What is the best source for prospecting national STNL leads?

Question

Good afternoon! This is my first post on the forums. I am a commercial real estate broker looking to get into national single tenant net leased investment sales. I am wondering what the best source for getting property ownership information would be? My office currently has a CoStar subscription, but only for our regional area. Are there any other (hopefully more affordable) options to gain access to information for STNL owners?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Michael Knudsen · Answer

If you want to be a serious national triple netter, National CoStar is a must.  It's $400 a month for a single user, but it's the best $400 a month you'll ever spend in the business.  You simply need it to get going.  Unfortunately, CoStar will force all of the other agents in your office to sign up in order to upgrade to the national package, so this may not be a viable option for you.  I would also recommend focusing on a specific segment of the industry -- i.e. discount retail, fast food, banks, drugstores, etc. -- and farming that within a few dynamic trade areas across the country, as opposed to taking a "shotgun" approach and trying (likely futilely) to master everything.  If you want to take things a step further, focus on one tenant and learn everything you can about their business operations/stock performance, site selection criteria, preferred developer network, lease structure(s), cap rate trends, etc.  For instance, while I market myself as a specialist in "daily needs" retailers, I pretty much only cold call CVS owners in my target markets these days.

For researching contact info for principals, LexisNexis is a must.  Their real estate research package runs $3K a year.  When you throw in ICSC membership/conventions and travel expenses out of state to view properties with clients, the costs add up pretty quickly in this space.

If you're in LA and looking to cut down on your overhead, you should consider leaving your firm and getting an entry-level sales associate position at Matthews.  Kyle Matthews is an animal and has built an undeniable juggernaut.

I am actually looking for another agent to focus exclusively on dollar stores in my office.  Feel free to reach out.

Joel Owens · Answer

When I search for my buyer clients I have a database of developers, retail property management companies, individual owners and groups , other retail brokerage companies, construction companies, commercial attorneys, etc.

There are specific single tenant net lease brokerages so if you want to get trained in that you might want to move to one of those companies.

Look at joining ICSC. I love it and the knowledge is amazing. I just came back from a business trip at Wharton school of business at UPenn University.

The instructors one had built 50 centers from the ground up and another had developed over 40 million sq ft of retail in their career. They have been in the business about 40 years. I learned a ton.