Eastern Union launches broker app for remote COVID-19 conditions

Brooklyn, NY The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting every sector of the American real estate market. Eastern Union–one of the country’s leading commercial real estate finance firms–has publicly committed to step up and assist the property financing industry. The company is rolling out a suite of free funding-related software tools to help commercial real estate investors better cope with the inevitable economic decline.

"We know the next few months will be turbulent," said Eastern Union founder and president Ira Zlotowitz. "Lenders are putting deals on hold, underwriters are struggling to valuate assets, and deals are being scrutinized more closely than ever. The typical commercial real estate investor can no longer get by with basic calculations or numbers. Running intricate financial modules and doing deep dives of potential risk scenarios will be required, often on the fly, to get any deal closed in the foreseeable future."

Eastern Union recently invested more than a quarter million dollars to upgrade its popular Eastern Union App and build a mobile-based platform that is downloadable to any Smartphone and designed for on-the-go use. The customized software, known as eCALC, enables buyers, lenders, and brokers to fully underwrite a transaction–from calculating cap rates, to figuring out blended-rate mortgage payments, to determining internal rate of return (IRR), to calculating equity waterfall distribution–all in the palm of their hand. 

A proprietary app of this magnitude, complete with customizable features not available anywhere else, would ordinarily require payment of a monthly user fee. However, in light of the serious industry threat posed by COVID-19, Eastern Union will continue to offer the app free of charge, even with these new features not available anywhere else.

"The investors and syndicators I've spoken with are very worried. With the Coronavirus forcing people to work at home or remotely, Eastern Union decided to speed up the app release, and we will continue to add additional innovative features," said Zlotowitz. "In less than four minutes, you can transform an offering memorandum (OM) or a basic setup to a calculator, and view a full 10-year model that will calculate internal rate of return, equity multipliers, and return on investment (ROI) – all without requiring expensive software programs or a large back-office staff to run the numbers." 

While other apps in the iOS and Android marketplace, including the original Eastern Union App, offer basic underwriting calculators, Eastern Union asserts that this new app is the first to provide a full lineup of calculator resources that extends across any transaction's entire life cycle.

The new eCALC feature also allows buyers, lenders, and brokers to save and share data after transaction-related calculations have been completed. A forthcoming iteration of the Eastern Union App will allow users to securely share data via Excel or PDF formats, and re-open their calculations using other software programs.  

"Basically, Eastern Union’s upgraded app serves as an intelligent commercial real estate toolkit, allowing investors to fully value and underwrite deals instantaneously, even while practicing social distancing and working remotely at the kitchen table," said Mr. Zlotowitz. "We feel the game-changing Eastern Union App is our contribution to help the commercial real estate industry better cope with the challenges that so many clients and fellow professionals are now facing."   

The free Eastern Union App is now available for download in the App Store and Google Play Store.