Hi Ben,

We have been using CoStar for quite sometime.  They have a more proactive approach to making sure the data is up-to-date and accurate. 

Thanks for sharing your tips!  I appreciate this!

Tom Davis

Realtor

Ben - I wrote a post here about this topic, and marketing property more generally.  I agree with most of what you say, but I believe the usefulness of these services depends on the market you are in.  At this point in time, my office submits our listings to Costar and Xceligent, but we only hold active memberships on LoopNet and our local commercial listing service.  We post all of our listings on LoopNet, and have had many leads on office and industrial sales and leasing from the service.  We have also had the opportunity to convert a number of these inquiries to tenant/buyer rep situations.

I've used LoopNet since day one when they were a free service. I received several leads from potential clients and Broker/Agents. When they started charging, they limited free members the ability to access listings until they were 30 days old. This still provided many leads. Now with their Premium Membership, only premium members have access to all of the listings. Free members can only access about 10% of the database. This severely limits the leads from potential clients who don't want to pay for the membership.

CoStar is basically the same. Great for other Broker/Agents, but very limited for leads from potential clients.

I can't speak to Xceligent because it is not used in my geographic area.

I get several leads from CIMLS and PropertyLine both free services.

I just signed up for a free service started by AR member Matt McNeill. I think it will give LoopNet a run for its money. It's called CPREX. You can read Matts blog here. Give it a try, the price is right.

Hi Ben, In my prior life, I was the Marketing Research Director for Northern California for CBRE.  We used most of these systems, however alot of sales staff would not put their listings on these system, they would only put them on the company systems and keep the best listings as pocket listings so be carefull.

Steve

Hey Ben...  Thanks for the good information.  I am easing my way into commercial work.  I was a client of commercial agents for years and know the ropes from that side, but am just learning the tools and tricks from the broker side so this is some great information for me.  I just listed a .6 acre commercial tract in Hutto, TX (fastest growing city in Texas last year!), so this will come in handy.  CLICK HERE to see that listing on Loopnet.com.  Thanks again!

Excellent post, Ben. I agree with you, including both CoStar and Xceligent being good resources for the "whole picture."

Steve's point about "pocket listings" is also a good one. A lot of brokers do that, at least at first. When I was a broker, though, I'd always put my listings up first thing, because I thought that was best for my client. But that's just me.

Also check out our new free service when you get a chance: http://www.Sibdu.com . Thanks, and again, great post.

Commercial IQ is another national service launched a couple months ago by Catylist.  There are free and paid membership options like LoopNet.  One of the differentiating features is the listing distribution piece, which lets you send your listings automatically each night to a dozen other sites including CIMLS, Google, Vast, Oodle, Lycos... handy.  The search functionality is also very advanced... http://commercialiq.com