Smith Commercial RE
This column is offered to help educate agents new to commercial and investment brokerage and serve as a review of basics for existing practitioners.
I did an article 10 years ago on commercial “websites,” looking back many of those sites are now gone. The latest site to go down was the National Association of Realtors site, “commercial search.” They were being run by Xceligent who went bankrupt. So here is my current list of commercial websites. Certain sites are available to list and search for properties at no charge but may offer additional services on a fee basis. Other sites require membership fees for their use. Almost all sites (even if they are free) require a registration process.
Most sites are searchable by type of property, size, price range and geographically by town or county within states.
COSTAR Group
CoStar (www.costar.com) owns Loopnet, Cityfeet and Showcase. Its own site is focused on researching commercial buildings, with over 1,600 researchers tracking 5 million properties and 1.5 million listings. It provides extensive property details and excellent reports. It is “members only” access; members can post properties and search listings of other members.
Loopnet (www.loopnet.com) is one of the largest national commercial listing services. It contains hundreds of thousands of commercial and investment property listings, which may be viewed by the public. Searching for properties is free, but to post your listings requires a subscription.
Searching for properties is free at www.showcase.com. These properties are seen by the public. Posting is done through CoStar of Loopnet subscriptions.
The site, www.cityfeet.com, also has an extensive amount of commercial listings, which are also distributed to many newspapers throughout the U.S. Posting is done through CoStar of Loopnet subscriptions.
Other Sites
At www.catylist.com you can find another large data base of commercial and investment properties. You may search for properties at no cost but you must subscribe to post your listings.
Commrex.com is a national commercial property information exchange covering many areas of the country. They have listings in many states that can be searched for without cost. There is an annual fee to put an unlimited amount of listings on the site. They provide broadcast email services and other marketing “tools” to their members for a fee.
Free basic services are provided by:
• At RealNex (www.realnex.com) Basic services are without cost; this site also has extensive “tools” available for a fee including transaction management, cash flow projections and marketing programs.
• The Commercial Investment MLS (www.CIMLS.com) was established in 2001 and now has over 320,000 members. This national site allows searching and listing of commercial properties without cost. Additional marketing services are available for a fee.
• Leavitt Digital Commercial Real Estate (www.LDCRE.com) is a huge global database of commercial and investment properties. Basic services to search for and list properties are free. Additional services are available
• Commercial Real Estate Exchange Inc. is a relatively new (started 2016) rapidly growing national listing site; very high tech with interactive map searching. Currently only focuses on properties for sale, but lease listings are expected to be added this year. You may search and list commercial properties at no cost. They do have thousands of registered investors (buyers) who they will market your properties directly too, for a fee.
Edward Smith, Jr., CREI, ITI, CIC, GREEN, MICP, CNE, is a commercial real estate consultant, instructor and broker at Smith Commercial Real Estate, Sandy Hook, CT.
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