VTS has rolled out a new tool that offers a big data-based view of trends in commercial real estate markets. Called VTS MarketView, it amalgamates the data that VTS already generates via a vast number of individual leases.

Nearly one-third of all U.S. office buildings (about 8B SF) and billions of square feet of retail and industrial assets currently use the VTS asset management platform, which allows landlords and brokers to track prospective tenants from their first inquiry about a space until they occupy it. That has created raw data that VTS MarketView promises to mine to create value for clients, giving them a more accurate picture of a market.

VTS MarketView will enable users to compare property-level performance against the market across various metrics, including rent, concessions, leasing velocity and deal conversion rates, all based on real-time transaction data.

All of VTS MarketView's benchmarking metrics are built from an aggregated and anonymized data set, according to the company. Providing anonymized leasing data to VTS for MarketView is voluntary on the part of VTS customers.

Those who don’t choose to participate won't have access to MarketView as a result, but VTS said that the majority of its users have already opted-in to participate.

"This goes far beyond market reports; the data and insights will be embedded in their workflow and presented in context to drive better decisions," VTS CEO Nick Romito said in a statement.

Though the use of big data has been relatively slow to come to commercial real estate, VTS isn't the first to tap vast amounts of information for CRE clients, the Wall Street Journal reports. CoStar already sells market data, and CompStak offers a similar service.

VTS and the other players in big real estate data have thus entered into territory formerly dominated by more traditional brokerage companies, such as JLL and CBRE, which used to control market data.

“The real-estate brokerage world has gone through and is going through a similar transformation [as stock brokers], albeit 15 years behind,” JLL Managing Director Michael Shenot told the WSJ.

VTS MarketView will be made available in beta to a number of VTS customers beginning in late 2018, with wider availability anticipated in early 2019.