What Real Estate Giants Are Saying About Technology

Thesis Driven dives deep into emerging themes and real estate operating models. This week’s letter is a quarterly overview of what publicly-traded real estate companies are saying about technology and innovation in their businesses.

Each quarter, some of the largest real estate firms in the world tell us about how they’re using technology in their businesses. And we at Thesis Driven listen, translating their quarterly earnings calls into analysis of how the biggest REITs are approaching technology, data, and innovation writ large. (You can read Q2’s roundup here.)

To do this, we sampled a representative set of the largest publicly-traded real estate businesses, including REITs and services businesses from the major food groups. Specifically, we covered:

Essex Property Trust (NYSE: ESS)
AvalonBay Communities (NYSE: AVB)
Invitation Homes (NYSE: INVH)
Mid-America Apartment Communities (NYSE: MAA)
Equity Residential (NYSE: EQR)
Lennar (NYSE: LEN)
Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG)
SL Green Realty (NYSE: SLG)
Prologis (NYSE: PLD)
CBRE (NYSE: CBRE)
Cushman & Wakefield (NYSE: CWK)
JLL (NYSE: JLL)
Boston Properties (NYSE: BXP)
Blackstone (NYSE: BX)
Brookfield (NYSE: BN)
Welltower (NYSE: WELL)

For each, we’ll give a brief overview of how technology was mentioned (if it was) plus a review of key innovation-related themes from this quarter’s earning calls.