A modern approach to investing in commercial real estate

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“Using a broker saves money, drives competition, ensures funding is secured and the loan is delivered,” says Emilio Portes, Head of Innovation, Capital Markets at JLL. “By using a specialist broker, you gain access not only to market expertise but also to long-established industry connections and relationships.”

Connecting buyers, sellers and lenders with key data at optimum times is the route to successful investment decision making and JLL are using AI to create a competitive advantage for their clients. One example is the Horizon platform, real estate’s first AI driven application designed to provide a first mover advantage.

“Horizon provides three chief advantages for our clients,” says Portes. “It identifies buying and selling opportunities, consolidates portfolio analysis and generates strategic off-market transactions. It combines global capital markets real estate data with proprietary advanced artificial intelligence modelling to manufacture desirable transactable opportunities by strategy, location and asset class.”

By leveraging AI and Big Data, JLL Capital Markets is making their people the most informed and efficient professionals in real estate says Colin Chan, EMEA Capital Markets Quants at JLL.

“Our AI powered tech tracks capital flows across markets and sectors and uses JLL’s real estate data combined with Big Data to uncover deals,” Chan says. “That’s an AI analysis of over 1.5mn properties and real estate transactions worth US$25tn in total volume over the past 20 years, to predict real estate opportunities and market shifts before they occur. Our global access to proprietary data of US$3.2tn in recent bidding volume from over 12,000 global transactions provides real time perspectives on liquidity, bidding behaviour and pricing.”

This technology, combined with the knowledge of experts on the ground, empowers JLL’s advisors to uncover unique opportunities for clients says Chan, providing insights that are “beyond human” to create a competitive edge for JLL and their clients.

“In the UK alone we have mapped over 60,000 properties,” Chan explains. “Merging the best advisors on the ground with data science experts, we have helped our clients to close some of the most challenging sales and generated off-market opportunities with speed and efficiency. By using predictive AI, we can give our clients a first mover advantage by anticipating over 1,500 assets in the UK alone that are likely to sell in the next two years.”

Case studies demonstrating how JLL has already employed AI include discovering platform growth and potential conversion opportunities within Purpose Built Student Accommodation, identifying over 5,300 office properties close to university campuses and highlighting over 1,000 which are expected to come to market within the next 24 months. In a live example, Horizon is providing quantitative analysis for the ongoing acquisition of a US$1bn platform including a portfolio of 160 operating assets across multiple European countries.

While these examples demonstrate the potential scale and power of this innovative approach, the same platform is being capitalised on at a far more granular level, creating opportunities for investors of all shapes and sizes who are looking to access any global market.

“This unique platform offers bespoke insights, and used in conjunction with the intelligence of our Capital Markets team of over 3,800 people, JLL Data and Big Data, it provides lead generation, client intelligence, strategic transactions and deal manufacturing, and wider market intelligence,” says Chan. “Simply put, an AI partner can help us deliver a better job, faster.”