9 Ways to Market Commercial Real Estate With Data

Let me make some suggestions on how to use data in your “digital marketing”  or at least how to make commercial real estate data interesting and differentiate yourself.

1. Do ranking lists. Everybody loves keeping score. Name the 10 highest/lowest price markets for commercial real estate in the country. Has it changed since last year? … five years ago? Which markets have depreciated least/most in price since the peak? (then use your knowledge to explain why). There are so many possibilities. Remember there are 7 property types….industrial,medical,multi-family etc.

2. Compare what’s going on in different price ranges. Most of the charts out there cover the market as a whole. Different price segments may not all be behaving the same way. Pick a couple of segments and show and explain the differences.

3. Compare markets. Pick several similar markets you cover. How have they performed in terms of price and sales over the past several years? Which has the best values now? If you want drill this down to specific geo-markets. Example : Downtown, Suburban,University,etc.

4. Compare property types. Again there are 7 different  types. Why is the pricing structure so different…or is it different at all for your market area? This is a great way to show your market knowledge.

5. Use the data and charts to explain a narrative. Let’s say you’ve heard about a couple of recent deals where people moved from  Business Park A to Eco-Tech Business Park B . Might be a trend, might not be. Look at charts of inventory and number of new listings in Business Park A. Are they going up? Check trends in sales and prices in Eco-Tech Park B. Are they stable or improving? In other words, come up with factual evidence to support your ideas. You’ll be much more convincing. Show your market knowledge.

6. Everybody’s interested in the big hitters. Pick the Class A or trophy deals in your area.  Why do these deals happen? What are the stats of these deals? Good, bad or indifferent. Explain how the deals affect your market. Have a point of view.

7. Educate your audience. Introduce your clients to a statistic that’s important, but that they might not be familiar with. Consider Months of Supply or Sales-to-List Price Ratio. Define it and then explain what it means and how it applies in your market.

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8. What are values really doing?  Tell the real story. Your clients are not naive. Average price, sales price appraised value don’t tell the whole story. This is just a small part of the total market picture. What other data is necessary?

9.Anywhere above you see the words price or sales you can substitute:

-Inventory

-Market time

-Months of supply

-New listings

-Vacancy rates

- Lease comparables

The beauty of this is that all these ideas can be used again and again. The data is ever changing. What other suggestions, thoughts or real world practices are you using? Data + Location = Commercial Real Estate.