1. Loopnet.com – Loopnet is probably the largest and most well-known commercial real estate listing site. They claim to have over 630,000 active commercial real estate listings on their website. It costs $24.95 a month for visitors to have access to all of the property listings. The free membership for visitors allows full search capability, however, only a limited number of results are shown.
2. Realup.com – Realup is brand new to the market and officially launched on May 17, 2009. It appears that all of the memberships for both buyers and sellers are free. The website says that “our property listings are charged based on a pay-per-results pricing model, setting us apart from our competitors and providing the greatest value to our partners and clients.” So, they are basically charging for the traffic or leads that your listing generates. This sounds good in principle but from my experience the technology for these “pay for the lead” type of systems is usually too weak to determine what a valuable lead is.
3. Costar.com – Costar offers the ability to search for all commercial property types. Basic listings are free for real estate professionals and property owners. It costs $24.95 a month for visitors to have access to all of the property listings. The free membership for visitors allows full search capability, however, only a limited number of results are shown. They offer information on “space available for lease, comparable sales information, tenant information, properties for sale, property information for clients’ web sites, industry professional directory, analytic information, data integration, property advertising and industry news–throughout the United States as well as in the United Kingdom and France.”
4. Lead-Trac.com – Lead Trac is designed to give investors and commercial real estate professionals access to following data about commercial real estate: property data, owner data, phone numbers. They also offer direct mailing and marketing tools within the website. Pricing starts at $69/user/county/month.  In addition to the monthly plans, they have an unlimited access plan that they sell on a per county basis.  This plan ranges from $1500 to $3000 per county per year.
5. CIMLS.com – What makes CIMLS different than many other similar sites is the fact that visitors can search listings for free while realtors and property owners can also post their listings for free. Realtors and property owners have the option to upgrade to a Gold account for added exposure. The Gold account costs $14.00 a month for the first month and $20.00 a month for every month thereafter.

Photo Credit: quinet

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Where to Search for Commercial Real Estate Online

As I stress time and time again to new apartment building investors, before making an offer on any apartment building real estate property be sure that the investment will be a profitable one. Banks and commercial mortgage lenders will only lend money on an apartment building that has a Debt Service Coverage Ratio of at 1.2. Once the investor has done his or her work and found a profitable apartment building to purchase then the next step is to structure a offer.

The Offer Letter

The offer that the investor makes on an apartment building should be in the form of a typed letter detailing the terms and conditions under which the investor is offering to purchase the property. After the buyer has figured out the value of the property then he or should deduct around five percent off of that figure and make that the offer price. The investor should also make the offer contingent upon receiving financing, under specified terms, within 30 to 45 days for an amount of at least 75% of the purchase price. The buyer should also include an expiration date of one week on the offer during which time the seller can review the offer.

How to Make the Offer Stronger

1. Get a letter of interest from a commercial mortgage broker that simply states they are willing to lend 75% of the properties value. This letter of interest should not be confused with a commitment letter. The bank is under no obligation to lend the money if they decide to turn down the deal.
2. Put together a professional sales agreement in simple language that is fair to the buyer and seller. This will ensure that your letter is taken seriously.
3. Include any information that will make your offer appear stronger. If you have a lot of real estate investment experience, include your curriculum vitae. If you are going to pay your down payment with cash on hand then send a copy of your bank statement showing the cash.

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2009 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Buy an Apartment Building — How to Structure Your Offer

Need an incentive to help move a home?

The answer is PITI Abatment. Do not let the financial jargon scare you. For years production builders have used this incentive to move inventory. Now every seller/investor has the opportunity to participate.

What is PITI Abatement?

• An incentive to the buyer to have the first 6 months of the mortgage paid by the seller/investor.
• PITI Abatement program is a product designed specifically for home-buyers. You can give a 6% Seller Contribution that can be used for Principle, Interest, Taxes and Insurance payments.

What are the General Guidelines?

• Loan amounts up to $417,000
• Up to 100% of the purchase price in some markets
• Minimum score of 575
• Fixed Rates and ARMs
• Interest Only is available
• Income limitations may apply
• Closing costs can be paid by seller too
• No prepay penalty

What is the Realtor or Investor marketing element?

• 6 MONTHS PAID!
• BUY THIS HOME AND I WILL PAY YOUR FIRST 6 PAYMENTS
• 6 MONTH PAID MORTGAGE INCENTIVE
• BUY MY HOME AND I PAY CLOSING COST AND 6 PAYMENTS

In today’s real estate market investors need all the help they can get. With increased inventory in just about every market place, realtors and investors need to use unconventional tools to create benefits for their potential buyers. I have seen cars, furniture, pools, and televisions given away. But those items can be difficult to include in the average investor transaction. Giving away 6 months of payments can create separation from the other sellers in your market place.

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2009 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Selling a Home???? Make your buyers first 6 months payments!

I’m not sure how I originally heard about the Realivent site, but there was something tempting about a site that “is looking for beta testers.” A few weeks ago I filled out their tester sign-up form, and on Saturday, was admitted into their Beta program. After filling out a simple registration form, I was able to access the various functions of this site, which looks like a consolidator of real estate blogs, news, and property listings.

Here are the site’s real estate tools:

Property Listings:

It seems like the site is just scraping Craigslist’s listings and integrating the location into Google maps like many of the other real estate mashup web 2.0 sites. In addition to showing the basic property info (asking price, beds, baths) and a photo, it appears as though Realivent will eventually have comparable data, school and neighborhood information. Click on a property listing, and you’re taken right back to Craigslist. In its current state, the site only shows a handful of San Francisco listings, and has basic search functionality; this section looks nice, but is not currently functional. I’m not sure if they are going to just crape listings from other sites, or if they will have their own listings — we’ll see.

Real Estate News:

The real estate news section of Realivent appears to function like sites such as Netscape, Shoutwire, and the original news rating site, Digg. Users can post links to real estate news with a brief summary, and others can rate that story. Unlike the aforementioned sites, the articles with higher ratings and greater interest do not move to the top of the page; they are simply given a one through five star ranking to determine popularity. In addition to rating articles, the site lets you post a comment about the article, email it to a friend, and lastly, report the story (if SPAM, I’m guessing).

Real Estate Blogs:

Realivent lets users add blogs to the site. This section functions in the same way as the real estate news section, except that once added, articles posted on the blogs will appear on the site. You can rate, comment, email and report any of the stories.

The last thing I noticed about the site is that there is a search bar that includes videos. I’m not sure what kind of videos they intent to have on the site, but it seems like a strange fit with a real estate site.

Overall, the site appears to be an aggregator of various real estate information. It looks nice, but doesn’t bring anything technologically new to the online real estate world or the web in general. We’ll wait and see what else they bring to the picture once the site is fully functional, and will reserve judgement until then.

The site does not list a date of public release.

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2009 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

BiggerPockets Exclusive: Sneak Preview of Real Estate Website Realivent