#1 in Commercial Real Estate Online

Braving the 80+ degree weather and covered in sticky tar, we built 4 roofs in 2 days. Some of us walked away with hammered thumbs and mild sunburns, but we all left with a smile and feeling of community. In total, 22 Loopsters gave up the air conditioned office to assist the community in building homes for those less fortunate.

Darren Currin, vice president and research director of OKC Property Research, over at the Oklahoma per Square Foot blog has a 2 part series about the power of social media:

"When Facebook was originally created in 2004, it was simply a platform for college students, faculty and staff to get to know each other on the campus of Harvard University. From there, the concept caught fire and expanded to universities all over the nation. Now, Facebook is no longer such a place for college students and teenagers to connect and share the latest gossip. Instead, it has become one of the most powerful online communication tools that exist currently in our society."

"As more commercial real estate professionals are realizing Facebook’s potential for marketing commercial properties and services, the website is seeing a plethora of professionals having joined the site in recent months. Through Facebook’s status updates, wall postings and messaging capabilities, commercial real estate brokers are finding that they can push out their listing to scores of people. In fact, some brokers have created Facebook groups that center around a specific property. I have seen these groups contain properties for sale, new developments and even properties for lease. The best part about these marketing resources is that they are free. The only cost is your time in setting them up."

Read the rest here.

We couldn't agree more Darren! That's why we added easy sharing links to the new LoopNet listing profile so investors, appraisers, tenants, brokers, developers can share LoopNet listings they find interesting to their friends and colleagues. And our members are sharing: Check out the listings our members find interesting on twitter!

Here are 2 articles about social media and real estate:

• http://maxsell.net/dear-facebook-realtor/
• http://maxsell.net/the-art-of-making-it-personal-getting-to-the-heart-of-social-media-success-at-retechsouth-2009/

Do you know of other articles about social media and commercial real estate? How is your commercial real estate related business taking advantage of social media? Do you have any success stories? Let us know, post a comment below.

Here are the 10 listings with the most listing profile views in the last 30 days.

We believe property listing profiles are at the core of LoopNet’s marketplace. It’s where brokers break down the details of the availability they’re representing. It’s what investors and tenants view to understand a potential investment or lease. Making sure that both listers and searchers can get what they need from the listing profile is critical to creating an efficient user experience for our users.

Tonight we're staying a little later at the office to deploy a new listing profile that we're excited about. Here’s a couple before-and-after screenshots for you to see how listings have changed:

(click image to enlarge or view the listing)


(click image to enlarge or view the listing)


A few notes about the new listings:

1. Improved Information Design
We wanted to present all the listing details in a natural flow where each piece of information is given appropriate emphasis and room to breathe. The font size has been bumped up for readability. And now all details of a space for lease are displayed; previously some details were hidden in another section you had to click to. Furthermore, all the actions you can take on a listing are grouped together in a right column; instead of spread throughout the page. Also the type of property is clearly labeled at the top so you instantly know what you're looking at, a nod to the outdoor signage that brokers have been using for generations.

2. Better Photo Navigation
We love property photos. There’s a cuts-to-the-chase/speaks-a-thousand-words nature to it that’s incredibly engaging. So that’s why we’ve made it clearer when there are multiple photos on a listing by showing additional thumbnails. And when you click to view a photo, we’ve resized the oversized images to save time—no more waiting around while downloading 4 MB photos.

Property photo thumbnails:


Enlarged image:


3. New Sharing Functionality
Commercial real estate continues to be a relationship driven business. Social networks and social media play a role in helping professionals build and maintain their relationships online. We’re excited to introduce links that help you share listings you like with your networks via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Give it a whirl why don’t you? Click on these links and you’ll see a new window that previews and allows you to comment on what you’re about to share:


Sharing your listing on Facebook:


Sharing your listing on LinkedIn:


Sharing your listing on Twitter:

You may be asked to log in to your social network account before sharing. If you don’t have an account with these social networks, you should just try it out—these tools are free.

4. Property Map Right On the Listing
Given how text heavy listings can get, the visual nature of a map helps to balance out a listing’s overall presentation. But what’s more important, is that the advances of online map-based technology over the last 5 years have made maps a key part of understanding a property. You can immediately begin evaluating the physical characteristics of a property and survey the surrounding area via high-resolution satellite imagery and bird’s eye aerial photos without leaving your desk. Having the map right on the listing saves you time by saving a click.

Example of the map at the bottom of the profile:


5. New Styling
Last but not least, we want the listing profile to be an effective marketing piece that brokers feel comfortable—if not proud of—sharing as their primary listing presentation. The profile design hadn’t been touched for almost a decade so it was long overdue for an update. The styling for the new profile is intentionally simple, meant to let the listing details speak for themselves without distracting clutter. Drawing inspiration from print flyers brokers use, the details are wrapped in a container to hint at a tactile experience.

So that’s about it.

If you are marketing listings on LoopNet, we believe the new design will have a positive impact on the way people perceive your listings. The easier it is for them to understand listing profiles; the more likely they are to view more.

If you're searching LoopNet for deals, the new design should help you digest the details better.

If you guys have any feedback, let us know by posting a comment below or giving us a call. It’s hard to get it perfect for everyone but we’re going to keep at it with your support. Until next time, have a good one.

From Zero Hedge.

• Commercial real estate market has space for small investors [LA Times]


• Welcome Callander Commercial. [Kalamazoo Gazette]


• IMN Real Estate Forum: Opportunities to invest in distressed commercial real estate [Seeking Alpha]


• June 16 event @ UCLA: Financing Commercial Real Estate in the New Economy [UCLA]


• CBRE to raise $550M [BizJournals]


• Moody's: commercial real estate to start recovery in 2011 [Reuters]


• Retail property sellers offering financing to get deals done [Retail Traffic]


• Relief for Commercial Real-Estate Debt? It Seems Possible [WSJ]


• Repurpose-Driven Life [NYT Mag]


• Treasury Weighing Tax Rules to Help Commercial Mortgage Bonds [Bloomberg]


• The CRE mortgage default rate is projected to rise to 4.1% in the fourth quarter of 2009 [Real Estate Econometrics]

[hat tip to Zero Hedge]

• Boston Properties selling stock [BizJournals]
• How long can commercial real estate remain irrational? [Minyanville]
• REITs are back? [Forbes]
• Jonathan Litt, Land & Buildings founder & CEO: REITs are getting ahead of themselves [CNBC]
  
• CRE industry wants TALF changed again? [TrafficCourt]
• Commercial and multifamily originations down 65% to $181B [RealEstateChannel]
• Hotel occupancy rate falls to 51.6% [Calculated Risk]
• Map of retail stores by National Retail Federation [NRF]
• An overview of the housing/credit crisis and why there is more pain to come [T2 Partners]

Hundreds of people visited LoopNet’s booth at ICSC RECon 2009 to find out why LoopNet gets 6.5X the traffic of any comparable site*. But that’s not all they did… they also entered LoopNet’s contest for a chance to win $10,000.

And the winner is…

Austin Walker serves as a senior advisor for Sperry Van Ness - Whitney Commercial Real Estate, specializing in leasing and buyer/tenant representation in Western North Carolina. Austin has been a LoopNet member since 2004 and currently has 25 listings on LoopNet, 19 of which are lease listings.

Austin is still deciding how he will spend the $10,000 but did mention he might take a small portion of his winning to upgrade to a premium membership on LoopNet.

Check out Austin’s ListingsLink!

LoopNet provides all of our members with free access to a ListingsLink. This personalized web page features up to 20 of your active listings on LoopNet and can increase your listing exposure when you include it in your email signature or marketing materials. Just type the following URL into your internet browser to view your ListingsLink - http://Listings.LoopNet.com/youremailaddress. Make sure to use the email address associated with your LoopNet account.

*Year to date 2009 Q1 comScore Metrics