REAL ESTATE TECHNOLOGY,REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT
Berkadia and Esusu | September 08, 2022
Berkadia announced today that it signed an agreement with Esusu, the leading financial technology company leveraging rental data for credit building. This partnership unlocks greater equity for renters, improves property performance for multifamily owners and operators and reduces lender risk.
With a mission to dismantle barriers to housing for working families, Esusu reports on-time rent payments to the three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Transunion, and Experian, to establish and boost credit scores for residents. The collaboration, which launched in the Spring of 2021, has expanded to over 34,000 units, establishing over 5,300 credit scores for residents to date.
“We could not be happier to have a multi-year agreement with Esusu, which allows Berkadia to extend a powerful property performance enhancing solution to our clients, This will help owners and operators reach their own ESG goals at an exceptional value and support Esusu’s critical and innovative objective–helping renters build and improve their credit.”
-Bryce Nyberg, Director of Berkadia Digital
Partnering to Provide Value and Solutions
Seeing the value Esusu could bring to the entire residential ecosystem, a partnership was formed when Esusu joined Berkadia’s inaugural BeEngaged program in February 2020. The partnership has proven to be mutually beneficial and has helped Berkadia develop a competitive advantage as an attractive funding source to owners and operators who value Esusu as both an economic and social solution.
Through Berkadia’s introduction, Esusu services over 285 properties across more than 10 management companies including Burbank Housing, Comunidad, Eagle Property Capital, Morgan Properties, Odin Properties and more.
As a workforce housing provider operating primarily in the inner city, Odin Properties has long been focused on supporting quality of life for our residents, In Esusu, we found a solution and a team that helped further that goal by allowing residents unprecedented access to the financial system, while improving property performance. It has been encouraging to see Esusu grow as their message rightfully resonates with so many different housing stakeholders,said Phil Balderston, Founder & CEO of Odin Properties LLC.
Supporting an Equitable Housing Market
Throughout the partnership, there has been growing industry awareness around the criticality of equity in multifamily housing. This was further emphasized when Esusu announced a collaboration with Freddie Mac.
Through their joint initiative in support of increasing equitability in the housing market, Freddie Mac provides closing cost credits to multifamily borrowers who agree to use Esusu to report on-time rental payments. Esusu also provides discounted pricing for these and other Freddie Mac borrowers who agree to report on-time rental payments through the platform.
Our credit building initiative has helped build or establish credit scores for tens of thousands of multifamily renters nationwide, It is an essential component of our effort to build a more equitable multifamily housing system,said Corey Aber, Vice President of Mission, Policy and Strategy for Freddie Mac Multifamily.
Utilizing Real-Time Data for Returns
Esusu not only improves the quality of life for residents but also helps properties maximize net operating income (NOI). By adding Esusu to Berkadia’s expansive network, borrowers can see scalable social impact results–credit score increases, new established scores, eviction prevention–as well as economic returns through improved rent collections, reduced delinquencies and renter turnover, and thereby healthier cash flows.
We are grateful for our long-standing collaboration with Berkadia, The firm took an early bet on Esusu through their BeEngaged program which has paved the way for Esusu’s proliferation throughout the marketplace. Berkadia has shared our vision from day one and their foresight has led to adoption by other lenders and sponsors throughout the industry. Together, we will continue to create a world-class experience for their sponsors while taking tangible steps towards dismantling barriers to housing and bridging the racial wealth gap,said Samir Goel and Wemimo Abbey, Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of Esusu.
About BeEngaged
Launched in 2019, the BeEngaged program advises and accelerates startups that are redefining the commercial real estate industry by providing them with resources, strategic counsel, and a collaborative network to test and grow innovative concepts. Since then, the organization has accelerated more than a dozen CRE tech startups, including Esusu.
BeEngaged features three stages to foster innovation and collaboration across the commercial real estate industry: BeEngaged Network®, Verified Status, and the BeEngaged Lab®. The BeEngaged Network® develops an ecosystem of founders, industry professionals, and capital providers dedicated to redefining the commercial real estate space. Companies participating in the BeEngaged Network® that have proven potential for long-term growth and industry transformation can be invited to seek Verified Status (VP). This stage provides company founders with focused mentorship for validating strategic alignment to participants of the BeEngaged ecosystem through experiments and pilots. Successful VP companies are invited to join BeEngaged Lab®, which is a catalyst for founders and Berkadia to collaborate on long-term initiatives.
About Berkadia®
Berkadia, a joint venture of Berkshire Hathaway and Jefferies Financial Group, is a leader in the commercial real estate industry, offering a robust suite of services to our multifamily and commercial property clients. Through our integrated mortgage banking, investment sales and servicing platform, Berkadia delivers comprehensive real estate solutions for the entire life cycle of our clients’ assets.
About Esusu
Esusu is the leading financial technology platform that leverages data solutions to empower residents and improve property performance. Esusu's rent reporting platform captures rental payment data and reports it to credit bureaus to boost credit scores. This allows renters to build and establish their credit scores while helping property owners mitigate against initiating evictions, powered by differentiated data and insights. Founded in 2018, Esusu reaches over 2.5 million rental units across all 50 states in the U.S.
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REAL ESTATE TECHNOLOGY
LightBox | July 13, 2022
LightBox, a leading information and technology platform for commercial real estate and location-based intelligence, announced the launch of the LightBox Data Platform. The platform serves as the most complete, connected data solution in the market bringing together third-party, public and customer data with LightBox proprietary content in a consistent data model for straightforward onboarding and integration. Clients can now use the newly launched Developer Portal to discover and connect to the full breadth and depth of LightBox data using a unified API and the LightBox ID, a permanent identifier that creates powerful connections to LightBox’s information model and allows users to easily identify relationships across LightBox’s property graph.
LightBox’s expanding suite of APIs, data solutions and professional service offerings provide companies the flexibility to determine what solutions scale best to enable businesses and industries to make strategically sound decisions in broadband modeling, site selection, property research, portfolio management, risk analysis and more.
LightBox SmartFabric™ will serve as the foundational dataset for the platform. SmartFabric brings together geospatial and non-geospatial datasets in a proprietary connected model. It provides customers with the insights and relationships across LightBox’s core parcel, building footprints, addressing, property characteristics, transactions, and other datasets for a complete view of a property.
“The LightBox Data Platform builds on our strong data management capabilities and demonstrates the openness and connectivity we need to develop as an industry, The demand for data remains unabated, clients continue to look for a competitive edge through data, and we are innovating to meet the demand. Our new APIs coupled with LightBox’s identifier and geocoder provides customers with the connected data solution that they are looking for.”
-Eric Frank, Chief Executive Officer at LightBox.
The real estate industry’s desire to access and append more data has been growing at an exponential rate. Data management is a difficult process in the era of big data and a one size approach does not fit all, said Adam Cardarelli, Vice President of Product Management at LightBox. Users need the technological components to access and manage data according to their own specifications. The LightBox Data Platform will consistently deliver a diverse body of APIs and data in a usable fashion. It will meet the needs of everybody in the industry—buyers, sellers, lenders, appraisers, environmental professionals, and more—who can scale it according to need.
LightBox’s APIs are now available through the LightBox Developer Portal allowing users to explore the catalog, discover new solutions, access sample code, and connect with other LightBox users in forums to gain input and insight about their business challenges. Developers will be able to discover LightBox APIs and LightBox data, with enough documentation and samples to put the system to immediate use however they require. The portal features over 75 endpoints with more being continuously added.
About LightBox-
LightBox is a leading real estate information and technology platform. Through operational excellence and a passion for innovation, LightBox facilitates transparency, efficiency, insight, and prediction for real estate investment and location analytics. LightBox customers include commercial and government agencies requiring definitive real estate data and powerful workflow solutions, including brokers, developers, investors, lenders, insurers, technology providers, environmental consultants, and valuation professionals. LightBox is backed by Silver Lake and Battery Ventures.
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REAL ESTATE TECHNOLOGY
Bright MLS | July 15, 2022
Bright MLS and California Regional MLS (CRMLS), the nation’s two largest Multiple Listing Services, announced today the launch of REdistribute, LLC, a joint venture that changes how MLS data is collected and distributed on behalf of the real estate industry for institutional use.
REdistribute will aggregate and distribute data on behalf of participating MLS organizations and brokerages, providing unbiased, up-to-date MLS data directly from the source to institutions involved with the housing industry, and puts brokers back in control of their data rights and data usage. Additionally, the revenue generated by REdistribute will be shared back with the brokers and MLS organizations who participate, ensuring that participants are compensated fairly – and at true market value – for the data they provide.
“The exchange of real estate data is currently a one-way street, Third parties are aggregating and providing MLS data to government entities and a host of other for-profit companies. What’s missing are the data rights, data management and fair market compensation provided back to the owners of the data – the brokers.”
Art Carter, CEO of CRMLS
“Today, we are rewriting the rules of engagement,” said Brian Donnellan, President & CEO of Bright MLS. “Now is the time for professional MLS organizations to invest in solutions that create additional value for brokers, while also delivering the most comprehensive, accurate and freshest data to critical participants in the housing industry. Mortgage lenders, government sponsored entities and others creating property valuations and insights and their constituents will benefit greatly from REdistribute.”
Bright and CRMLS began working collaboratively late last year on solutions that improve services for the brokerage community, including recent work on a showing services hub that supports more choice for brokers. REdistribute is the next step the two companies are taking together, and at launch aggregates the MLS data of Bright and CRMLS, with Beaches MLS in Florida also signing a letter of intent to join for the launch.
“Beaches MLS is excited to be the first ownership partner with Bright MLS and CRMLS on REdistribute to bring even more value to our brokers,” stated Dionna Hall, CEO of Beaches MLS.
In addition to distributing MLS data from the source, REdistribute will also deliver innovations that will allow licensees such as lenders, insurance companies and government-sponsored enterprises to gain real-time insights on a market-by-market basis.
About California Regional MLS
California Regional MLS is the nation's largest and most recognized subscriber-based MLS, dedicated to servicing more than 110,000 real estate professionals from 40 Associations, Boards, and MLS organizations. CRMLS provides accurate data through innovative technology solutions, empowering real estate professionals to cooperate and succeed.
About Bright MLS
Bright MLS was founded in 2016 as a collaboration between 43 visionary associations and two of the nation’s most prominent MLSs to transform what an MLS is and what it does, so real estate pros and the people they serve can thrive today and into our data-driven future through an open, clear and competitive housing market for all. Bright is proud to be the source of truth for comprehensive real estate data in the Mid-Atlantic, with market intelligence currently covering six states (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia) and the District of Columbia. Bright MLS’s innovative tool library—both created and curated—provides services and award-winning support to well over 100k real estate professionals, enabling their delivery on the promise of home to over half a million home buyers and sellers monthly. In 2021, Bright subscribers facilitated $141B in real estate transactions through the company’s platform.
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