By Daniel Levison
The simple answer is ABSOLUTELY. The more complicated answer is it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are primarily a tenant rep agent or brokerage shop, unless you're fortunate to work in a city whose Commercial Board provides a commercial MLS - you will have a difficult time effectively doing your job without CoStar.
However, if your business is more landlord and/or investment focused there has been an explosion of digital platforms that can provide your brokerage business highly accurate and effective ways to market properties, analyze individual properties and help determine property values.
In this first part of our two part series we will explore marketing and technology platforms available to help the CRE industry in addition to Costar, Loopnet, Cityfeet and TenX.
We have identified what we believe to be the best in class digital platforms that can provide an alternative to the 900 pound gorilla in the industry. However, we have excluded platforms, such as Squarefoot, Truss and Instant Office where you are required to use a broker from their organization when accessing their platform.
There are several factors to consider when evaluating marketing software solutions. Sharplaunch, one of the platforms listed below, wrote a comprehensive blog providing insight on the critical factors to consider.
Below, in alphabetical order, are the digital platforms we discovered.
Adobe
Adobe’s platform provides clients the ability to create, manage, and deliver personalized marketing programs which can include emails, websites, and mobile access. With their proprietary applications Marketo and LaunchPoint clients can create personal experiences for their potential customers.
Adobe cloud brings together all of your marketing technology in a single place, from managing your content and delivering email campaigns to automating your ad buying and measuring your success. One integrated approach for a seamless user experience.
Clients have the following functionality:
● Create, automate and measure campaigns across channels
● Identify the right target accounts using data and AI
● Engage customers with relevant conversations in minutes
● Integrate social to find customer and make them advocates
● Target the right customers with personalized display ads
● Interact dynamically with customers on your website
● Marketing analytics
Buildout
With Buildout clients can create marketing documents without repeatedly updating property information and designing individual pieces manually. Buildout’s platform automates your company proposals, OM’s, brochures and flyers with your company’s customized branding.
With Buildout updating information is instantaneous to all your marketing materials, website, proposals and emails. Information can be shared with prospects and owners seamlessly as well as sharing floor plans and site plans with interested prospects.
Clients have the following functionality:
● Instantly generate websites with customized URLs
● Quickly and easily share property information and acquire prospects.
● Automated updating of major third-party listing sites.
● Editable site plans integrated with Buildout’s centralized property database, allowing making changes to site plans is easy and efficient
biproxi
biproxi defines itself as the modern commercial property listing platform for sales & marketing. Biproxi’s platform provides clients with access to the most innovative digital marketing tools and a global database of owners and buyers allowing you to get more leads and manage your deals in one central location.
The biproxi team of digital marketers, designers and CRE professionals create digital building campaigns streamlining the connection between buyers and sellers.
Biproxibid, a recently announced new service through a strategic partnership with The Future of Real Estate (FRE), With flexibility and a multitude of customizable options, biproxibid give control back to the brokers throughout the entire bidding process.
Clients have the following functionality:
❖ The platform provides full-color 3D floor plans
❖ Drone piloted high definition aerial video clips
❖ Photo packages include enhancements to blue sky and green grass
❖ Virtual staging of furniture and modern decor into spaces
Brevitas
Brevitas is a nationwide commercial real estate marketplace focused on investment sales and leasing. It provides marketing software for brokers and agents, including outbound email marketing, landing pages, and secure deal rooms.
Clients have the following functionality for commercial properties:
❖ National coverage for buyers and sells
❖ Search for Hospitality, Industrial, Office, Residential - Multi-Family, Retail
❖ Provides marketing software through outbound email marketing, landing pages, and secure deal rooms.
Catalyst
Trusted by over seventy realtor associations, hundreds of economic development communities, and thousands of CRE brokerage firms Catalyst has nearly twenty years of commercial real estate data experience in over 50 markets across North America. Commercial Exchange is Catalyst’s national marketplace and brings together listings from Catalyst
Clients have the following functionality:
❖ Access a fully-researched database of sale/lease listings, comparables, and off-market properties
❖ Add an unlimited number of property listings
❖ Expose listings to a national audience on CommercialExchange.com
❖ Send and receive broadcast email
❖ Create detailed, customizable reports
❖ Access quarterly market trends and analytics
❖ Display your commercial property listings on your company website, driving traffic to your site and generating leads.
❖ Create e-brochures for your property listings and send to a network of thousands of brokers, investors, owners, and tenants.
Commercial Cafe
CommercialCafé is a commercial real estate internet listing service, part of Yardi’s family of platforms. Listings on their website gain immediate exposure across the entire network. Listings available on CommercialCafé include all commercial real estate property categories, such as office space, industrial space, retail space for lease and for sale.
Clients have the following functionality for commercial properties:
❖ More than 125,000 spaces nationwide
❖ Browse commercial and coworking spaces across the country
❖ Exposure for your coworking spaces
CIMLS
CIMLS, the Commercial Investment Multiple Listing Service, has provided property information to CRE professionals since 1999. The MLS platform for commercial real estate listings and advertising features all facets of commercial property.The service has in excess of 370,000 registered members and $500+ billion in available properties.
A basic plan is free and allows you to submit listings to the site, or you can upgrade to a gold membership which allows you to include additional images, documents, and lead generation tools in your listings.
Clients have the following functionality for commercial properties:
❖ Access to over 660,000 Commercial Properties For Sale and 131,000 Commercial Properties For Lease 370,000
❖ Ability to upload images at the click of a button
❖ Ability to drag the street view camera and edit pages to customize the view from the street for your listings without taking pictures yourself.
❖ Features such as viewing listings, searching, and managing your account, among others, have been updated to be mobile friendly.
Craigslist
Created in 1996, Craglist is a web-based platform for classified advertisements with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums. For smaller suites and coworking space
Craglist has provided us with very favorable returns on our efforts for smaller suites.
CREXi
Determined to create a platform needed in the industry, the co-founders built and launched CREXi in 2016. From launch, CREXi developed marketing automation tools, analytics, and a secure file storage system into a robust broker suite that leads CRE into the digital age.
Their online auction service provides a portal to virtual buyers and sellers. CREXi powerful CRE tools to list, manage, and effectively market your listings can also be added to their platform through their personal white glove service.
Clients have the following functionality:
❖ List unlimited properties on the marketplace for free
❖ Create, send, and track marketing campaigns directly from our platform
❖ Access in-depth listing data, lead tracking, and tools to manage your day-to-day.Data and Analytics
❖ Get real-time activity and actionable insights on your properties
❖ Leverage communication and collaboration tools to effectively reach out to buyers and brokers in the marketplace
❖ Auction Properties through their proprietary database of 400,000 qualified buyers
❖ CREXi’’s team handles every part of the auction process. From due diligence documents, verifying proof of funds, live bidding, and the closing process
LDCRE
Leavitt Digital (LDCRE) is a free Commercial Real Estate Listing Distribution Platform, providing CRE Listings to 500 news websites around the globe. LDCRE enables brokers and owners to increase local and global reach on listings through their national and international listing syndication platform.
Clients have the following functionality:
❖ LDCRE is free to list and search commercial real estate for sale and lease.
❖ LDCRE’s listing syndication powers the Commercial Real Estate sections in 500 news websites around the globe
❖ Listings are broadcast across 35 countries globally
❖ Only accessible to direct principal investors and users whom register with LDCRE Investments
OfficeSpace.com
Biproxi, an end-to-end commercial real estate platform, acquired OfficeSpace.com earlier this year. The acquisition will allow biproxi to consolidate all of its commercial real estate (CRE) data and listings on the OfficeSpace.com website, which markets itself as the second-largest CRE listing site in the U.S.
Clients have the following functionality:
❖ Access to over 570,000 listings, and is visited by over 350,000 buyers and tenants every month
❖ OfficeSpace.com has historical data on over 1.7 million listings reaching back over 15 years.
❖ OfficeSpace.com 's online property database is available to search for free and without any restrictions
ProspectNow
ProspectNow creates a proprietary machine learning model that accurately predicts which properties are most likely to sell or refinance. Clients are also provided the ability to contact principals of buildings, businesses and organizations through theplatform.
Clients have the following functionality for commercial properties:
❖ Search over 40 million commercial properties
❖ Search by owner, size, property type, preforeclosures
❖ Names, emails, and phone numbers for property owners
❖ Detailed property characteristics
❖ Loan maturity dates
❖ Predictive analytics for finding likely sellers
Clients have the following functionality for commercial business:
❖ Search over 14 million commercial properties
❖ Search by number of tenants, estimated rents, SIC/NAICS code
❖ Names, emails, and phone numbers for decision makers
Clients have the following functionality for commercial business:
❖ Search over 15 million LLC’s and corporations
❖ Search by LLC name or managing member name
❖ Names, emails, & phone numbers for LLC managing members
❖ Uncover hidden details about complete portfolio ownership
PropertySend
This CRE marketplace platform allows brokers, buyers and owners to both list and advertise their properties on the platform with a free search feature for site viewers. The platform covers the spectrum of commercial spaces from office, sports & entertainment, industrial, land, and retail.
Clients have the following functionality for commercial properties:
❖ Instantly reach over 120,000 commercial buyer, brokers, owners, agents and developers
❖ Easily create highly effective email blasts utilizing the platforms templates or your own PDF’s and use custom HTML links
❖ Schedule custom email blast to the platforms database of 120,000+ contacts
❖ Get instant access to real-time analytics on your email blast has been sent.
RealNex Marketplace
The Marketplace is part of the suite of products offered by RealNex. With over 250,000 listings in their database marketplace can provide effective exposure for your company's listings.
Clients have the following functionality:
❖ Create and share unlimited Watch Lists with Clients
❖ Run emarket campaigns to your private database or RealNex’s community
❖ Monitor listing performance metrics with their advanced analytics
❖ Streamline workflow with RealNex’s data integration across their platform
❖ Sophisticated mapping and data overlays
❖ Custom branded marketing materials
RealDash
RealDash is an all-in-one software platform that streamlines the deal process for commercial real estate professionals.The RealDash team is composed of technology and real estate experts who have created a cutting-edge, cloud-based platform that manages all aspects of commercial real estate.
Clients have the following functionality:
❖ Fully customizable for brokers, investors, owners, lenders, and the
❖ Connects clients with a growing verified network of over 50,000 active owners, buyers, tenants and lenders
❖ Automating processes and maximizing the effectiveness of your marketing team and materials
Real Capital Markets
Real Capital Markets (RCM) is the global marketplace for buying and selling commercial real see. RCM, one the suite of products offered by Lightbox CRE, increases the speed, exposure, and security of CRE sales through its streamlined online platform.
Clients have the following functionality:
❖ Integrated property marketing
❖ Transaction management, and business intelligence tools
❖ Auction properties through their proprietary database of qualified buyers tracted in excess of 40+ years
Real Massive
RealMassive works with economic development offices, large brokerage companies while also scraping websites to add available properties to their marketplace. Currently RealMassive has in excess of 300,000 for and lease listings on their platform.
Clients have the following functionality:
❖ Adding your listing to the RealMassive Marketplace is free
❖ Get the most up-to-date commercial real estate listings on your website using the industry’s largest GIS software providers
❖ Listings are updated in real-time and delivered directly to your website weekly
❖ Access up-to-date market data and information to determine the best price for your specific property based on your unique goals.
❖ Real-time data solutions allow clients to analyze property performances compared to the market so you can update your pricing based on the latest trends
Real Insights Marketplace
Real Insight’s Marketplace is an online commercial real estate auction platform that purports to have the highest sell-through rate in the CRE industry. Marketplace was launched in 2017 by a team of commercial real estate professionals whose goal was to create a better way for CRE investors, brokers, and property owners to connect and efficiently list, market, and close CRE deals online.
Clients have the following functionality:
❖ Marketplace Listings
❖ Custom Auctions
❖ Absolute Auctions
RealtyZapp
RealtyZapp is a multi-feature real estate platform, allowing users to manage their listings, prospects, email campaigns and social media marketing all through one dashboard. RealtyZapp offers three packages for customers - Agent, Power Agent, Super Agent.
Clients have the following functionality for commercial properties:
❖ Targeted marketing, prospect management, brand consistency
❖ Listing Optimization through SEO
❖ Automated and targeted email campaigns
❖ Update listings and your website remotely on phone and table along with social media profiles and flyers
Rofo
Rofo helps tenants, property owners and investors access to search for office space, industrial properties, retail, land, multi family, and hotels. The platform offers coverage from more than 4,200 cities, totaling 1 billion square feet. Rofo promotes their platform as the easiest way to connect properties with end users and investors. The platform has two membership plans, a tenant and buyer rep plan, and a property advertising plan.
Clients have the following functionality for commercial properties:
❖ Through the tenant tenant rep plan agents get introduced to tenants and buyers as they begin their search for properties
❖ Reach active tenants and brokers in the market through targeted marketing
❖ Clients portal to manage all active opportunities and posts including property listings, leads received, recent tours, completed client engagements, and any active commercial real estate requirements
SharpLaunch
SharpLaunch promotes itself as the all-in-one digital marketing platform for commercial properties. It provides an easy-to-use suite of marketing tools specifically built for owners, asset managers, and brokers who want to improve asset visibility, streamline marketing activities and save time.
From confidentiality agreements to property presentations, offering memorandums and prospect activity, you can set permission sets and organize customized files with their platform providing maximum efficiency in your company’s marketing efforts.
Clients have the following functionality:
❖ Create property websites - customized with your logo and branding colors, your website includes everything to feature key building information property description & specifications, amenities list, interactive photo gallery, google map integration and floor plans
❖ The platform’s property search engine displays property listings with a private “white label”
❖ Interactive maps built on top of Google maps technology offers users the best interactive experience
❖ Marketing Analytics - Comprehensive marketing dashboards provide key analytics on listings
❖ Email marketing provides unlimited email campaigns with professional designed templates and provides the ability to track the activity of your users and prospects
❖ Online document portal simplifies and securely uploads property documents allowing sharing with your prospects and clients.
Total Commercial
TotalCommercial.com is a full-featured commercial real estate listing service and has been providing commercial real estate listing information online since 1995.
Clients have the following functionality:
❖ There is never any cost for anyone to search properties
❖ Listings are only accepted from real estate licensees
❖ All listings are warranted by the agent to be exclusive listings
❖ Each listing must be re-validated every thirty days to keep the information up-to-date
❖ Listings include unlimited photos and attachments
Truvia
Owned by VTS who powers over 12 billion square feet of commercial space in North America. Truvia plans to release their marketplace platform in the 4th quarter of 2020.
Truva partners with landlords to ensure all spaces that are listed are available and have the most accurate information. Unlike other marketplaces, VTS is pulling all key users into one environment to easily search and transact on CRE space. Truva is FREE for verified tenant rep brokers to use to search for a space for their tenants.
Clients have the following functionality:
❖ Transparency - Every space on truva comes straight from the source
❖ High quality digital content (photos, videos, floor plans)
❖ Accuracy - truva is built on top of VTS, the industry standard for inventory and deal management system. Listings come straight from the core platform
❖ The platform will intuitively search for space, connect with owners/agents, even schedule your tours.
42 Floors
42Floors, a Knotel owned subsidiary, is an online platform that specializes in commercial listings, subleases and coworking spaces in New York City, though the site does offer listings throughout the United States.
The platform can be looked at as a listings website for workplace properties—with office, retail, industrial, medical, and restaurant properties.
Clients have the following functionality for commercial properties:
● Search 1000s of commercial spaces by size, location, and price.
● The platform is free for CRE professionals to add their listings
● Options of added features and exposure by upgrading to the elite property plan
● Platform also includes available coworking space
Marketing Options Through CRE Trade Associations
CCIM
The CCIM designation is for those who want to set themselves apart as the expert in their company and their market. The CCIM designation is conferred upon commercial real estate leaders who have a proven record of success in the field and have demonstrated a mastery of financial, market, and investment analysis.
DealShare -Share your available properties and your clients needs through the CCIM member network.
STDB - For more than 15 years, STDB, the Site To Do Business, has been providing CCIM members with access to some of the most advanced technology tools in the commercial real estate industry. Working closely with Esri, STDB has catapulted to the next generation of geographic information systems this year.
With the application users can:
❖ Get up-to-date demographic data, such as age, income, education, home ownership, lifestyle, and spending habits.
❖ Create comparative data to grade sites against varying criteria or against any other U.S. location.
❖ Use the GPS to analyze an area within one mile of the user’s current location.
❖ Use Smart Maps to immediately determine if a location fits a given list of criteria.
DatabaseUSA
DatabaseUSA is the leading provider of full-service database and email marketing solutions. With detailed information on over 15 million businesses and over 260 million consumers
DatabaseUSA promotes to customers they provide the most accurate business database in the industry. Through the company's triple-verification process its database of 15 million businesses has taken the database industry one step further by offering a more sophisticated database.
SIOR
The Society of Industrial of Office & Industrial Realtors is the leading global professional office and industrial real estate association. With more than 3,400 members in 686 cities and 38 countries, SIOR represents today's most knowledgeable, experienced, and successful commercial real estate brokerage specialists.
SIOR Connect allows members to easily share business opportunities, promote listings, generate inquiries, and connect with peers. The system generates a custom email address that contains a targeted list of members who have chosen to receive your message.
NAR - RPR
Realtor Property Resource or the RPR is a benefit for members of the National Association of Realtors or the NAR. A realtor who is a member of the NAR receives online access to comprehensive real estate market data, analytics and reports for each of NAR's constituencies
Best Blogs on CRE Technology
To stay abreast of the technological innovations in the world of commercial real estate the following blogs offer intelligent and comprehensive access to all things technology happening in the CRE industry.
CRETech
CREtech is where the commercial real estate industry comes to discover all things tech. Our mission at CREtech is to connect the commercial real estate and tech sectors, bringing a new age of innovation and growth to the industry.
DukeLong
Provides a direct insiders insight on all things in the world of commercial real estate technology
JLL Spark
JLL Spark is a strategic global venture fund investing in startups transforming commercial real estate through technology.
Propmodo
Introducing Blueprint, CBRE’s new global online magazine dedicated to telling timely and insightful stories on the trends, influences and ideas shaping our world, told through the lens of the built environment
FifthWall
Fifth Wall Ventures, founded in 2016, is a venture capital firm focused exclusively on real estate technology. It is the largest fund specialized in real estate technology, also known as "prop tech."
Author: Daniel Levison - Chairman CRE Holdings (Atlanta Investment Properties, Commercial Property Consultants, CommissionTrac, Sharedspace)
