CRE Prospecting Database Delivers Competitive Edge

To say the commercial real estate market is unpredictable post-COVID pandemic is an understatement. On the one hand, some commercial real estate properties are faring well. Rising mortgage rates have boosted demand for multi-family housing units, while job growth and workers returning to the workplace have boosted demand for office space. On the other hand, retailers are vacating commercial real estate, thanks in large part to Amazon and big online retailers who have made shopping from home easier and more instantly gratifying than ever (Source: NAR).

With so much market unpredictability, CRE professionals are looking for competitive ways to gain an edge through data intelligence and commercial real estate prospecting. Whether you’re a design and architecture firm, builder or general contractor, property management firm, insurer, financier or someone simply looking to acquire CRE, the key to success in a fast-paced and unpredictable market is real-time, current data.

How does data help CRE brokers?

A powerful CRE prospecting database identifies the right decision makers, so you can build relationships with viable leads. The largest and best datasets allow you to zero in on your most valuable prospects, so you can build the types of deals that work well for your business.  This information should be easy to integrate with your own sales and marketing platforms, so you can customize it by any variable, including location, deal type, expiration date and more. Most importantly, your CRE prospecting tool should be thought of as a “living, breathing” member of your team. This intelligent technology continuously scans and updates your database, alerting you when a lead matches your parameters.

How can I find reliable CRE data?

There are three questions you should ask when you vet CRE data providers:

1. How often do they update their commercial real estate prospecting database for you? The best answer is continuously or at the very least, daily.
2. How many data points do they offer? The more the better. The more you can customize your search, the better your time is spent building leads, nurturing them, and converting them to long-time happy clients.
3. What platforms does their database and CRE tool integrate with? Again, the more the better. Change is hard, and so is learning new software. Look for a tool that seamlessly integrates with what you already use.

What if everyone uses CRE data?

If you and everyone in your industry use the same CRE dataset, that may not seem like much of a competitive advantage. It’s like the way recruiters use LinkedIn to find prospects who aren’t actively in the job market. Are their competitors hitting up the same candidates? Yes, they are. The technology of a sales and marketing dataset is only as good as the people who use it.  

As more brokers, developers, investors and financial firms learn about the value of data, you’re right to worry that your competitors will use the same information. But here’s where the smart platforms really shine.

Imagine that your CRE firm and your competitors all have the same information about commercial real estate entities all at your fingertips, kind of like the way we used paper telephone directories two decades ago. Smart technology eliminates the time you’d spend leafing through page after page, line after line of data points just hoping to put your finger on a hot prospect.

A prospecting tool built on top of a CRE dataset allows you to zero in by location, revenue, market size, and a slew of other data points. It’s eliminating thousands and thousands of pages and delivering just the right ones to you, which may or may not overlap with your competitors. The dataset delivers your best-matched prospects. It’s up to you and your sales and marketing team to craft the right pitch to get their attention.