When purchasing or selling real estate for commercial use, location is the key to digital and/or physical strategies. In addition to the fact that your property must be placed strategically in a physical area, the site you promote and sell your home is just as crucial.
Whether you’re an experienced real estate broker or just starting out in real estate websites, CREXi and LoopNet will likely be at your list. In this non-sponsored, impartial review of these two famous names, we draw on our years of expertise in marketing commercial real estate.
Net lease properties can be advertised on various websites, though only 5 or 6 sites close deals. CREXi and LoopNet stand head and shoulders above all others regarding getting contracts signed.
Let’s look at what makes these two major players on the web, what makes them different, what properties work best for both, and more.
LoopNet HISTORY
Based on several sources, LoopNet is a commercial real estate listing site that connects buyers and tenants to homes for auction. LoopNet currently has over 7 million members registered and 5 million monthly unique visitors, representing many tenants and buyers of commercial real property.
Established in 1995, like the web itself, LoopNet was bought from CoStar at the end of 2011 with a price tag of roughly 860 million. Because of its name recognition, it is more established, and at least five years old, LoopNet gets the point in the history department.
Experienced brokers who have been in business for a while want to ensure their properties are advertised on LoopNet without any questions. LoopNet was the sole platform they were aware of for a long time. The interface isn’t the best, but LoopNet is now 25 years old and precisely similar. It can be slow and sluggish, and you will often receive errors.
What Does LoopNet Do?
LoopNet offers a vast inventory of homes for leasing or sale. However, the site is very well-organized, making it easy for users to navigate. You can search by keywords, neighborhoods/locations, cities, counties, or zip codes. You can also search for properties by price, including bedrooms, square footage, and bathrooms. You can also browse by category or look at properties in specific categories like retail, offices, or industrial space.
All you have to do is establish your loopnet.com login and start looking for opportunities to post properties.
Like everything online, LoopNet does not save itself from criticism. What are the most important reasons brokers decide not to utilize LoopNet?
- Being a fee-based site: Not all brokers want to pay the additional cost of advertising their properties. Brokers and other agents selling commercial real estate don’t want to shell out the fees to upload their listings to the website.
- The Broker Procedure: Many brokers have an approach in place that involves offering the top 3 investors who they are confident and know to offer a fair value and have the ability to close the deal, etc. When one or more of the three top investors does not take a chance, they put it in a bidding process and add it to their extensive email lists, pushing the bid towards the highest and final price.
- The Cast-net may not be wide enough: Anyone with WIFI has access to LoopNet. There aren’t any filters or other ways in LoopNet that allow brokers to determine if someone who has expressed an interest in purchasing a home is a reputable buyer. Uncertainty about whether a buyer has the legal, financial, and other assets to conclude a transaction without a hitch keeps certain brokers off LoopNet.
LoopNet is increasing in popularity, with buyers looking for commercial properties that are available for purchase. LoopNet is an online marketplace for commercial real estate that offers listings available for lease or purchase in the United States. We were curious to learn more about the business; therefore, we scoured it. We were pleasantly surprised at what we discovered, and should you be looking to purchase commercial property, whether to purchase or sell, this could be an excellent site to check out.
CREXi – A Brief But Promising Real Estate History
More modern, sleeker, and without a snag, CREXI is the “new kid that’s on the block.” As per several researched sources, Commercial Real Estate Exchange, Inc. (CREXI) is an online commercial real estate (CRE) marketplace in Los Angeles, California. Since 2015, CREXi has become one of the most well-known and fastest-growing CRE marketplaces.
CREXi has the highest active CRE-related real estate MLS in the business, offering over 500 000 commercial listings with an asset value of over $1 trillion. Millions of tenants, buyers, and brokers use CREXi to transact and lease on a user-friendly platform. Thanks to CREXi’s continuous expansion, CREXi now employs more than 175 employees. CREXi’s growth will likely result in more jobs soon.
How does it work?
CREXi’s users can manage properties, including sales of property leases and sales and closing of these properties. It lets real estate investors, investors, professionals, buyers, and sellers digitally use their services without users quitting their platform.
CREXi is designed for real estate professionals and those who want to avoid the financial burdens of a downturn. According to CREXi’s CEO Mike DeGiorgio, CREXi is recession-proof because auctions continually generate revenue for the platform.
What CREXi Provides:
- A free plan for communicating with high-quality leads.
- Precise analysis of the property.
- Timely action alerts.
- The capability to track and send emails.
CREXi also has a premium version known as PRO. PRO allows real estate professionals to gain more valuable rankings in lead searches and searches on their property listings. PRO subscriptions cost between $75 and $99 per month.
What are the potential negatives of CREXi?
- Longevity: Brokers usually opt for LoopNet due to its longevity in the market. CREXi may be rising in popularity and becoming a household brand, but everyone has heard of LoopNet before.
- Inventory May Be An Initial Issue: At first glance, LoopNet appears to offer a greater selection of properties of all kinds. When comparing both interfaces side-by-side on LoopNet, it may appear that there are more than 1 million properties advertised through their website and more than 1 million sold. Keep in mind that CREXi also has an active counter showing over 125,000 listings available for sale on their website. Being the “new kid on the block” doesn’t mean they won’t grow that figure.
Both platforms appear to offer reasonable and comparable services. It is best to conduct your research to ensure you choose the best platform to align with your objectives and needs. That sai, we lean more toward CREXi for commercial real estate MLS solutions.
