Lobby CRE Releases Real-Time Property Benchmarks

The National Apartment Association (NAA) and IREM (Institute of Real Estate Management), working with proptech finance vendor Lobby CRE, are releasing national, real-time property benchmarks for 2022.

NAA and IREM have published benchmarks for decades, but the process has been cumbersome, requiring “manual submission, aggregation, mapping, and analysis to create benchmarks across asset classes,” according to a press release.

Working with Lobby CRE’s financial platform, the two organizations are able to speed the process.

“Benchmarking is critical to efficient and successful property management,” the release quoted Wendy Becker, vice president of knowledge solutions at IREM. “And now, in partnership with Lobby CRE and the NAA, we’re able to streamline the submission process and expand data collection. The result is a robust product that provides better insight into building operations.”

“The collaboration with Lobby CRE helps IREM’s and NAA’s members with faster speed to insight into how an asset or portfolio is performing based on 2021 asset performance data,” the organizations said. “Benchmark access is available to all industry stakeholders. The 2022 National Summary will be released this fall.”

Benchmarking is a standard practice across many industries. It gives a company the opportunity to see how its performance ranks compared to similar businesses. Meeting benchmarks doesn’t necessarily mean that a company is performing well, however. Participants in a given industry may be unusually good or bad in any given aspect of business. But even then, performance below the norm is still a cause to reflect on operations.

Trying to match performance against printed benchmarks isn’t the way most industries work, though. Software implementation offers more flexibility in finding and displaying data, as well as ultimately integrating the data into internal management systems for making ongoing comparisons available to others in the company.

“Lobby CRE manages and optimizes cash flow for faster returns to investors and project sponsors,” the release says. “The platform automates, standardizes, and visualizes operational and financial performance across the asset and portfolio, including providing market and submarket benchmarks in partnership with IREM and NAA. These benchmarks unlock the ability to compare ‘apples to apples’ within the MSA, drilling into asset classes, unit counts, and square footage ranges.”