CRE Data Consolidation: Leveraging Automation for Better Decision-Making

Real estate investors need a way to make sense of all of the information that they receive about markets, assets, and companies, while also providing insight into their processes to continuously improve their performance.

 From Analysts to Directors, leaders across the industry are grappling with real losses to their firm’s productivity and overall business outcomes because they are chasing after data beyond reach. 

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Acquisitions team members are filling their day with rote tasks, rather than focusing on where they can create value:  sourcing and executing transactions that yield high returns for Investors. To achieve this goal in today’s environment, your underwriting assumptions need to be precise, which is why utilizing a data-driven deal management solution can dramatically improve the accuracy and throughput of any real estate firm’s investment process.

In this article, we’ll discuss ways acquisitions teams can hone their data management strategy to boost efficiency and enhance their deal-making decisions.

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Take advantage of an automated data extraction service 

Investments teams are combing through vast amounts of data from a variety of sources on a daily basis. To validate early assumptions, they also need a means of aggregating relevant market data for comparison purposes.

In order to make swift decisions and  gauge fit on whether to pass or pursue certain deals, acquisitions managers need to get away from the time-consuming nature of data entry and manually scraping data from deal materials such as OM’s, rent rolls, excel cash flows, comp reports or T12’s. 

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With Origin, the extraction of information from deal collateral helps investors build out a robust, proprietary data lake of market-specific information that is:

• easy to search through using filters and categorization
• aggregates active, owned and past deal data
• powerful when refining assumptions or trying to “sharpen the pencil”
• either uploaded themselves or double-validated through third party data integration partners
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The availability of information allows us to make decisions more confidently when we can comprehend the meaning of the data quickly.

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Find meaning through a database that just makes sense

With Altrio, you gain a searchable database of proprietary sales, lease, and cost comparables to help you evaluate deal information more quickly. Historical data is hugely helpful when plotting patterns over time. With a fuller understanding of how deals took shape in years prior, even more junior members of the team can benefit from decades of institutional knowledge.

As an example, members of the deal team may need to dig through many old pro forma analyses to inform new decisions in front of them. Without this information at a glance, accessible, and easy to manipulate, analysts are more likely to overlook older versions of the data. When data is inaccessible, analysts spend valuable time looking through emails and old underwriting models searching for information that should be organized when a deal is on the line.

However, by using Origin, despite a lack of time or resources, analysts are able to access different versions of their underwriting within their database. This allows analysts to effectively track the changes in underwriting assumptions as a deal progresses from “V1” to “final”. It’s simpler to perform variance analyses when you have a clear view of how underwriting models have changed over time.

Additionally, historical data from lost or passed-on deals can also provide valuable knowledge. Regardless of whether a deal was actually pursued, the depth of detail and context is valuable to study or bookmark for reference in the future.

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Organize and format data to communicate widely

From another perspective, acquisition teams spend a great deal of time and effort formatting data. They need to parse through information and determine which stakeholders need to know what, and to which degree of detail. Deciphering between what is top-line, and which specifics are to be left out, is often a tedious task. 

Origin's Deal Overview simplifies drafting an IC memo by bringing important deal-related information to the forefront. Rich text formatting, sections that can include asset maps, site photos and mini-tables of key data help members of an investment committee gain the perspective they need to evaluate deals and assets.  

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Leverage third-party data integrations

The information advantage has never been more precious. With Origin, deals are enriched with market data from our network of partners to help you easily access relevant real estate, capital market, economic, and demographic data. We've partnered with Real Capital Analytics, Statebook, and Cherre, three industry-leading real estate analytics providers, to offer even more value to our customers.

By harnessing the power of data, deal teams are better equipped to make faster, smarter investments and build out even more robust portfolios. In taking advantage of their institutional knowledge and letting the data speak for itself, firms gain a head-start next to their competitors.

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Ready to start investing with more confidence?

Learn more about Origin by Altrio and schedule a demo with our team.

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