With a range of commercial real estate listing tools available online today, it’s no surprise that some become overwhelmed with choices before they even begin searching for property. Whether you’re a broker, investor, or tenant, you can guarantee there is a platform out there to help you find the real estate you’re looking for. But how do you know which one?
Different CRE listing sites on the market each serve small groups of a larger audience. Today we’re going to look at Commercial Search and Loopnet to discover which may work best for you in your hunt for commercial property for sale or lease.
What Do Investors Need To Know?
While the inventory, listing visibility, lead generation, and digital workflow advantages of online CRE marketplaces significantly outweigh traditional approaches, there are certain features that a website cannot offer.
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We support the investors’ search process with top-of-the-industry information and advice and work with reliable commercially-backed tenants. If you want to find the perfect passive NNN investment property effortlessly, connect with us today.
Commercial Search
In 2020, Commercial Search became the latest addition to the Yardi commercial real estate suite. The platform serves as a comprehensive website for commercial real estate listings for lease or sale. Users can list and manage properties for free on a platform with over 300,000 listings spanning major United States commercial markets, including multifamily, industrial, office, and retail.
Commercial Searches interface was modernized after the Yardi acquisition and offers a modern, intuitive, and easy-to-use CRE marketing and management solution for its audience.
The platform is supported by a global team of over 7,000 and has recently handled more than $7 million in property transactions. Parent company Yardi was established in 1984 and is based in Santa Barbara, California.
Features
Property owners, brokers, investors, and tenants can subscribe to Commercial Search and list commercial real estate for free. With a subscription upgrade, priced at $250 billed monthly, users gain access to Commercial Search’s Edge Research tool, offering property and listing search, over 14 million property records, market insights, sale and lease comparables, and reports about tenants in the market (TIMs). With Edge Marketing, CRE professionals can market, manage, and syndicate their listings on the Yardi network.
Users can also gain listing exposure on Yardi’s other platforms, including Commercial Cafe, Property Shark, Point 2, and 42 Floors. An inbuilt CRM allows brokers and property owners to connect instantly with verified leads.
Commercial Search features a tradeshow and an online convention that industry professionals and investors can attend. It also offers news, research, education, and databases for Commercial Edge subscribers.
Commercial Search Highlights
- Options for unlimited listing and browsing for free
- Leverage Yardi’s network of platforms
- Easy-to-use interface
- Integrated tools to support workflow
Commercial Search Limitations
- Lower inventory than its competitor
- Reduced traffic and brand recognition
Who Should Use Commercial Search?
The platform targets businesses looking to relocate or expand operations and it offers opportunities for investors and real estate professionals as well. Designed to help navigate the entire process of listing, lead generation, and workflow management, experienced investors who seek full control over their process can take advantage of this interactive tool.
Unlike its competitor, Commercial Search offers integrated tools to help manage transactions, leads, and business workflow directly from the site. Additionally, users can contact brokers directly through the website.
Loopnet
Loopnet is the largest and most popular commercial real estate marketplace in the United States. The platform was established in 1995 and was later acquired by the Costar Group in 2012. The 2022 Costar Group is a network comprising the most prominent commercial real estate database, property records spanning 20 years, analytics, and industry news.
Prized for its high-traffic, high-visibility marketing solution, users can access free property searches across the most expansive geographic span, and gain exposure to over 12.6 million monthly visitors.
Property types include multifamily, retail, office, industrial, land, restaurants, and more across the United States and Canada. With this search tool, tenants, brokers, and investors can connect with properties for lease or sale, as well as businesses for sale.
Features
It’s free to conduct property searches on Loopnet, though to list properties members must subscribe to a silver, gold, or platinum membership package. These come at supreme prices and include increased listing visibility for those with the highest-tier package. Listing exposure is prioritized for paid memberships.
Searches can be conducted through property type, square footage, price, location, and more, making it easy for investors, brokers, and tenants to discover their ideal real estate, or to find businesses for sale.
Users previously had access to Loopnet’s property records until it was acquired by Costar. Now, members can pay an additional $500 to access Costar’s property record database, which is the most prominent in the industry.
Loopnet Highlights
- Best listing exposure in local and national markets
- Most popular digital CRE marketplace
- Longstanding brand recognition, which drives lead generation and exposure
Loopnet Limitations
- Access to property records comes with high premiums
- Low listing visibility for non-paying members
Who Should Use Loopnet?
Listing brokers, CRE professionals, agents, investors, and tenants are the market targeted by Loopnet. Because the site comes with high membership prices, the audience it targets is more likely to be in the professional sphere than individual small investors. That said, the site still claims to serve individuals right up to CRE firms.
Loopnet offers fewer integrated tools to manage the entire transaction process, meaning that investors who wish to dig into the property acquisition process with popular searches will manage negotiations, research, and lead generation on their own.
Commercial Search vs Loopnet: Head to Head
The two commercial real estate listing platforms offer similar features including large databases, visibility leverage, and access to additional property records and information. However, the price difference and access to features vary significantly between the two listing sites. Let’s see how Commercial Search vs Loopnet compares head-to-head in each of these categories, so you can decide which platform is best for you.
Fees and Membership
Both platforms are free to use for basic searches. Commercial Search allows subscribers to list properties and manage listings for free as well, though offers more extensive features with its membership subscription at $250 per month.
Loopnet offers a multi-tiered member subscription, which one must register for to be able to list properties. The site is known to be one of the higher-priced commercial property search tools on the market. Unlike Commercial Search, members must pay hefty additional fees to access property records, analytics, and market insights.
Exposure
Both sites utilize search engine optimization to increase the visibility of listings in prominent search engines like Google. However, Loopnet is well known to be the highest-exposure digital CRE marketplace available today. With this in mind, Loopnet charges higher membership premiums for investors and CRE professionals that want to take advantage of this exposure.
Commercial Search users can leverage other platforms in the Yardi suite to increase visibility to multiple markets and pools of leads.
Database
Loopnet has the highest inventory, with over 1.1 million property listings accessible. While the database is more comprehensive, it provides more options to brokers, investors, and tenants searching, though will also require more time to conduct searches.
Commercial Search, on the other hand, has over 300,000 active listings in its inventory. The platform is newer on the market than Loopnet, which may contribute to the vast difference in inventory size.
Property Records
For the real estate investor searching for property records, market insights, sales and comps data, and analytics, Commercial Search has this information more readily available. While access entails a monthly premium of $250, and records are not as comprehensive as 2022 Costar Group records, it is the only site that offers these analytics directly from its platform.
Alternatively, investors can access Costar’s comprehensive property records spanning more than 20 years for an additional price of $500 on top of Loopnet membership premiums.
Summary
Understanding which digital marketplace will best support your search for a great passive investment in commercial real estate can be overwhelming for any investor. Commercial Search offers a comprehensive search with integrated process management tools, and available records and analytics to support investors in their search.
Loopnet is a wonderful tool for high-visibility listings and boasts the most extensive inventory in commercial real estate online platforms available. However, these advantages come at a high cost for small investors. For those seeking a profitable passive commercial real estate investment with an NNN-lease property, seeking the guidance of experienced professionals can alleviate the costs and time-consuming search process required by online marketplaces.
With NNN Deal Finder, you can leverage tenants with strong commercial backing to set you up for long-term investment success. You gain access to professional support, market and industry insights, and guidance to make the best decisions for your financial future. If you want to find a property perfectly matched to your investment goals without the hassle, contact NNN Deal Finder today.