Homes & Estates

COMPETITIV E D G E

A PROPRIETARY DIGITAL APPLICATION CALLED “CB x ” BRINGS BIG DATA TO THE LUXURY LISTING EXPERIENCE.

BY ALYSON PITARRE

“W ho is going to buy my home, and do you know how to reach them?” the affluent seller asked Marie Young. The seasoned real estate veteran affiliated with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, sat poised at the seller’s exquisite kitchen table. She was just about to start her listing presentation. “I’mglad you asked,” she said, pulling out her iPad. She slid her index finger across the screen and lightly tapped it, launching a proprietary application

called CBx. A heat map, peppered with animated green and yellow buyer profiles from Princeton to Hoboken, flashed onto the tablet. “The seller was amazed that I could tell himwhere buyers are likely to come from,” remembers Young, who won the listing that day. “ Coldwell Banker ® found a way to take people’s home searches and match them to where they are currently living and where they are looking — it’s amazing. Total game changer.” Launched in February 2015, CBx allows affiliated sales associates like Young to visualize big data that can show sellers the profile of their home’s potential buyer,

the three target markets where buyers are most likely to currently live, and other market dynamics based on data and trend analysis. Other tools help the agent build a story for sellers about what is happening in their neigh- borhood and how that may affect their home and sale. There’s also a behind-the-scenes tool for how and why a particular listing price is ideal, based on its unique neigh- borhood details and amenities. The third generation of the application is due to launch this month. “Originally, we wanted to turn the listing pre- sentation into an experience for the seller,” explains Jimmy Hammel, manager of digital marketing for

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