Yardi, TenantBase Forge New Proptech Partnership

Bennett Washabaugh, CEO & co-founder, TenantBase. Image courtesy of TenantBase

CommercialEdge, a product of Yardi Systems Inc., has teamed up with tenant-facing commercial real estate platform TenantBase to provide a new way for landlords to connect with companies that are actively hunting for space. The property technology partnership gives CommercialEdge users access to a real-time data feed of qualified tenants and allows them to submit office, industrial and retail listings.  

Launched in 2014, Santa Monica, Calif.-based TenantBase has a growing network of tenant reps working with companies across 12 markets, primarily in California and Texas. The free service, which specializes in spaces under 5,000 square feet, says that its brokers can complete deals in less than 60 days on average, compared to the industry norm of 6 to 12 months.

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“The biggest issue in this space has been the qualification of tenants,” Bennett Washabaugh, the company’s CEO & co-founder, told Commercial Property Executive. “We spent years really perfecting that.”

According to Washabaugh, the partnership with CommercialEdge will allow owners and leasing agents to structure flexible deals and execute on transactions faster by giving them more visibility on actual tenant demand in the market.

Santa Barbara, Calif.-based commercial real estate software giant Yardi (which also owns CPE) launched CommercialEdge this past May. The all-in-one platform, which enables users to research active listings and property data such as transaction, ownership and debt information, currently has more than 7 million property records, 150,000 monthly listings and 3 million recent transactions.

New platform grows

Image courtesy of CommercialEdge

CommercialEdge has recently begun to strike up more partnerships, including an integration agreement with Buildout, a marketing software firm for the commercial real estate industry. The alliance allows Buildout’s clients to easily share listings on the CommercialEdge Listing Network, which attracts more than 15 million monthly visits.  

Through the new partnership with TenantBase, CommercialEdge users will have access to an Active Tenants page which will allow them to filter requirements by size, location and property type. TenantBase will supply a data feed of active requirements to initially populate the page and brokers will add their requirements.

“They don’t share the tenant name, because that’s their exclusive client,” explained Arjun Rao, director of global solutions at Yardi. “They share a high-level description, like ‘technology firm with 50 employees.’”

“Tens of thousands of companies have come through TenantBase,” Washabaugh said. “We’re supplying CommercialEdge with the most qualified tenants in our system. It’s really tenants that are in the pre-tour to negotiating stage.”

The TenantBase platform currently covers Los Angeles, San Francisco and Orange County, Calif.; Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio, Texas; Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas and Nashville. Washabaugh noted that the company is expanding its partnerships with tenant rep shops in other markets and anticipates growing to 50 markets next year.

“Velocity and liquidity in the industry benefits everyone,” he said.