alike.

CRE marketing software

What You’re Missing If You’re Not Using A Commercial Real Estate Marketing Software

1. Reduce Marketing Production Work

Without a doubt, one of the most crucial benefits of a full-feature marketing software is the time it saves for your team. You can automate tedious marketing production activities and make sure all the moving pieces of your marketing operations are cohesively connected together. SPEED is the name of the game!

2. Remove Data Silos

Gone are the inefficient days of maintaining your data in multiple isolated islands. The advances in cloud-based technologies offer you the power and speed to quickly access property and contact data from anywhere at anytime. Embracing data as a competitive advantage is a necessity for today’s fast-paced CRE world and the ability to access it quickly is critical.

3. Access Multiple Tools From One Solution

Full-feature platforms, like SharpLaunch, solve many problems with a suite of tools that are integrated together. This provides a true solution faced by commercial real estate firms that want to simplify and consolidate the use of different commercial real estate technology solutions.  The added benefit of a fully integrated platform is you only need to purchase, learn, and train your team on one tool vs. several disparate single point tools.

4. Have Better Control Of Brand Consistency

One of the great things of using a marketing software is the scale and continuous consistency it brings to all of your materials. The last thing you want is an ad hoc approach with inconsistent branding, especially when it comes to your property marketing. This not only makes you look less professional, it also dilutes the overall brand equity for you and your company.

5. Get Listings To Market Faster

It goes without saying, SPEED is essential when getting ready to list a property on the market. Do you hate creating static aerial maps? Updating property listing data? Manually updating your company website? Then find yourself a solution that can do that for you so you can focus your time on higher-value activities.

6. Gain Visibility To Key Metrics And Client Activity

Another major advantage of a marketing system is the wealth of data and insights it provides you so you can make better sales decisions. Data provided by a CRE marketing system can provide a bird’s eye view to help you analyze your properties and clients. It can surface insights about the sources bringing visitors to your property listings, who has executed your CA/NDA agreements, who has downloaded your documents and who has opened/clicked your emails, etc.

So, how do you know which solution is the right fit for your needs? Use this guide on how to choose the best commercial real estate marketing software.

 

Try SharpLaunch today

Learn how to streamline your CRE marketing operations and amplify your digital presence with an all-in-one solution built for busy commercial real estate teams.

Get a Free Demo

Everything You Need to Know About Driverless Cars and Real Estate

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Driverless cars are quickly becoming a reality and even though it’s still years before they dominate the roads, the profound impact it is poised to have on the real estate market should be considered.

The rapid innovation and technology development of autonomous vehicles is forcing real estate owners, operators, investors and other professionals to consider how their properties need to adapt to this new reality.

We’ve selected a list of 10 articles on how driverless cars will impact real estate to help you better understand its industry-shifting implications.

How Driverless Cars Could Disrupt The Real Estate Industry

Driverless cars could become a regular feature of the roads as early as April – at least in California, which has decided to allow fully autonomous vehicles to be tested on the roads (none of those pesky humans who have been present in test drives so far). Arizona has already become a fair-weather center for testing driverless vehicles, thanks in large part to the governor’s support, and Uber announced last week that it has finished testing its self-driving trucks in Arizona and is now beginning to use them to move goods across the state.

Read the full article by Ely Razin on Forbes

How Self-driving Cars Could Completely Reshape the Housing Market

Prime real estate will be unlocked for new home construction as parking lots, auto dealerships and gas stations become obsolete. Additional supply in historically supply constrained locations will likely dampen home price appreciation and alleviate housing shortages in many cities. Due to increased housing supply in good locations, there will initially be less demand for outlying locations, even though commutes will be easier.

Read the full article by Wolf Richter

My Thoughts On The Massive Impact Autonomous Cars Will Have On Real Estate

Autonomous cars will be pervasive in the next 5-10 years. They will be safer and more efficient than human drivers and they’ll all be electronic.

There’s no doubt autonomous cars are coming soon and the impact on the real estate industry will be massive. However, very few in the real estate industry is talking about it and even less are preparing for the impact it could have on their business.

Read the full post by Joe Stampone

Driverless Cars Will Open the Door to a Building Spree

It’s far from clear how long it will be before fully autonomous vehicles are ready to rule the road, or how governments will choose to regulate them. The 25 biggest U.S. cities generated a combined $5 billion last year from parking tickets, vehicle registrations, and other related revenue, according to data compiled by Governing magazine. Governments will also have to grapple with the likelihood that as the cost of the vehicles comes down, fleet companies may overburden roads with them.

Read the full article by Patrick Clark on Bloomberg

How Autonomous Vehicles Will Steer Toward A Building Boom

Urban development is not the only thing expected to experience a major change as self-driving cars become more commonplace. Suburbs are also likely to see an infusion of development as people become more willing to live farther away from their workplace because they no longer have to drive themselves to and from the office, Bloomberg reports.

Read the full article by Lara O’Keefe on Bisnow

A Driverless Future Threatens the Laws of Real Estate

The link between property and transport has been perhaps the most durable in human history.

Since the ancients, few things have delivered higher land values with more certainty than advances in transport, from roads to canals, railways to highways.

It’s still “a no-brainer” in the 21st century, says Bridget Buxton. She bought a fixer-upper with her husband in a scruffy part of east London in 2016 because it’s a short walk to the high-speed crosstown rail line due to open this year. Prices are up 90 percent in the past five years for homes like hers, far outpacing the whole city.

Read the full article by Jack Sidders and Jess Shankleman on Bloomberg

The Sad Truth About Self-Driving Cars? Give Them at Least 10 More Years

A recent crash that killed a pedestrian, setbacks with Tesla and others, delays in building out the infrastructure–it’s hard to stay positive when you’ve been waiting more than a decade, and when you do believe that there is some possibility that cars will drive on their own without any mishaps. Way back in 2007, the experts envisioned a future scenario that involved daily autonomous driving, as though it was second-nature. In that same article, the idea of building highways for autonomous cars still seemed like a distant dream.

Read the full article by John Brandon on Inc

The Future, Now – Autonomous Vehicles Will Force the Adaptation of Commercial Real Estate

July 2018

The rapid evolution of autonomous vehicle technology has forced real estate investors and developers to consider how their investments, both new and old, may need to adapt. Long an awe-inspiring element of science fiction, driverless cars soon will become more than just Hollywood’s picture of the future – they will be picking us up, dropping us off, and parked in our garages.

Read the full article by Ben Hittman on CCIM

The Game-changer For Future Cities: Driverless Cars

Most experts agree that the automobile as we know it will be largely obsolete by 2030. In its place will be fleets of driverless cars that shuttle people safely and efficiently through our city streets. But it’s the broader impacts of this technology that are a game-changer for the future of our cities and the human experience. The opportunity is not only to create new places that accommodate driverless cars, but to reshape our existing cities and towns into the kind of amenity-rich, vibrant places that we all enjoy.

Read the full post by Andy Cohen

Driving Into The Future: Self-driving Cars And CRE

Ten years ago, what would you think if someone told you that in the year 2020, people would be chauffeured around the city by self-driving cars? It would probably sound like something that came straight out of a movie, and you’d probably be worried about machines becoming sentient and forming an uprising against mankind. The good news is that we’re safe from a real-life Terminator scenario for now and that automobiles are going to be driving themselves in the not-so-distant future.

Read the full post by Jon Schultz

Everything You Need to Know About Blockchain in Commercial Real Estate

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Commercial real estate and financial industries are buzzing about blockchain and its potential impact on how data is shared. While the buzzword seems to be all around us and continues to make headlines, many people don’t understand the implications and how it may affect the way we do business in the future.

We’ve selected a list of 8 articles on blockchain and commercial real estate to help you better understand potential use cases and implications.

CRE Opinion: The Impact of Blockchain Technology on Real Estate

Blockchain has the potential to disrupt many processes within real estate. From accounting to title business and contracts, the blockchain will be omnipresent. Take, for example, the chain of custody and ownership of real property. Today we use a title company to research the records and give us assurances that the documentation available indicates ownership. With the introduction of a public open ledger system, the blockchain, custody of property, and the need for a secondary central repository (be it a title company or city and state public records) would not be needed. This would reduce transaction costs, state and city costs for hosting this information, and legal work associated with the research needed to transact on property.

Read the full article by Scott Beck and Andrew Friedman on D Magazine

The Blockchain For Real Estate, Explained

In its most simple sense, the blockchain is a series of computers (thousands to potentially millions of them) that each keep the same record of an event or transaction in a ledger that is open to the public. Each record is encrypted, and the ledger is virtually hack-proof. Since all these computers see the same thing, they offer consensus that the recorded event or transaction is valid. The most important value of the blockchain is that it allows two or more parties to interact with, say, a financial transaction, with no middleman.

Read the full article by Mark Zilbert on Forbes

Blockchain and CRE: The Only Article You Will Ever Need to Read

So this blockchain thing it’s all over the place, and there is so much hype and hyperbole.

Once you get past all of that BS, you get the nerds who want to sit and talk about forks being forks and other forks that won’t be forks. Don’t understand that? That’s ok; you don’t need to.

Read the full article by Duke Long on Propmodo

How Blockchain-based Smart Contracts Could Revolutionize Commercial Real Estate

Blockchain technology has recently been adopted and adapted for use by the commercial real estate (CRE) industry. CRE executives are finding that blockchain-based smart contracts can play a much larger role in their industry. Blockchain technology can potentially transform core CRE operations such as property transactions like purchase, sale, financing, leasing, and management transactions.

Read the full article on Deloitte

How Blockchain is Reshaping The Real Estate Industry

The infiltration of blockchain, the technology that supports cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, into industries around the world is only a matter of time.

The historically traditional commercial real estate industry won’t easily escape.

The technology has the potential to transform the property business. The potential shake-up would significantly speed up transactions and increase transparency.

Read the full article by Nick Clare on JLL Investor

Blockchain and Commercial Real Estate

The inevitable convergence of blockchain and real estate may be viewed as a modern-day example of the classic confrontation staged when an immovable object meets an unstoppable force. On the one hand, real estate — an industry as old as mankind — is notoriously resistant to change, and seemingly allergic to adopting new technology. On the other hand is blockchain — touted in headline after headline as the greatest innovation since the Internet, and promising no less than to revolutionize the way the world conducts business. As is typically the case, the truth most likely lies somewhere in the middle.

Read the report by Avi Spielman on Sior

How Blockchain Technology Is Allowing For A Reinvention Of The Real Estate Ecosystem

Over the last five millennia, little has changed in the way we transact real estate. From listing a property to closing the deal, multiple stakeholders, data sources, service providers, regulators and government agencies take their place between sellers and buyers, contributing friction, paper, redundancies, errors, waste delays and costs.

Read the full article by Stephen King on Forbes

Blockchain and Smart Contracts Could Transform Property Transactions

Adoption of blockchain is on the rise in commercial real estate (CRE) as industry players see how it can be used to develop smart contracts that can drive significant transparency, efficiency and cost savings in core CRE operations. “In particular, property transactions processes involving leasing, purchasing and sales are well-suited to benefit from blockchain,” observes Bob O’Brien, Global Real Estate & Construction leader, Deloitte & Touche LLP, citing the Deloitte Center for Financial Services report, Blockchain in Commercial Real Estate.

Read the full article by Robert O’Brien on Deloitte

Why You Need a Secure Document Portal

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Technology is a vital tool to support on-demand communication in the sales and marketing process for commercial real estate professionals. A client document portal offers the opportunity to organize and consolidate resources into a single online repository that can easily be shared with clients and partners alike.

An effective document portal allows you to securely share documents with clients, including property presentations, offering memorandums, and tenant manuals. Some may also include online confidentiality agreements to streamline your sales process.

The secure and time saving resource can also provide actionable insights and analytics into who accesses these documents, where they access them, and when. You can measure interest among your prospects and client, manage the deal process more efficiently and use the data available to improve your sales activities and win more deals.

Here’s a list of reasons why CRE professionals should use a document portal to save time when sharing information with their prospects and clients.

1. Maximize Mobility

Document portals are cloud-based, meaning they can be accessed from any device with an Internet connection. Being able to share marketing or investor materials to your clients that are “on the go” is immensely beneficial to quickly capture their interest and help facilitate a better sales process.

2. Improve Efficiency

Not only can you get documents to people faster, a document portal offers a central online repository so you can ensure everyone is working from the same library. Instead of sending emails back and forth and losing valuable time, you can share and send mass updates to clients who already have access to the portal instead of doing it manually one-by-one.

3. Better Security

Document portals are fully encrypted and require a login. Commonly, they provide different levels of privacy settings and permissions which make it easy to give control and access only to those who need it for any given document.

4. Track User Activity

With a cloud based service you will be able to gather information about who accesses your documents and how often they do it, providing key insights into the activity levels of your documents. This insight is extremely valuable to improve your tactical sales and follow-up.

5. Reporting and Analytics

Reporting and analytics give you comprehensive view of the overall performance of your marketing materials and what changes you can make to improve those engagement levels. Also, automated reporting is very useful and can help save a lot of time when you create Ownership reports for your clients.

 

Need a solution for sharing your documents? Click here to learn more about our document portal.

Common Uses of a Commercial Real Estate Document Portal

There are several situations in which a document portal can benefit commercial real estate owners, brokers or property managers. Some of the most common use cases include:

Leasing Portal – leasing brokers can add easily accessible documents related to a leasing transaction such as marketing materials, site plans, flyers and brochures.

Investment Sales – investment sales brokers can use an “investor portal” to securely share offering memorandums, rent rolls, financial statements, tax returns, licenses and permits and property plans while enabling an extra layer of security with online confidentiality agreements.

Tenant Communication – property managers can use it as a “tenant portal” to upload tenant handbooks, emergency procedures, request forms, property events, holiday photos and other documents to improve engagement.

Choosing the Right Document Portal

As a commercial real estate professional, you need a secure document portal that will fit your specific needs while integrating seamlessly with your existing property management software. Spend time evaluating how these features are met and choose a cloud-based solution that will help streamline your operations and improve communication with clients accordingly.

Learn more about the SharpLaunch Document Portal.

 

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Top 6 Commercial Real Estate Marketing Agencies

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While there are hundreds of creative agencies specializing in branding, design, web development, and marketing, there are only a few specialized commercial real estate marketing agencies that produce the quality of work necessary for this industry’s standard of professionalism.

Here’s our list of the best real estate marketing companies that have the depth of industry experience and expertise suited specifically for CRE firms.

inMotion Real Estate Media

inMotion Real Estate Media is a commercial real estate marketing company that provides a wide array of marketing and creative solutions to some of the world’s largest real estate companies.

Founded: 2006

Solutions: custom website development, graphic design, online marketing and video production.

Sample clients: CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, JLL, Rockwood Capital, Lincoln Property Company,  Marcus & Millichap, NKGF, The Dilweg Companies, Fischer, Lewis Retail

Website: inmotionrealestate.com

Neoscape

Neoscape is a creative studio with offices in Boston, New York and San Fransisco that has been crafting branded experiences of built environments for discerning clients around the world.

Founded: 1995

Solutions: branding, strategy, design, visual Identity, web & mobile app development, 3D visualization, film & video, animation, photography, VR/AR/MR and interactive experiences

Sample clients: Brookfield Properties, Robert A. M. Stern Architects,  Elkus Manfredi Architects, Gensler, Tishman Speyer, Related

Website: neoscape.com

The Seventh Art

The Seventh Art is a digital communications agency specializing in the branding of upscale lifestyle offerings, including real estate, hospitality, design, culture, travel and bespoke products.

Founded: 2003

Solutions: market research, brand strategy, brochures, e-mail blasts, web design, renderings, floor plans, film and social media

Sample clients: Christie’s, Colliers, Corcoran, The Durst Organization, Goldman Sachs, Halstead Properties, Hines, The JGB Companies, Tishman Speyer, Vornado

Website:  theseventhart.com

REA

REA is a brand and marketing agency based in Washington and New York.

Solutions: real estate marketing, corporate branding, property branding, interactive and web development, rendering and animation, leasing and sales environments, video and short films, and media strategy

Sample clients: Hines, Madison Realty Capital, Thor Equities, Equity Office, East End Capital, JBG Smith Properties, Normandy Real Estate Partners, RXR

Website: realestatearts.com

DBOX

DBOX is a creative communications agency based out of London, Miami and New York, operating in residential, commercial, hospitality, destination, and cultural sectors.

Founded: 1996

Solutions: market intelligence, positioning and brand identity, communications strategy, graphic and environmental design, print and digital advertising, computer generated imagery and animation, virtual reality applications, photography & film production, mobile and social media marketing, web and interactive design, branded sales and leasing experiences

Sample clients: Hines, HFZ, Ivanhoe Cambridge, Macklowe Properties, Oxford Properties, The Peebles Corporation, Phoenix Property, Swire Properties, Witkoff, Woodridge Capital

Website: dbox.com

Visualhouse

Visualhouse is a creative agency focused on creating compelling brand stories for architecture, design and the built environment with offices in New York, Los Angeles, London, Miami and San Francisco.

Founded: 2008

Solutions: strategy, 3D visualization, still imagery, film, animation, branding, graphic design, photography, web development, immersive imagery

Sample clients: Related Companies, The Howard Hughes Corporation, Extell Development, Townscape Partners, Two Trees Management, L & L Holdings, Gale International, Magellan Development Group, Brookfield Properties

Website: visualhouse.co