Sometimes I wish finding commercial real estate property could be made as easy as finding a home. Generally, in the residential world, all available properties are placed into a local metropolitan listing service (MLS). Residential agents maintain the MLS system, and frequently make it available to the general public. As a result, anyone with a computer can see the inventory of homes that may be available in a specific neighborhood, submarket or metropolitan area. Housing information and available properties are at the fingertips of the public 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Unfortunately, things are not that simple in the commercial real estate industry. Unlike a single MLS system utilized by residential agents in the Denver Metropolitan area, local commercial real estate brokers often rely on numerous commercial real estate databases to publicize and promote their properties to the public. The more popular services include CoStar, Loopnet, Xceligent, Commercial Source, Catylst, and several others.
To guaranty thorough exposure of their properties, commercial agents must post their listings on as many databases as possible, or risk that the properties are under-exposed and slow to sell or lease. Surprisingly, the majority of these databases are not promoted to the general public, and if they are, a fee based subscription service is required to search the database. As a matter of necessity, commercial agents pay these fees to equip themselves with the tools required to effectively market their clients’ properties, as well as to maintain a complete database of all properties that are available for sale or lease in a given area.
Searching for a commercial space can become very confusing and an overwhelming task for the general public. It’s because of this that we advise that you resist the urge to do it on your own. Unlike a public MLS search for a residential property, a Google search for available commercial properties will not provide a comprehensive list of properties that meet your needs. As stated above, most available commercial properties will be listed on commercial real estate databases that the public has no access to unless they have paid for a subscription. You may be able to find a few properties that meet your requirements, but will undoubtedly miss out on competing properties with lower prices and better terms. Driving through a market and calling off of “For Sale” or “For Lease” signs is also an incomplete method of gathering information about available properties. Property owners and their agents do not always advertise their listings with a sign, particularly in cases where a retail or apartment building owner does not want to alert customers or occupants that the property is for sale. So, an interested buyer may fail to identify great properties for sale or lease if they simply rely on signs posted or searches conducted on the internet.
What is the best way to build an exhaustive list of commercial properties that satisfy your needs and requirements? The answer is simple – work with an experienced commercial real estate broker. A good commercial real estate broker will have subscriptions to all of the commercial real estate databases that serve the geographic areas of interest to you. For instance, The Nesbitt Group subscribes to six different commercial real estate databases, all of which include properties for sale and lease throughout the state of Colorado. We can compile a comprehensive list of properties that meet your criteria in a matter of minutes. This accomplishes two objectives. First, it will save you the time and energy that you will have to expend in performing your own property search. Second, it will give you the peace of mind in knowing that all available properties are identified in the report.
Someday our industry will evolve to a point where all commercial listings are posted in a central listing database like the MLS). Until that time, save yourself the time and money (money you could be making focusing on your core business) and work with a commercial broker to find the right property for you.
Eric L. Nesbitt, Esq.
President/CEO – The Nesbitt Group
