Last week’s acquisition of Whitestone Research Corp., a Santa Barbara company that projects the cost of building upkeep, shows that downtown Los Angeles real estate services firm CBRE Group is building out its consulting business.

Whitestone specializes in forecasting the costs of maintaining or upgrading buildings. Its flagship product is software called CostLab, available in 400 markets worldwide.

Karen Ellzey, executive managing director of consulting at CBRE’s global corporate services division, said buying Whitestone will help CRBE give clients a better idea of where and when to spend their money to keep properties up to date – a recurring challenge for investors and companies occupying their own buildings.

“This is a way to prioritize investments based on a number of factors,” Ellzey said. “We’ve heard from clients that it’s of interest.”

CBRE manages more than $32 billion in total facility operating expenses a year for clients, many of them Fortune 500 firms, and will use Whitestone’s cost analysis to manage those buildings and to help future clients while adding Whitestone’s clients.

The CostLab software takes local factors into account, such as weather and labor wages, to calculate the cost of making building improvements that are necessary, for example, to keep up with safety codes.

A 12-month subscription costs $995 for a basic package. A $2,495 premium package can analyze more buildings.

Whitestone has eight employees, including software developers and economists who provide analysis in addition to the software’s.

CBRE started its relationship with Whitestone as a client, then saw the opportunity to bundle the companies’ services.

The idea is to continue offering subscriptions to Whitestone’s software while also providing CBRE’s clients with personal consulting services with help from the software.

The Whitestone acquisition helped CBRE to expand its list of public-sector clients, such as federal agencies, Ellzey said, where there’s demand to use money efficiently.

She said the deal opens up opportunities to gain clients ranging from the smallest property owners to the largest.

“There comes a time when you have to make an investment in a building,” she said. “You do need to have a handle on when you need to make those investments and why.”