The researchers also have executed different plans to build their overseas business. Lodging Econometrics officials, for example, decided against partnering with research organizations in foreign cities because it would have interfered with the company's preferred and proprietary data collection and processing methods, Ford says.

Among other stipulations, Lodging Econometrics includes in its data only publicly announced projects that developers are actively pursuing and that have a dedicated land parcel. Plus, instead of establishing permanent offices overseas, company researchers constantly travel to meet with developers, hotel companies and investors.

Lodging Econometrics has tripled in size to 50 employees since it began its international push, Ford says. The company has tripled its client base, too. In addition to InterContinental, Marriott International and other well-known hotel brands, Lodging Econometrics counts vendors like Delta Faucet Co. and Shaw Floors among its customers.

“We investigated all the options of buying other firms and setting up offices, but we just felt it was better to go another direction,” Ford says. “So much of what we do has to be done in a very systematic and complex manner that we're better off not adapting ourselves to others, but having them adapt to us.”

Real Capital, in contrast, is establishing partnerships with existing data providers in foreign markets and opening its own offices, too. As of late 2008, the company had established two European offices and was planning to open a Hong Kong office. Real Capital also has partnered with 10 data firms around the world, and Fasulo anticipates adding up to three more partners over the next couple of months.

Still others are leveraging connections with affiliates already operating internationally. Case in point: Torto Wheaton, a division of real estate service provider CB Richard Ellis, is taking raw fundamental data from CB Richard Ellis offices overseas to craft its international reports.

In the fall of 2008, Torto Wheaton released its premier China report, which includes office property forecasts for Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing as well as historical office fundamentals for 12 other Asian cities. Torto Wheaton is ramping up similar products that will target major markets in Europe, says Arthur Jones, a senior economist with Torto Wheaton.

“As we finish in one region, we're moving onto another,” he adds. “[CB Richard Ellis] has a significant presence around the globe, and we're fortunate to be able to leverage the information they collect.”

Digging deep

Despite spending years and millions of dollars to build international platforms, independent information providers readily admit that they still confront several challenges as they attempt to advance deeper into foreign markets.

Finding trustworthy data in emerging markets is chief among the concerns, but number crunchers say that information in well-developed countries such as France can be tough to retrieve, too.

Employment is considered a key indicator of commercial real estate health, for instance, and Torto Wheaton utilizes reliable Department of Labor statistics to craft its U.S. forecasts. Dependable employment numbers are harder to find in China, Jones says.

Conversely, labor laws in some European countries make it difficult to fire and hire employees, rendering job numbers useless as an economic indicator, he says. Thus, Torto Wheaton studies national consumption taxes in those markets.

Other challenges center on changing cultures within organizations. When Smith Travel launched STR Global with Deloitte's HotelBenchmark and The Bench, the new company had to retrain its overseas sales force, Lomanno says.

Before the merger, HotelBenchmark salespeople were focused on converting Bench clients to their system, and vice versa. That strategy focused on hotel executives who already recognized the value of benchmarking services. Thus, it eliminated the extra work required to sign up lodging officials who had yet to buy into the practice.

STR Global's emphasis has now shifted to the so-called nonbelievers. “We're not converting Catholics to Protestants anymore,” Lomanno adds. “We need to find the atheists.”

Real Capital, meanwhile, discovered early on that it couldn't simply blanket its international markets with the same methodology that it applied in the U.S., Fasulo says.

Like most other organizations expanding overseas, the company continues to adapt to its new surroundings to discover the most accurate information possible.

“We've been awfully nimble in the way we're doing business in all these countries,” Fasulo notes. There are good reasons for that approach. “Real estate is a very local business, and we don't want to lose the local flavor in our global data.”

Joe Gose is a Kansas City-based reporter.

FREQUENT FLYERS: Independent commercial real estate researchers in the U.S. are branching out as interest in overseas investment grows.

Company	Sector	Coverage	Date Global Strategy Launched
Lodging Econometrics	Hotel	EMEA*, South America, Asia-Pacific, North America	2004
Real Capital Analytics	All	EMEA, Asia-Pacific, South America, North America	2005
STR Global	Hotel	EMEA, Asia-Pacific, North America	2006
Torto Wheaton Research	Office	Asia	2007
* Europe, Middle East, Africa			Source: Company data