The commercial real estate (CRE) market has faced major challenges over the last several years. High interest rates, economic uncertainty, rising construction costs, and other factors have slowed market activity and made it difficult to find suitable investment opportunities.
However, there are signs that things may start to turn around in the second half of this year. If inflation eases and interest rates continue to go down, new opportunities are expected to emerge for investors.
But competition for these opportunities will be fierce, and first-mover advantage will be critical. In a market where timing is everything, your team needs the agility to move quickly. Using old, disjointed technology to manage your pipeline, deals, and relationships won’t cut it — and that includes spreadsheets and siloed systems.
Securing a first-mover advantage requires a real estate CRM platform that’s built to meet the needs of investors. A purpose-built platform helps you source and win the most profitable deals by providing complete visibility into firmwide intelligence, market trends, and pipeline activity. All data — internal and external — is accessible from one location, enabling your team to access the critical insights needed to uncover new opportunities, accelerate deal flow, and nurture relationships.
Here are three key ways a real estate CRM provides you with a competitive edge.
1. AI-powered relationship management
The shift to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic radically disrupted traditional, in-person relationship management. Technologies such as videoconferencing and instant messaging became professionals’ preferred way to connect with brokers, property managers, and other stakeholders during lockdown — and not much has changed since then.
In many ways, this shift has made relationship management easier and more cost-efficient. Investors no longer need to drive to meetings or book pricey flights to meet stakeholders in person when they can just chat via video.
However, most of your professionals still face a huge challenge: navigating the sheer number and complexity of relationships involved in any transaction. Staying on top of who they need to engage with, and which colleagues have interacted with their contacts and when, is no easy feat — unless your firm has a real estate CRM platform.
CRM platforms like Intapp DealCloud which are built for real estate investors are designed to help your team efficiently manage and nurture complex, multi-directional relationships. Dashboards with relationship intelligence from proprietary and third-party sources enable your investors to prioritize outreach, view firmwide interactions with connections, and discover new contacts.
For example, relationship scores based on interaction frequency let investors know which relationships require attention, so they don’t lose touch with important contacts. They also help investors determine the best engagement strategy for new opportunities by providing insights into which brokers have the best relationships with target sellers.
Your professionals can simplify relationship management even further with Intapp Assist for DealCloud, which uses AI and automation to deliver actionable insights and assistance while they work. For example, AI-driven relationship signals provide users with a relationship intelligence feed featuring real-time network updates, upcoming meeting details, and contact follow-up reminders.
2. Centralized data and asset management
Discovering new opportunities before competitors and moving them through the pipeline as quickly as possible requires having the right data at the right time. But when your data is scattered throughout multiple systems — and team members are working from different locations — it’s difficult if not impossible for them to get the exact information they need, exactly when they need it.
If you centralize everything in one platform, however, your team always has the real-time insights required to take advantage of time-sensitive opportunities. They’re also able to optimize asset management with all property details in one place. And they can reinvest the time they used to spend gathering information into more high-value, revenue-generating activities.
With DealCloud, all data related to properties, fundraising, deals, and relationships is accessible from one location, so your investors always have the latest information and insights. The platform also helps them improve decision-making and discover new opportunities by integrating your proprietary data with market intelligence from over a dozen third parties including Preqin, Esri, and Cherre.
In addition, your investors can save time and simplify data management with document ingestion services that automatically extract key data from offering memorandums (OMs), or investment memorandums (IMs). The extracted data is reviewed by human eyes for accuracy, and once it’s validated, it can be integrated with other information or used to build proprietary datasets.
3. Map-based discovery
Information is power — even more so when competition is tough. With real estate CRM platforms like DealCloud, investors can use map-based discovery to gain valuable insights into the status and geographic location of each deal. And, if they choose to revisit deals they previously passed over, they can retrieve a map that marks their locations and allows them to drill down into all asset details.
Users can also get a bird’s-eye view of a specific geographical region by taking advantage of DealCloud’s integration with Esri. This integration enables investors to visualize U.S. geological data attributes including total population, occupancy, and median income for any market.
Secure first-mover advantage with a real estate CRM
CRE firms need to put systems and processes in place now so they can move quickly when the market starts to pick up. Getting to the table before competitors requires real estate CRM solutions that provide a first-mover advantage by arming investors with relationship intelligence, centralized access to data, and real-time insights.
Using a solution like DealCloud that’s built just for real estate investors ensures you’re positioned for success as the market continues to evolve. Request a demo now to learn more about how Intapp DealCloud can benefit your firm.