#1 in Commercial Real Estate Online

We’ve completely redesigned our sales comps and have made significant enhancements to the product’s data and functionality.

Property Comps is better than ever. After over a year of research and development efforts, we are thrilled to finally reveal what we’ve been working on.

More Comps
Property Comps has had tremendous growth in the past year and now contains over 1.5 million commercial arm’s length transactions.

• 25% increase in our total number of comps
• Over 23,000 REO/ Banked Owned Sales Added

REO/ Banked Owned Sales now account for 16% of all new comps that LoopNet has recorded in 2011!

More Data, More Photos
We’ve added a ton of information to give you a more complete picture of a transaction.

• Over 35 new fields providing owner and mortgage info, property tax & assessed values and more
• 60% more photos
• 29% more tax ID’s, APN’s and Deed Document Numbers
• 25% more original listing marketing flyers
• 23% more cap rates

Enhanced Design
An improved layout organizes all of the new data that now comes in Property Comps.

Improved Search
We’ve developed a more intuitive search and added new filters allowing you to target your results.

• Property Subtype Search Filters
• New icons to identify and filter "broker-provided" and "research confirmed" comps
• Polygon Search: Narrow your search and custom-define a geographic area down to the street level

Better Reporting
We’ve added over 6 new presentation-ready report templates that you can instantly-edit and customize.

Let Us Know What You Think
Try our new features out and tell us what you think! We’re listening and looking for suggestions on how to enhance this product even further.

We’d like to share this early review of our new Property Comps product that will be launching tonight. Make sure to come back tomorrow and try it out for yourself.

Where Do You Get Your Commercial Sales Comps?
By Miguel de Arcos

One of the most time consuming things to get in the commercial real estate business is commercial property sales comps. Yes there are the various "public record" sites, but going through 5 to 6 different sites and combing the sold section of the business journal is not the most efficient way or use of time. There are some online sites that offer this service, but in most cases they are just too expensive and the outputs were spotty at best.

What commercial brokers need is a one-stop-shop comp and property records source that is easily accessible and cost effective for repeated quick searches. LoopNet appears to have answered that call with a series of major upgrades to their platform over the last 12 months.

Recently I had the opportunity to get a one-on-one sneak peek into the new LoopNet Sales Comps product that will be rolled out shortly. I must say, LoopNet has really stepped up their game. First with Property Records, and now the expanded Sales Comps features. From the demo I saw, the cost for comps is quite justified.

Let me first say that in years past, LoopNet has been known as one of several good broker-loaded listing databases that also created somewhat average reports. Most commercial real estate professionals did not like sending out reports with LoopNet's logo attached for fear it would cause their clients to just go to the website next time they needed information. Additionally, brokers would turn to outside software and need to search multiple sources for market data, research and comps. They would then take info from several sources and manually input it all into yet another program for the sake of getting a quality report with company branding. In the area of inventory searches, historical property records and comparables, LoopNet has truly become a one-stop-shop!

Some of the NEW features that I felt were the most impressive and worthwhile:

• 22,000 REO Comps
• 60% More pictures
• 35+ new searchable data points
• Much more professional and fully customizable report templates with a broker's branding
• NO LoopNet logos on your reports
• Side by side property comparison reports (like an appraisal)
• The ability to edit/customize the final report to fit your purpose. In the past it was very static.
• Loan information from the comp (the Property Records product should have the current loan info)
• Identifies if the info is "broker loaded" or "researched"
• Ability to preview more data before selecting and paying for a Comp

The jury is still out though on the "broker call sheet". It is just as it sounds. A listing of all the brokers involved in the comp sale, their contact info and note section. Great for broker to broker networking, but it does seem more like an appraiser's dream page and may drastically increase the amount of appraiser calls the more active brokers get.

These radical improvements were a year long LoopNet initiative to make their product even more user friendly.

LoopNet has definitely upped their game with the recent additions and upgrades to its existing platform and functionality. There are a lot of good platforms out there, but as far as I can see, they are the only MUST HAVE premium membership on the market today!

All the best,
Miguel de Arcos
Managing Director
Sperry Van Ness Florida


Read additional blog posts by Miguel on his LoopNet profile.