CREModels Offers Free Access to Remote-Collaboration Tools Amid Coronavirus Concerns in Commercial and Multifamily Real Estate

PropTech firm cites conference cancellations, curtailed travel and teleworking requests in offering free access to its cloud-based deal-making platform, the CRE Suite

CREModels announced free access to a suite of tools to help the commercial and multifamily real estate industry keep deals on track despite disruptions unleashed by the coronavirus, or COVID-19.

“Unfortunately, we’re already hearing from peers about deferred real estate conferences, curtailed business travel and increasing teleworking requests from employees, and there’s an unsettling chance that this is only the beginning,” said Mike Harris, Managing Director of the St. Petersburg-based real estate consultancy and tech firm. “At CREModels, we believe we have a responsibility to support our industry in difficult times. Providing free access to the CRE Suite’s remote-collaboration capabilities is one way we can help.”

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A three-month license to CREModels’ flagship software product, the CRE Suite, will be available to active commercial and multifamily investors and developers at no cost throughout the month of March. The cloud-based software allows acquisitions and development teams to remotely share and update essential deal information with colleagues, partners and third parties, Harris noted.

Providing free access to the platform, he added, is in keeping with the four pillars of CREModels’ “Invested in You” philosophy. “We’re dedicated to serving our employees, our clients, the real estate industry as a whole and the community in which we live,” Harris said. “We’re deeply concerned about COVID-19 and want to help our industry remain resilient in the face of this challenge.”

Two conferences scheduled for this month have already been affected: Organizers of MIPIM in Cannes, France, have deferred the global real estate event over coronavirus fears, and major California real estate firms have pulled out of the Citi 2020 Global Property Conference in Miami. However, the bigger problem for acquisitions and development professionals is figuring out how to keep doing business day-to-day amid such uncertainty, said Max Garbus, Vice President of CREModels.

“If team members suddenly feel they need to underwrite important and highly complex deals from home, you don’t want to be stuck because those critical files are on a hard drive at the office,” he said. “The CRE Suite is a cloud-based hub for managing and accessing critical real estate data, with strong capabilities for remote-collaboration, so it is a particularly useful tool at this time.”

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In signing up for the software this month, users gain free access to these capabilities as well as a library of investment analysis and development pro forma models; tools related to deal-tracking, mapping and demographics; and apps for creating and sharing custom pitchbooks and presentations. The software integrates with the likes of Salesforce, HubSpot CRM, Yardi, MRI and ARGUS.

Technical help from CREModels analysts is available through the platform, via online chat at CREModels.com or by phone. Users can share templates and deals with investors or other external stakeholders, and they can adjust settings to share either limited or full access to that information.

“Multiple parties on a deal can collaborate over any distance without being in the same room, and the software allows you to share data both internally and externally,” Harris said. “We feel for those personally affected, and our hope is that the coronavirus passes quickly with a minimum of further harm. In any case, cloud-based technology can enable our industry to weather such disruptions, now and into the future.”

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