By Luis Amador, General Manager Moody’s Analytics CRE
Over the course of my career in commercial real estate, I’ve learned that as foundational as reliable data is to CRE professionals, the true differentiator is how well it’s used. Expansive, validated data is just the first step needed to navigate a constantly shifting landscape. We’ve seen these changes in action over the past few months — economic cycles have tightened, the lending landscape has shifted dramatically, and the decisions CRE professionals are making are more pivotal than ever. So what’s the defining difference that turns the data and analytics available in our CRE solutions into actionable, trustworthy insights? For us, it’s our team of economists and thought leaders.
Our team of experts, with their expansive educational and experiential backgrounds in economics and CRE, craft quarterly reports that offer market commentary, analysis of trends and data, and context within the larger macroeconomic space. Metro- and market-level insights are integrated into our platform on a regular basis. These reports are models of how transforming the data from numbers on a page into thoughtful, contextual insights that our clients can use to inform their decisions is the standard in our process. Having access to these economists and CRE experts adds a framework and explanation that only years of education, expertise, and experience can provide.
Our team of experts also allows us to take a hands-on, white-glove approach to our client relationships. Alongside our commercial real estate solutions, clients receive direct access to the economists and sector experts who can answer their situation-specific questions, provide high-level updates and presentations, and attend meetings to act as an additional resource. But we also learn from our clients in these situations — we have a front-row view into what they need and want from their solutions-provider, which allows us to innovate and make changes within our product and service offerings based on real-time feedback and requests.
Innovation Through Narratives
The key topics and areas within CRE that professionals need to keep an eye on tend to stay the same across quarters — sector-specific performance, economic shifts, capital markets activity, changes in the CMBS space, housing trends—the list goes on. But, just like looking at raw data isn’t enough, neither is assessing these topics from only one angle, and that’s where our thought leaders’ specialized areas of focus really shine.
It takes a deep-seated understanding of the industry and its distinctions to effectively lead a diverse team and inspire them to wield their expertise in an effective way. Leading the thought leadership team is Thomas LaSalvia, PhD who has a storied career specializing in commercial real estate and economics. Tom is a trusted expert in the industry — he presents his research at industry events, appears on podcasts, and his insights are frequently featured in leading periodicals. Clients and industry leaders continuously praise his ability to articulate nuanced concepts in an accessible way. He inspires his team to adopt this approach, resulting in holistic and actionable insights on the current and future state of the market from all of our contributors.
Averaging decades of experience, our thought leadership team consists of CRE experts and economists who have varied areas of focus. Whether it’s sector-specific, like our retail, industrial, office, multifamily, or specialty sector leaders, or area-specific, including specialists with backgrounds in CMBS, capital markets, climate, insurance, and policy—the results are comprehensive and actionable. Our thought leaders are able to take these individual areas of expertise and backgrounds and apply them to those foundational topics, resulting in nuanced and varied insights that account for different facets of risk and implications that would not be addressed otherwise. Everyone is coming to the table and bringing their unique perspective, and that differentiator and collaboration has resulted in truly innovative pieces of content.
The team’s key areas of focus have also enabled us to ramp up our timely and breaking news content. The CRE industry is changing so rapidly — lasting impacts from the pandemic, residual ripples from the banking situation, changes in the lending landscape — and our economists knew it was vital to quickly assess and weigh the impact of these changes. Queue our new cadenced content releases that tackle a variety of topics on a regular basis: The Weekly Update, Maturity Office Loan Monitor, Capital Market Quick Take, Climate Corner, Tech Market Update, Housing Affordability Update, and Preliminary Trend Announcements. Regular content releases like this coupled with deeper pieces of research and one-off commentaries provide a unique look at timely and relevant topics powered by the class-leading forecasting and data.
A Case Study: The Housing Affordability Crisis
Housing affordability has been dominating the news cycle — the rent burden is heavier than ever, and our thought leaders were curious about how much deeper they could dig and what other stories they could tell. We’ve always tracked LIHTC data, but by collaborating with a wide group of people in Moody’s, our economists were able to create an interactive housing affordability report that offers unparalleled insight into the phenomenon. Within the report, readers can see metro-specific rent-to-income ratios, the most heavily burdened markets in the US, how low-income families are impacted, a custom calculator that shows where a family could comfortably live below the 30% rent-to-income threshold, and much more. The team that created it was diverse — a director of research who has dealt with housing affordability in practice, data visualization specialists, experienced thought leaders, a government policy expert, a data scientist with years of LIHTC experience, and communications experts. They all came together to build something interactive, educational, and unique. Without such a robust and varied team, something like this wouldn’t be possible.
Digging Deeper
Aside from the depth of personal expertise from the team that adds crucial context to our class-leading data, the underlying forecasts that power our insights and analyses are also coming from within Moody’s. Our thought leaders work directly with Moody’s Chief Economist, Mark Zandi, and his team. These models are constantly evolving to incorporate macroeconomic movements like migration patterns, climate change, or consumer behavior shifts. Collaborative relationships like this also allow us to tap into other experts who can add yet another perspective to our narratives and reports.
We believe it’s important for the entire industry to have access to these critical insights and narratives, so we also launched a monthly Insights Newsletter that features a digest of some of the newest content coming from our team. You can explore the Moody’s Analytics CRE news and insights blog here and sign up for the newsletter here.