As my CRE data visualization soap box theme continues, at an NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate Sustainable Real Estate Conference, several panelists made some great observations.
The growing volume of data generated within cities presents an unprecedented opportunity for the real estate industry to better segment markets and products, target policies and investment, and capture value clouded by information asymmetries. When coupled with an understanding of human behavior and evidence-based decision making, "Big Data"—defined by the four "Vs" of volume, velocity, variety, and veracity—has proven to be transformative in industries and activities from retail to healthcare to political campaigns, and the real estate industry may be next.

The Real Deal covered the conference and included a couple great notes on the topic -

Big data provides statistics in a matter of seconds or minutes, not the weeks or even months it takes to receive a report such as Standard & Poor’s Case–Shiller Home Price Indices, [Jed] Kolko said in his keynote speech at the daylong session.

“Big data allows you to go granular and beautifully visualize this information in real time,” he said.

As it relates to sustainability -

Landlords could also use big data to quantify the rate of return on energy efficiency investments, said Eric Duchon, manager of sustainability at Cushman & Wakefield. Moreover, there is a growing trend of tenants requesting a LEED-certified space and Energy Star score benchmarks in their leasing requests for proposals, he said.

“The brokerage community needs to adjust to understand this shift,” he said, adding that the industry was still in a “check-the-box” period. David Pogue, the global director of sustainability at CBRE, pointed out the data showed that LEED-certified buildings consistently outperformed the marketplace.

This is an area which Honest Buildings is on the cutting edge.

What other applications do you use which have potential for this HUGE opportunity?