What is CRE software?

CRE Software (Commercial Real Estate Software) includes any kind of web-based solution providing insights that have the power to level up commercial real estate strategy and processes. For example, commercial property management accounting software serves to help you manage capital and finances associate with your CRE portfolio.

Like many other industries, commercial real estate is in the midst of a major push for digital transformation – especially in the wake of a global pandemic that’s left many CRE leaders with more questions than answers.

The CRE Software category has a lot of breadth; some organizations use lease administration systems to stay on top of rented properties, while others might use workplace utilization analytics to track employee commute times in order to assist with decisions regarding who will work in which location and if alternative work arrangements should be considered.

All in all, landlords, tenants, commercial property managers, workplace leaders, real estate teams, and facilities managers can all benefit from CRE software.

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Different Types of CRE Software

Because CRE software as a category is so broad, we’re going to break it down by subcategory.

Commercial Portfolio Management Software

This one is pretty much exactly what it sounds like – portfolio management software exists to help CRE teams, asset managers, or others keep track of leased or owned properties and the most relevant metrics and KPIs associated with their portfolio.

Commercial Real Estate Benchmarking Software

Benchmarking, while not exclusive to the world of commercial real estate, is an incredibly powerful comparison tool in this vertical.

Corporate estate teams can employ benchmarking to track trends and progress in their own portfolios over time or measure how they stack up against the market or against peers.

Corporate Asset Management Software

Asset management software empowers users investors, asset managers, and property owners to maximize returns on properties in their portfolios with the help of quantitative data and insights on property performance, scenario modeling, and revenue forecasting.

CRE Transaction Management Software

This one is fairly self-explanatory; transaction management software allows brokers and occupiers to collaborate on documentation and processes associated with commercial real estate transactions.

CRE Market Research Software

Market research software allows a tenant or service provider to gain valuable insights on specific markets or submarkets and gain context on data like average cost per square foot or difference from average market rent.

Commercial Lease Administration Software

This type of software provides the tenant with a comprehensive database for all leases and associated information and action items, like rent payments, common area maintenance (CAM) expenses, and financial analysis.

Commercial Property Usage Statistics Software

Data on utilization metrics related to occupancy, vacancy, density, and more allow workplace strategists, real estate teams, and facilities managers alike to derive insights regarding how and when space is used in order to drive strategy on workplace arrangements.

Commercial Lease Accounting Software

This category of commercial real estate software helps lease administration teams, accounting professionals, and landlords with finances and reporting for leases while maintaining compliance with lease accounting standards as dictated by FASB and IFRS.

 

How an Effective CRE Software Suite Can Change Commercial Property Businesses

While it’s clear that there are many software solutions tied to the commercial real estate function of a business, a comprehensive platform like RefineRE can provide transformative strategic outcomes.

When utilizing a single source solution, the data that was once spread across disparate systems, spreadsheets, and business units is now consolidated and standardized, meaning less time for tracking down information and more time focusing on the more critical, strategic parts of your job.

The key in introducing a new software solution like this into your tech stack is ensuring that it is technology and data agnostic, meaning it can comply with and layer in information from various other systems seamlessly. If your systems don’t talk to each other and speak each others’ languages, you are left with a clunky, inefficient ecosystem of tools that don’t ultimately make your job easier or better.

While most organizations are somewhat familiar with legacy systems like lease administration and lease accounting software, real-time data and analytics tools are newer concepts that have emerged as a result of a push for digital transformation in commercial real estate.

This new category of CRE data and analytics software has disrupted the industry and created a new way of managing real estate portfolios.

For those forward-thinking organizations who decide to opt-in to this new technology, the future is smarter, better, and faster. Long gone are the hours and days spent on menial tasks, double data entry and searching for relevant data – every employee can now achieve their highest and best use and direct their energy toward achieving strategic short-term and long-term goals and objectives.

Contact us to learn more about how RefineRE can help your corporate real estate, facilities, workplace, and sustainability teams optimize your strategy for smarter, better, faster real estate decisions.

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