Commercial real estate and Corporate real estate should be considered two different industries.
Full stop. Mixing the two is very misleading.
I was reading through the attendees and speakers at a few conferences the other day. 80% of them are from service providers. Another 15% are usually there at the invite of service providers. The final 5% are trying to learn something new.
I’ve been working from the corporate side of the fence for going on two years now. Many of the advancements that enhance the Commercial side of real estate are not useful and may even be negative to the typical Corporate side. A few examples:
- BIM. Great for the construction industry and for owners of large buildings. However, if you are a company that leases all or most of your space, what does it get you? Yes, buildings that are well planned are better for you. But are you going to know which those are during your leasing process? Unlikely.
- CRM. Complete negative to the corporate side. As soon as you are identified as the leasing decision maker, expect to be bombarded.
- Mapping/Visualization. Great sales tools for the Commercial side but most of them use it as sizzle to get you in but then don’t know how to actually use it to improve your decision.
Sure, there are plenty of tools that would help the corporate side. We’re in the process of implementing several but all of them are early stage and not getting the sexy press of tools targeting brokers and brokerage firms.
Welcome to the weird world of CRE/CRE.