The Future of Commercial Real Estate Data with CompStak Co-Founder & CEO Michael Mandel: Podcast Recap

From Broker to Builder: Michael Mandel on Reinventing Commercial Real Estate Data

In the latest episode of Bricks, Bytes, and Bold Moves, Michael Mandel, Co-Founder and CEO of CompStak, joins Dr. Kate Jarvis, CEO of Fifth Dimension, to share the story behind one of PropTech’s most influential data platforms and where the commercial real estate (CRE) industry is heading next.

From Frustration to Innovation

Before founding CompStak, Michael was a commercial real estate broker in New York City. He quickly realized that the way brokers exchanged lease comps—through informal, often chaotic Monday meetings—was ripe for disruption. The process was time-consuming, imprecise, and heavily reliant on individual networks.

This inefficiency sparked the idea for CompStak: a centralized, crowdsourced platform that would make high-quality, granular CRE data accessible to professionals across the industry. What started as a spreadsheet and a prototype in 2011 has since evolved into a game-changing data exchange used by major owners, investors, and government entities alike.

Building a PropTech Platform with Staying Power

Michael’s journey wasn’t without challenges. From struggling to find early investors (“Is real estate even a big enough market?”) to vetting potential co-founders without a technical background, the early days of CompStak were defined by grit, rejection, and iteration.

His advice to fellow founders? Domain expertise matters. “Real estate professionals make money by sniffing out BS. If you’re not fluent in the industry, people will know.”

That deep industry fluency, combined with a clear value exchange for data contributors, has helped CompStak scale while maintaining trust. Brokers, appraisers, and researchers can trade data for free, earning credits based on accuracy and uniqueness, with incentives baked into the platform.

What Sets CompStak Apart

As Mandel puts it, CompStak isn’t chasing the largest volume of data, it’s focused on the highest quality. “We’re not going to give you the most data points. We’re going to give you the ones you can actually rely on.”

That philosophy underpins the platform’s expansion beyond lease comps to include sales, property details, CMBS info, and now benchmarking tools like CompStak Portfolios. Whether it’s a hedge fund, a REIT, or a city tax assessor, clients use CompStak’s platform to better understand asset value, performance, and market context.

The Future: AI, Analytics, and Empowered Users

Michael sees AI not as a separate trend but as an embedded layer across CRE workflows—much like the internet itself. While AI and LLMs are reducing the need for manual analysis, he warns this evolution could create a gap in junior talent development unless the industry rethinks how people learn foundational skills.

Still, there’s reason to be excited. “If everyone has access to the same data and tools, what wins is creativity. That can come from experience, but it can also come from seeing the problem differently.”

Final Takeaways

Michael’s story is more than a founder origin tale; it’s a masterclass in how to build technology that’s both useful and trusted in an industry historically slow to adopt change. His closing advice? Whether you’re building a product or underwriting an investment, the foundation is the same: get the data right.

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🎧 Listen to the full episode now to hear more about Michael’s founder journey, how CompStak is shaping the future of CRE, and why trust, transparency, and domain knowledge will define the next decade of PropTech.