TST Real Estate Systems
This Real Estate Systems site consists of the home page plus a site for each of the 6 case studies.
Home Page Content
A Visual Collaboration System for Real Estate Professionals
TST Real Estate Systems meet the need of real estate professionals to make better decisions by systematically – yet intuitively and dynamically – managing the qualitative elements that drive their decisions. The QL metrics include highest & best use, feasibility, location, architecture, transportation, market appeal, and geopolitical and entitlements risks. The QT metrics include traditional QT metrics, such as building rents, operating expenses, cap rates, discount rates and comparable rents. The systems were created in collaboration with developers, asset managers, appraisers and consultants, and include privatization, site selection, REITs, office building acquisitions, office leasing, and corporate asset management.
What You can do Better With THINKSheet
What You Already Do Well
You have been successful in combining your subjective knowledge, insights and wisdom with the numbers in the major transactions in which you specialize. You are particularly good at making complex, high impact judgments for individual issues and communicating them in the fewest words with the greatest meaning.
However, there comes a point where the metrics become so numerous and uncertain that synthesizing them into a logical whole that everyone on your team understands overwhelms even the smartest professionals.
What You Can Do Better
What we offer is a tool to help you better synthesize your thought processes by allowing you to assign values to your qualitative factors in the way you do it best – one factor at a time. THINKSheet then automates the synthesis of your individual judgments into an overall score and ranking and presents your reasoning in a way everyone understands.
You can then what-if those values andcollaborate with colleagues, experts and even clients with maximum efficiency as part of a streamlined decision process in which you use THINKSheet’s ability to picture your thought process every complex step of the way.
THINKSheet Terminology
The highest and best use of THINKSheet is to picture your thought process at the point of decision on a 1PAGER – a visual synthesis of the most important QL&QT elements of your thought process on one dynamic page.
Click TST Terminology for definitions and descriptions.
List of Case Studies
Case Studies
Site Links
Suburban Office Leasing
Sample Properties Covered
The table below lists some of the properties covered by TST Real Estate Systems.
Best Use of Website
Click Best Use of Website for best use of our website and caveats due to the illustrative nature of the examples.
TST Case Studies Overview
1. West Point Privatization
Project – U.S. Military Academy at West Point
This privatization (public-private development) project was the genesis of THINKSheet. The United States Military Academy at West Point hired Mr. Stahl, our co-founder and CEO, to advise West Point how to convert its surplus assets to cash to pay for a new $30 million science building. The West Point project manager’s request to Mr. Stahl to put the whole privatization program “on one wall so we can all understand it” was the inspiration for THINKSheet and the 1PAGER.
West Point Interest Group Analysis & Reconciliation
West Point also led to our special focus on interest group analysis and reconciliation. Our TST Interest Group Models visualize the conflicting motivations of interest groups which helps to better understand them and develop plans to reconcile them. The West Point assets eligible for privatization and the interest groups needed to be reconciled for successful projects included:
West Point Privatization Site Link
2. I-40 Land Acquisitions
Project – Development Properties Along I-40 Corridor
The I-40 Land Acquisitions project was a developer’s search for the best land parcels to purchase for a major development for selected cities in North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee along the I-40 corridor.
Land Acquisitions Model Structure
Visualizing Your Mental Framework Using Multiple Views
A standard TST model feature is to automatically highlight how users have organized their metrics and the relative weights assigned to them. Seeing how users have framed their thought process often leads them to make improvements by changing the metrics, re-organizing, re-defining, and re-weighting them, and eliminating those with marginal importance. Examples for the I-40 corridor metrics visualizations follow.
I-40 Corridor Metrics Organized By Categories
I-40 Corridor Metrics Ranked By Importance
I-40 Land Acquisitions Site Link
3. Class A Office Acquisitions
Class A Properties – National Market
Class A Office Acquisitions Model Structure
Class A Office Metrics Categories – 2010 Recovery Scenario (3)
Class A Office Metrics Importance – 2010 Recovery Scenario (3)
Class A Office Acquisitions Site Link
4. Boston Suburb Office Leasing
Project – RiverEdge in Medford, MA
A developer used THINKSheet to determine the best combination of rents and terms for negotiating a major lease with a biotech company for its office building in Medford, Massachusetts. The developer used a set of QL&QT metrics to compare the appeal of its property to the comparables in its region.
Boston Suburb Office Leasing Model Structure
RiverEdge Office Leasing Site Link
5. REITs
REIT Stocks
An investor specializing in REIT stocks used this application to manage his REITs stock selection process.
REITs Model Structure
Equity REITs Site Link
6. China New Cities
We believe that the development of the vast new cities in China is the most amazing real estate story ever. We further believe that the absorption rate of these new cities will drive the China economy, which will drive the global economy, the U.S. economy and its largest real estate markets. We are using the China New Cities Application as a component of our TST Oil Futures Trading System for trading oil futures with our partner, the London commodities trading company Energeia LLC. A portfolio manager is using the China New Cities Application as the macro analysis for its TST Oil Stocks system. Global real estate firms can adapt the system to determine whether and when to invest in China and, if so, in what regions. U.S.-focused companies can adapt it to better forecast the impact of China on their markets.
Real Estate Values, Infrastructure and Social Unrest
China is a unique real estate story due to the implicit social contract in which its citizens have acquiesced to the Communist party’s political control in exchange for economic prosperity. Real estate values are a litmus test of that prosperity because of the high percentage of wealth tied to real estate. The absorption rate of the new cities drives those values which are in turn driven by the availability and quality of their infrastructure, including highways, rail lines, subways, municipal facilities, schools, parks and hospitals.
Pudong (Shanghai) & Ordos
Real Estate Prices & Social Unrest
The protest by the apartment owners below to the decline in the prices of their units illustrates the link between real estate values and social unrest. The developer reduced the prices of new units shortly after selling them to the owners below who rioted in protest. The government had to bring in troops to quell the protest.
China’s Unifying Force – Its High Speed Rail System
China’s vast new high speed rail system is the unifying force driving population growth in the new cities. China plans to invest $300 billion in its system by 2020 and had almost 10,000 miles of track in service as of December 2014, which is more than the rest of the world’s high-speed rail tracks combined. You can see the major line connections below. 
Plan to Connect Its Vast Cities using High-Speed Rail System
China’s plan is interconnect its vast cities via its high-speed rail system – like the United States connected its cities via the federal interstate highway system. The main difference is the size of the cities and the speed with which the system is being developed. The table below summarizes a few of the new developments, cities, populations and the regions being linked.
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