It's tempting to believe a single dataset can fully explain how a property performs, but in commercial real estate, that kind of simplicity rarely holds up.
Placer.ai built its reputation on foot traffic analytics, providing users with a detailed view of how people move through physical spaces. But the company has long viewed that data as a starting point rather than a complete picture.
"I think our starting point hypothesis is, if you have a data set like Placer, your life is going to be better," Ethan Chernofsky, Placer.ai chief marketing officer, tells GlobeSt.com.
"You're going to understand the physical world with a greater degree of depth and understanding and then optimize your ability to make great decisions. But if you can combine multiple data sources, you're going to improve that."
That philosophy is driving Placer.ai's latest move to integrate CMBS data through a partnership with CRED iQ, adding a financing layer to its platform. The goal is to give users broader insight into properties by combining behavioral data with loan and debt structure information.
The push reflects a wider reality in CRE analytics: no single dataset can capture every dimension of a property. Expanding coverage means incorporating different types of information, from psychographics and demographics to building characteristics and capital structures. It also requires acknowledging that users interpret and apply data differently depending on their needs.
"And I think every, every customer we work with, even in segments where we have thousands of customers, they can all approach very similar problems with very different perspectives," says Chernofsky.
At the same time, adding new data is a business decision as much as a technical one. Not every dataset makes sense to pursue.
"We're not going to do something we're not going to invest time and energy and resources into something that doesn't have a market — like we're a business, we're not going to do that," Chernofsky says. While CMBS is not the dominant form of CRE financing, it remains significant enough to justify the investment.
The new CMBS reporting feature allows users to layer debt data directly alongside Placer.ai's traditional analytics.
"We're here to tell you everything you ever wanted to know about a place and the populations that go there, that visit there. We're constantly trying to say, 'What else can we do?'" says Steve Banfield, Placer.ai's vice president of business development.
"The CMBS report … allows someone to go in, look up properties in a given area, and now [they've] got the mortgage data: the loans, the CMBS data, loan data, right side by side with the traditional Placer data."
The company sees this as part of a broader evolution in how it delivers insights.
"You'll see us continue to grow and expand in a bunch of different ways," Banfield says.
"And I think it's a combination of not just the new kinds of data we'll bring, but the new ways we'll be exposing those to our customers. It's the exciting mixture of those two things that I think has got everyone very, very pumped."
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.