The real estate industry isn’t what it used to be five or even two years ago. In 2019, global real estate investment peaked at an all-time high of $800 billion, driven by strong investor confidence and favorable economic conditions. However, by 2022, investment volumes had fallen by 19%, reflecting a more challenging investment climate. The market continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace.
Real estate firms need to navigate shifting market cycles, fluctuating interest rates, occupancy changes, and evolving regulations. And success depends on how quickly companies can adapt. This demands agility across every part of an organization.
Financial agility is being able to quickly understand what’s happening in the real estate market and respond in the right way, with confidence.
For financial professionals this challenge is even greater. You’re expected to deliver strategic insights in real-time, all while tracking volatile cash flows, managing complex debt obligations, and making sense of fast-changing portfolios.
So what is the problem? Traditional processes – static budgets, annual planning cycles, and disconnected spreadsheets – simply can’t keep up. Financial agility simply isn’t a nice-to-have anymore; it’s a need.
Achieving financial agility starts with the right tools in place.
What does financial agility mean in real estate?
In real estate, things change fast — interest rates, regulations, demand, and investment opportunities shift overnight. Agile finance teams need real-time insights into their portfolio, so they can adjust forecasts, move capital, plan for different scenarios, and make decisions with confidence.
For real estate finance teams, agility is the key to staying competitive, managing risks, and seizing opportunities when they arise.
Where most teams fall short
Even though real estate is a fast-paced industry, many finance teams still rely heavily on outdated processes and tools. So much so that 71% of teams still rely on manual methods to retrieve bank statements. It’s no surprise that these traditional methods that worked in the past are now creating bottlenecks.
Take spreadsheets. Although about 70% of finance leaders live and breathe Excel, data is scattered across siloed files and systems, slowing everything down.
Without a central source of truth, finance teams struggle to maintain visibility. Cross-functional collaboration becomes cumbersome as updates are constantly lost in email threads and outdated spreadsheets.
In the end, this leads to:
- Forecasts built on outdated or incomplete data
- Delayed or inaccurate reporting
- Time wasted chasing updates instead of analyzing results
- Missed opportunities due to slow response to market changes
In a market where speed matters, these gaps are holding teams back. But with modern tools that connect data and workflows across teams, finance can operate with the agility the job demands.
How modern FP&A tools enable financial agility
An FP&A tool, like Datarails, connects your data, automates processes, and provides a clear and real-time view of your portfolio, allowing you to close faster, forecast more accurately, and collaborate with confidence.
For example, Joseph Clayton from 68Ventures, the parent company for numerous operating businesses along the Gulf Coast, which focus on development, investment, and construction, shared how Datarails helped automate his team’s monthly reporting process. He shared on FP&A today, “It’s [Datarails] been able to save faster times across all of our teams and ensure that we’re looking at the latest and greatest information, and that’s getting back to us.”
Since 68Ventures unified all their spreadsheets into a single database, they created a single source of truth for reporting and decreased their monthly reporting time by 15%.
By integrating Datarails with your existing tools, like Excel, you can:
- Automate consolidation across entities and data sources
- Build real-time dashboards and reports for properties, portfolios, and investment planning
- Access dynamic forecasting and scenario modeling through intuitive workflows
- Maintain a familiar spreadsheet interface so you don’t lose momentum
- Leverage AI-powered insights to spot trends, flag anomalies, and understand performance drivers instantly
And for the 45,000 real estate firms that rely on MRI Software, Datarails brings even greater efficiency. With the Datarails and MRI Software integration, you can pull live data from MRI, consolidating it alongside all financials, lease details, and operational metrics.
There’s no more manual work and no more delayed acquisitions, missed refinancing windows, or cash shortfalls. Just one clear, connected view of your entire business.
Competitive advantages of financial agility
With the right tools in place, you have all the data at your fingertips and can move quickly on opportunities that matter most.
You can respond quickly to changes in interest rates, refinancing opportunities, or shifts in market demand. Just like that, you’ll have the ability to:
- Produce more accurate projects, backed by real-time data
- Maintain full visibility into when and how your numbers change
- Automate workflows to reduce errors and increase efficiency
- Strengthen your operational cash position with better forecasting
In short, by automating consolidation, scenario planning, and forecasting, you’ll always be one step ahead of the competition. You’ll have the confidence to adjust your financial strategy in minutes and can gain confidence in your forecasts.
And with a single source of truth across your entire organization, you empower every stakeholder, from finance to asset management, to make smarter, faster decisions.
As Brad Inman, award-winning journalist, publisher, and founder of Inman Group, news publisher for the residential real estate industry, said, “If you don’t adopt disruptive technology, you will be disrupted.”
So why wait? See how Datarails’ partnership with MRI Software can help you streamline workflows, build rolling forecasts, and deliver real-time insights your business needs to stay competitive.
FAQ
- What does financial agility mean?
Financial agility means being able to adapt financial plans and decisions quickly to keep up with market or business changes. - How to improve agility in finance?
Improve financial agility by removing blockers and inefficiencies, automating processes, using real-time data for better decisions, and strengthening forecasting and scenario planning to adapt quickly. - What is agile financial planning?
Agile financial planning is flexible budgeting and forecasts that enable businesses to quickly and easily change direction if and when needed.
