Category: CRE Technology

Salesforce isn’t only the most widely used CRM, it’s also the leading choice in the CRE industry. Robust, versatile, and cloud-based, Salesforce provides on-the-go solutions for busy commercial real estate brokers. However, it isn’t without its drawbacks.

Salesforce is built for every industry, not your industry. And over time, you may find that your brokerage needs a more customized, insightful option when it comes to customer relationship management. The good news? SharpLaunch can provide the missing link between a powerful sales CRM, and an unstoppable Commercial Real Estate Sales and Marketing Platform.

Let’s discuss the features, benefits, and details of the most popular types of native SharpLaunch + Salesforce integrations we offer. But first:

Why Salesforce needs a CRE marketing platform

You might have already run into a few of these challenges, others may pop up as your firm continues to grow. Fortunately, you’re already doing your research. Discover how to turn these common Salesforce obstacles into advantages using SharpLaunch.

1. No insight into lead activity

As with most CRMs, the value of your Salesforce system depends entirely on your team manually inputting data. But hard-working brokers don’t have the time to input every client interaction into Salesforce when they’re on the move showcasing properties and negotiating offers. Without a snapshot of what’s working, who’s engaged, and how to reach them, your team puts in more effort for less payout.

SharpLaunch + Salesforce: Get the data you need to close deals faster

SharpLaunch automatically tracks all of the most insightful user behavior and sends it to your Salesforce account — providing a complete picture of who’s interested in your portfolio and when and where to reach out. With this, your team can pinpoint the most engaged leads to follow up more effectively and, ultimately, close deals faster.

2. A lack of industry-specific features

Salesforce is designed as a broad, all-encompassing CRM solution for a wide range of industries. However, it often lacks the specific features and functionalities required by the commercial real estate sector. Branded listing display and management, lease agreements, tenant communications, and market analysis require specialized tools that are not natively included in Salesforce.

SharpLaunch + Salesforce: Everything your team needs in one place

SharpLaunch is built around how commercial real estate brokers operate on a daily basis. Our fully-integrated platform connects to your website to take care of the CRM basics (real-time lead capture) and go above and beyond (email marketing, document management, and reporting features). It also offers automated tracking capabilities of user behaviors such as CA execution, document downloads, and email engagement. With SharpLaunch, you’ll know as soon as a lead is interested and have the tools to quickly make the best first impression.

3. Complex customization requirements

To tailor Salesforce to meet the specific needs of the CRE industry, you’ll need to get creative. Customization can involve creating new objects, fields, workflows, and even hiring a Salesforce specialist — all of which can be costly in both time and resources. While Salesforce’s flexibility is one of its strengths, the complexity can be a significant hurdle.

SharpLaunch + Salesforce: Plug-and-play personalization

SharpLaunch offers both native and enterprise-grade integrations with Salesforce to help streamline your commercial real estate operations. We’ll take care of the process from start to finish, without extra time investment on your end. The outcome? To start, an always up-to-date CRM without the copy-pasting. More importantly, you’ll have a complete CRE marketing toolkit at your fingertips with interactive amenity maps, branded property search engine, and stunning property listing sites.

4. Inefficient document management

Managing documents such as lease agreements, contracts, and property brochures is a crucial aspect of commercial real estate operations. Salesforce’s document management capabilities might not be able to meet your firm’s needs, where extensive document storage, version control, and easy retrieval are essential. Instead of helping, the added admin work can cut into valuable selling time.

SharpLaunch + Salesforce: Your own virtual assistant

Combining the power of both platforms, you’ll find it easier to share marketing and sales documents, reduce time sending emails, and better track prospect activity. You can easily drag and drop documents into the SharpLaunch Document Portal, plus see how many times they’ve been downloaded and by who. In addition, you’ll enjoy the ability to include online CA agreements for clients to digitally accept.

5. Reporting and Analytics Limitations

While Salesforce offers robust reporting and analytics capabilities, they aren’t tailored to the CRE sector. Commercial real estate requires specialized reports and dashboards that analyze property performance, prospect behavior, and market trends. Creating these custom reports in Salesforce can be complex and time-consuming.

SharpLaunch + Salesforce: Your own virtual assistant

With SharpLaunch, you’ll have access to branded reports in a snap. Get a snapshot of key metrics and trend analysis each month for your entire portfolio. What’s more? Our platform is SEO-optimized, meaning it’s built for more prospects to automatically find your properties. SharpLaunch offers visible insights into where your visitors are coming from, letting you track the performance of your sources.

 

 

Getting started with SharpLaunch + Salesforce

We understand that smooth integrations are crucial in our industry. You can’t risk any downtime or losing lead and property data. That’s why we’ve created multiple options for native Salesforce integrations that are built to suit the specific needs of CRE firms of all sizes.

Here’s a breakdown of each.

Native Integration: Basic

The Basic Integration syncs lead contact data in real time from SharpLaunch to Salesforce, without any copy-pasting. 

The Basic SharpLaunch Salesforce Integration:

• Directly imports leads from the document portal and contact forms on SharpLaunch property sites to your Salesforce account
• Lead data includes: name, email and phone number

Native Integration: Premium

This option can help radically streamline contact management for any SharpLaunch client using Salesforce, and provide the full picture of a prospect in real time.

The Premium SharpLaunch Salesforce Integration:

• Directly imports leads from the document portal and contact forms on SharpLaunch property sites to your Salesforce account
• Lead data includes: name, email, phone number, document downloads, email correspondence, and property page where lead was captured

Native Integration: Enterprise

This is where the breadth of our experience shines. Adam Siegel of CBRE confirms, “SharpLaunch helped us migrate all our publicly facing transactions and got our listings to market in weeks rather than months – 5x faster than other providers.”

“SharpLaunch helped us migrate all our publicly facing transactions and got our listings to market in weeks rather than months – 5x faster than other providers.”- Adam Siegel, Database & Analytics Manager, CBRE

The Enterprise SharpLaunch Salesforce Integration:

• Is a custom option, built to your needs including requests specific to your brokerage
• Offers complete two-way data flow between the platforms
• Features all of the benefits of Premium Integration

Ready to supercharge your Salesforce?

SharpLaunch + Salesforce helps streamline your marketing and sales efforts into one easy-to-use system. Increase sales and lease volume with real-time data sync, customized insights, and a complete property listing and management digital toolkit. Reach out to us today to find out which SharpLaunch and Salesforce Native Integration is right for your brokerage.

Commercial real estate companies and brokerage firms provide services for investors, owners and tenants by combining local market insight, specialized expertise, premier tools and resources. They assist clients with all things real estate and cater to their individual needs.

While there are hundreds of commercial real estate companies worldwide, we compiled a list of the largest brokerages in the commercial real estate industry broken down by number of employees, total sales, annual revenue, and EBITDA.

Here are 20 of the largest commercial real estate firms, including both public and private companies:

CBRE

CBRE Group, Inc., a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 commercial real estate company headquartered in Los Angeles, is the world’s biggest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2023 revenue). The company has more approximately 115,000 employees and serves real estate investors and occupiers through more than 480 offices worldwide.

CBRE offers a broad range of integrated services including facilities, transaction and project management, investment management, appraisal and valuation, property leasing, strategic consulting, property sales, mortgage services and development services.

• Employees: 115,000
• 2023 net income: $986M
• 2023 annual revenue: $39.95B (3.64% increase from 2022)
• 2023 annual EBITDA: $2.2B (24.25% decrease from 2022)

Website: www.cbre.com

JLL

JLL, or Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated, is a global real estate services and investment management company, renowned for its professional expertise in the real estate industry. With a presence in over 80 countries, JLL operates as a trusted advisor and partner to clients seeking innovative solutions for their real estate needs. The company’s diverse services encompass property and facility management, leasing, project and development management, and investment management.

• Employees: 103,000
• 2023 net income: $226.2M
• 2023 annual revenue: $20.76B (0.49% increase from 2022)
• 2023 annual EBITDA: $736.7M (40.94% decrease from 2022)

Website: www.us.jll.com

Cushman & Wakefield

Cushman & Wakefield is a global commercial real estate firm delivering exceptional value for real estate occupiers and owners. Cushman & Wakefield is among the largest commercial property management companies worldwide with approximately 53,000 employees in 400 offices and 70 countries.

In 2023, the firm had revenue of $9.49 billion across core services of property, facilities and project management, leasing, capital markets, valuation and other services.

• Employees: 53,000
• 2023 net income: $205.6M
• 2023 annual revenue: $9.49B (6.06% decrease from 2022)
• 2023 annual EBITDA: $570.1M (36.57% increase from 2022)

Website: www.cushmanwakefield.com

Colliers International

Colliers International Group Inc. is an industry leading global commercial real estate company with more than 18,000 skilled professionals operating in 68 countries. Colliers professionals provide a full range of services to real estate occupiers, owners and investors worldwide.

Services include strategic advice and execution for property sales, leasing and finance, global corporate solutions, property, facility and project management, workplace solutions, appraisal, valuation and tax consulting, customized research, and thought leadership consulting.

• Employees: 18,000
• 2023 net income: $132.6M
• 2023 annual revenue: $4.34B (2.79% decrease from 2022)
• 2023 annual EBITDA: $595M (5.63% decrease from 2022)

Website: www2.colliers.com

Newmark

Newmark Real Estate is a dynamic real estate services firm that specializes in providing a wide range of solutions to clients across the commercial real estate landscape. Leveraging a strategic and client-centric approach, Newmark excels in investment sales, leasing, property management, and valuation services, offering expertise to investors, tenants, and property owners.

Newmark’s 7,000+ professionals operate from more than 170 offices in established and emerging property markets on six continents.

• Employees: 7,400
• 2023 net income: $62.4M
• 2023 annual revenue: $2.47B (8.69% decrease from 2022)
• 2023 annual EBITDA: $430M (3% increase from 2022)

Website: www.nmrk.com

Marcus & Millichap

Marcus & Millichap was founded in 1971 with the goal of being a new kind of commercial real estate company – one driven by long-term relationships and built on a culture of collaboration.

They are the industry’s largest firm specializing in real estate investment sales and financing, with over 80 offices and nearly 2,000 investment sales and financing professionals throughout the United States and Canada.

• Employees: 2,000
• 2023 total sales: $43.6B

Website: www.marcusmillichap.com

Avison Young

Avison Young is the world’s fastest-growing commercial real estate services firm. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Avison Young is a collaborative, global firm owned and operated by its Principals. Founded in 1978, with legacies dating back more than 200 years, the company comprises approximately 5,000 real estate professionals in over 100 offices in 15 countries.

The firm’s experts provide value-added, client-centric investment sales, leasing, advisory, management and financing services to clients across the office, retail, industrial, multi-family and hospitality sectors.

• Employees: 5,000
• 2023 total sales: $15.7B
• 2023 annual revenue: $5.1B

Website: www.avisonyoung.com

Lee & Associates

Lee & Associates is a commercial real estate brokerage, management and appraisal services firm. Established in 1979, Lee & Associates has grown its service platform to include offices in the United States and Canada.

Every Lee & Associates office delivers world class service to an array of regional, national and international clients – from small businesses and local investors to major corporate users and institutional investors.

• Employees: 1,400
• 2023 annual revenue: $106.8M

Website: www.lee-associates.com

TCN Worldwide

TCN Worldwide, a consortium of independent commercial real estate firms, provides complete integrated real estate solutions locally and internationally. TCN Worldwide ranks as one of the largest service providers in the industry.

Across all property types and service groups, TCN Worldwide’s 5,500+ brokers and salespeople have a well-earned reputation for independent thinking and cooperative problem-solving in more than 200 markets worldwide.

• Employees: 5,500
• 2023 net income: $121.8M
• 2023 annual revenue: $1.15B (29.75% decrease from 2022)
• 2023 annual EBITDA: $560M (8% increase from 2022)

Website: www.tcnworldwide.com

SVN International

SVN International, a full-service commercial real estate franchisor of the SVN® brand, is comprised of over 2,000 commercial real estate Advisors and staff, in more offices in the United States than any other commercial real estate firm and continues to expand across the globe.

With over 200 offices serving 500 markets, SVN provides sales, leasing, corporate services and property management services to clients across the globe.

• Employees: 2,000
• 2023 total sales: $21.10B

Website: www.svn.com

Berkadia

Berkadia, a joint venture of Berkshire Hathaway and Jefferies Financial Group, is an industry leading commercial real estate company providing comprehensive capital solutions and investment sales advisory and research services for multifamily and commercial properties.

Berkadia is amongst the largest, highest rated and most respected primary, master and special services in the industry.

• Employees: 2,900
• 2023 annual revenue: $633.4M

Website: www.berkadia.com

Northmarq

Northmarq Real Estate is a prominent real estate services company that operates at the intersection of investment, finance, and property management. With a focus on commercial real estate, Northmarq offers a comprehensive suite of services, including capital markets, investment sales, debt and equity financing, asset management, and advisory services.

With over 1,000 professionals around 40 offices across the country, Northmarq foster’s a culture of collaboration, communication and creativity in the pursuit to deliver an exceptional client experience.

• Employees: 1,100
• 2023 total sales: $37B

Website: www.northmarq.com

Coldwell Banker Commercial

Coldwell Banker Commercial® (CBC) is a worldwide leader in the commercial real estate industry, and is part of the oldest and most respected national real estate brand in the country, Coldwell Banker Real Estate.

With a collaborative network of independently owned and operated affiliates, the Coldwell Banker Commercial organization is comprised of approximately 3,100 agents working in approximately 200 companies throughout the U.S., as well as internationally.

• Employees: 3,100
• Operates in 39 countries

Website: www.cbcworldwide.com

Kidder Mathews

Kidder Mathews is the largest independent commercial real estate firm on the West Coast with 900 professionals in 20 offices across 5 states.

They offer a complete range of brokerage, appraisal, property management, consulting, project and construction management, and debt and equity finance services for all property types.

• Employees: 900
• 2023 total sales: $10B

Website: www.kidder.com

Transwestern

Transwestern is a privately held real estate firm of collaborative entrepreneurs who deliver a higher level of personalized service. Specializing in agency leasing, asset services, occupier solutions, capital markets and research, their fully integrated global enterprise adds value for investors, owners and occupiers of all commercial property types.

They leverage market insights and operational expertise from members of the Transwestern family of companies specializing in development, real estate investment management and research. Transwestern has 33 U.S. offices and assists clients from more than 219 offices in 37 countries through strategic alliances with France-based BNP Paribas Real Estate and Canada-based Devencore.

• 33 U.S. offices
• 2023 total sales: $3.76B

Website: www.transwestern.com

Matthews

Matthews Real Estate is a firm that specializes in providing comprehensive and innovative solutions across the real estate spectrum. Matthews Real Estate engages in property development, investment, and management, offering a diverse portfolio of residential, commercial, and industrial properties.

Since 2015, Matthews has experienced unprecedented growth adding over 600 real estate professionals to serve clients. Founded in El Segundo, CA, and strategically positioned in 20+ offices across the United States, they continue to expand into new markets.

• Employees: 800
• 20 U.S. offices

Website: www.matthews.com

Stream Realty

Stream Realty is a leading real estate services and investment firm that provides innovative solutions across the entire real estate lifecycle. With a focus on delivering exceptional value to clients, Stream Realty offers a diverse range of services, including leasing, property management, development, and investment services.

Since its inception in 1996, Stream has grown to over 1,300 talented experts in 15 key markets across the nation.

• Employees: 1,300
• 2023 total sales: $6.9B

Website: www.streamrealty.com

Greysteel

With a focus on multifamily and retail properties, Greysteel excels in investment sales, leasing, and capital markets transactions. Leveraging a combination of market expertise and innovative technology, the company assists property owners, investors, and developers in navigating the complexities of the real estate landscape.

• Employees: 120
• 2023 total sales: $10B

Website: www.greysteel.com

Lyon Stahl

Lyon Stahl is committed to delivering personalized and strategic solutions, utilizing cutting-edge technology and market insights to optimize outcomes for both buyers and sellers.

Lyon Stahl conducts business in the Los Angeles area with 4 offices and 80 real estate professionals.

• Employees: 80
• 2023 total sales: $3.15B

Website: www.lyonstahl.com

Voit Real Estate Services

Voit offers a wide range of services, including leasing, acquisitions, dispositions, asset management, and strategic consulting. The company’s seasoned team of professionals combines deep market knowledge with modernized strategies to optimize real estate portfolios and enhance property values.

With over 250 employees across 10 different offices in the Southern California area, Voit has earned a reputation as one of the top brokerages in the state.

• Employees: 250
• 53,500 all-time deals

Website: www.voitco.com

In the fast-paced commercial real estate industry, leasing brokers need a streamlined solution to effectively market properties, simplify day-to-day operations, and stay steps ahead of the competition. The natural solution? Turning to innovative technology. But once you’ve decided to start your search for CRE marketing software, the journey’s only started. Let’s dive into the essential features that you should look for in a potential platform:

Centralized property data management

Without the help of technology, managing property data from hundreds of listings can be overwhelming for even the most experienced broker. A CRE marketing software that centralizes property data can act as your trusted assistant, ensuring that you and your clients always have easy access to up-to-date information.

Plus, a centralized platform rids the need to juggle multiple programs or databases — working to streamline operations and boost efficiency. Look for a solution that updates and displays new listing data in real-time, with just a few clicks.

Seamless website integration

In today’s digital age, a strong online presence is a must for attracting tenants and closing deals.

Prioritize a marketing software that allows you to display property listings directly on your own site. This integration ensures consistency across the board, elevates your brokerage’s impact, and provides a seamless user experience for potential tenants when browsing.

Efficient listing management

Time is of the essence in the competitive world of CRE. From creating new listings to updating existing ones, you should be able to manage your portfolio quickly and easily — without overly-complicated processes or technology.

Look for a tool that allows you to display your properties on your commercial real estate website automatically. Because any time saved on admin is time that can be spent on high-value sales.

 

Premium website designs

A visually appealing website can set your brokerage apart from the competition and lead to higher conversion rates.

In fact, studies show that digital first impressions are up to 94% design-related. And nearly half of consumers make a decision about your credibility based on your website’s visual appeal.

The solution? Stunning designs with a pleasant user experience to match. Attractive and easy-to-navigate property websites can help you capture and engage your prospects in the digital landscape. 

In-house marketing control

Can you imagine having complete say over your marketing efforts, without relying on the timelines and whims of external agencies or designers?

Certain CRE marketing platforms offer the ability to create and customize your marketing materials with ease — offering the flexibility and autonomy you need to tailor pitches at a moment’s notice.

Optimized search for maximum exposure

To stand out in a crowded market, you need to be able to reach the right audience.

CRE marketing software that offers built-in search engine optimization (SEO) can help you expand visibility for your properties and attract more qualified leads. By maximizing exposure across multiple channels, you can achieve your leasing goals more efficiently.

Consistent offline support

Once you’ve made the decision to modernize your brokerage with a new CRE platform, what’s next?

This pivotal moment can either set your firm up for a world of success or complications to come. Look for CRE software solutions that offer a dedicated Client Success Manager, allowing for minimal time investment on your end.

SharpLaunch solutions for leasing brokers

Main pain points SharpLaunch can solve:

• Centralize property data & display property listings on their website
• Open system that easily integrates with providers that store property data
• Streamlined and efficient listing management
• Premium website designs that set them apart from the competition
• Have control of their marketing, doesn’t have to rely on an agency or designer
• Expand visibility for their properties, have an optimized marketing foundation that can be shared on different channels to get maximum exposure

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Fortunately, there are a variety of CRE marketing solutions available for leasing brokers today. But, knowing where to start makes all the difference when committing to a new technology. By investing in software tailored to your specific needs, you can help your brokerage to stand out, amplify your digital footprint, enhance efficiency, and ultimately drive success.

What are the best commercial real estate websites in 2024?

There are many commercial real estate listing sites to help you advertise your property listings or help you search for commercial property, and we compiled a collection of the best commercial real estate listing platforms you should be using.

Not all of these commercial real estate websites are created equal, however.

Besides the costly Costar and LoopNet, there are a number of good alternatives to find and advertise commercial real estate with different pricing and advertising options you may want to consider. There are even a few free commercial real estate listing options.

To help you choose the best platform for marketing your commercial real estate listings, we’ve collected a list of some of the best commercial real estate websites to help you make an informed decision next time you want to spend your advertising dollars.

 

CommercialEdge

CommercialEdge, Yardi’s all-in-one platform that enables commercial real estate professionals to research property data and active listings. The intuitive system

offers nationwide coverage of all commercial real estate asset types and more than 10 million property records.

CommercialEdge allows users to analyze comprehensive property data – including transaction, ownership and debt information – as well as uncover market insights with the latest sales and listings information. Additionally, CommercialEdge empowers users to manage listings effortlessly and syndicate them within the Yardi Commercial Listings Network, as well as to third-party platforms.

CommercialEdge is the ideal way for brokers and owners to view market data and easily manage and promote their listings.

Managing and marketing listings on the CommercialEdge Listing Network is free of charge and access to Edge Research, a comprehensive nationwide property and listings data costs $250/month or $2,400/year.

Commercial Cafe

Commercial Cafe is your go-to commercial real estate listing source. They partner with highly respected major brokerages from across the country to ensure high-quality listings that are updated frequently. Their online marketplace lists all commercial property types from office, coworking, retail, and industrial to special purpose properties. 

CommercialCafe is a trusted Yardi brand and is an integral part of the CommercialEdge network — the fastest-growing network of online real estate marketplaces, which ranks on the 1st page of Google for all top markets, attracts more than 2 million monthly visits, and generates more than 350,000 broker contacts.

CommercialSearch

CommercialSearch is your one-stop shop for commercial real estate listings. They partner with top brokerages across the country to provide you with a wide variety of up-to-date listings. Their easy-to-use online marketplace includes all commercial property types, from office to coworking to retail to industrial. 

CommercialSearch is a trusted Yardi brand and is part of the CommercialEdge network, the fastest-growing network of online real estate marketplaces. The network ranks on the first page of Google for all top markets, attracts more than 2 million monthly visits, and generates more than 350,000 broker contacts.

PropertyShark

PropertyShark uses public and private data to compile the most relevant information about the US real estate market.

The platform provides property reports for both the commercial and residential sectors. It includes all types of data about a specific property, such as when the property was developed, who owns it, key features, sales history and much more.

It has three types of subscriptions, the most basic is the pro version which costs $59.95 per month. The elite version costs $79.95 per month and the platinum version costs $169.95 per month.

Brevitas

 

Brevitas is a real estate collaboration and workflow platform that offers a marketplace for private, open, and off market commercial real estate.

The company has a membership model that requires a sign up to browse commercial real estate listings for sale and lease.

Spacelist

Based out of Canada, Spacelist has 49,000 properties available from across the country in a number of commercial categories including office space, retail, light industrial, and multi-family.

A Standard account on the site is free and allows for listings and inclusion in the free search tool. For the Pro account, the cost is $50/month or $500/year and you’ll get enhanced listings, promoted listings, and enhanced search placement.

LoopNet

LoopNet is one of the most recognized CRE search engines and offers a number of different types of commercial property including office, multifamily, industrial, retail, land, agricultural, hotel & motel, and residential income properties. Their database is among the largest with 1.1 million property listings and 5.1 billion square feet for lease around the globe.

Their listing advertising include different plans, Basic, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond.

CREXi

Commercial Real Estate Exchange, Inc. (CREXi) is the commercial real estate industry’s fastest-growing marketplace and technology platform dedicated to supporting the CRE industry and its stakeholders. CREXi enables commercial real estate professionals to quickly streamline, manage, and grow their businesses using the industry’s most advanced transaction management solution. Since launching in 2015, CREXi has quickly become the most active marketplace in the industry. With six million users, the platform has helped buyers, tenants, and brokers to transact business on over 500,000 commercial listings totaling more than $1 trillion in property value. CREXi has grown to 225+ employees and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.

Biproxi

Biproxi is a subscription-free listing, discovery and transaction platform that uses proprietary tech to verify listings, buyers, sellers and tenants. It includes a free commercial multiple listing service, marketing platforms for sales and leasing, and a suite of customized marketing tools – all geared toward improving the transaction process for middle-market CRE brokers, buyers, sellers and tenants.

The commercial listing and data vault portion of Biproxi is completely free. It allows buyers and tenants to find properties that interest them and reach out to the brokers. Besides free listings, they also provide data analytics, prospect contact information, and the ability to receive offers.

Apartmentbuildings.com

Apartmentbuildings.com is an industry leading multifamily online sales platform within the industry, catering to the requirements of Investors, Brokers, REITs, Private Equity firms, Developers, and family offices. It provides subscribers with the chance to explore and showcase multifamily properties across the nation. Featuring a modern, user-friendly interface and enhanced search capabilities, brokers, buyers, and sellers will effortlessly discover their optimal investment opportunities while gaining optimal visibility for their listings or profiles.

Landsearch.com

Whether you’re searching for residential, commercial, agricultural, or recreational land, LandSearch.com provides extensive filters and search functionalities to narrow down options efficiently. Users can specify criteria such as location, size, price range, zoning regulations, and land features to pinpoint properties that align with their requirements.

LandSearch.com facilitates seamless communication between buyers, sellers, and real estate professionals through integrated messaging systems and contact information. This fosters transparent and direct interactions, streamlining the negotiation and transaction processes.

For those seeking to sell land, LandSearch.com offers a variety of marketing tools and exposure to a broad audience of potential buyers, maximizing the visibility and reach of listings. Additionally, the platform provides valuable resources and guidance to assist users throughout the buying or selling journey, including informative articles, guides, and expert advice.

RI Marketplace

RI Marketplace stands out as the one of the best online platforms for commercial real estate auctions, yielding the highest rate of successful transactions in the field. Established in 2017 by a skilled group of commercial real estate experts, their primary aim was to revolutionize the process of connecting investors, brokers, and property owners, enabling them to efficiently list, promote, and finalize deals online. Through ongoing refinement of their technology and marketing strategies, they are committed to delivering unparalleled auction experiences, empowering users to achieve more successful transactions.

Ten-X

Ten-X (acquired by CoStar) is an end-to-end transaction platform for commercial real estate where users are matched with opportunities based on their objectives including asset types like office, multi family, retail, hotel, industrial, self-storage, land, and special purpose. Currently it claims to be powering 90% of all online commercial real estate transactions. Every property listing on the Ten-X marketplace is qualified and all buyers are vetted ahead of each sale. This ensures complete transparency, along with a streamlined, secure online transaction when buying or selling your commercial property.

For all properties sold on the Ten-X platform, a transaction fee equal to a percentage of the winning buyer’s offer (sale price) or a minimum, whichever is greater, will apply.

Catylist

Catylist (acquired by Moody’s) is designed to provide services for individuals or companies looking for office, industrial, shopping, retail, land, multi-family or hospitality properties. With thousands of listings from across the United States in these categories, there are a lot of options here.

Free Basic Membership allows you to search the listings only. For listing your own properties, gathering leads or using the marketing tools including in the site, you’ll need a Full Access Membership which starts at $99/month.

Digsy

Digsy is a free commercial real estate listings website to find Office Space, Industrial Space, and Retail space for sale or lease. Digsy also provides searchers with complimentary personal assistance from seasoned industry professionals across various reputable brokerages like Lee & Associates, Colliers International, NAI Capital, Cushman & Wakefield and many more. Digsy has over 31,000 properties listed on its website across the USA and has helped tenants & buyers acquire properties in excess of $100M in value.

Digsy is one of the highest rated commercial real estate listing websites on the internet. It’s 100% free to list or search property listings.

42Floors

42 Floors, is your all-in-one commercial real estate listings provider, where you can access all the latest office, coworking, retail, and industrial listings. Originally founded in 2011 in San Francisco, 42Floors was acquired by Yardi Systems in 2021. Subsequently, the brand was relaunched as an integral part of the CommercialEdge network — the fastest-growing network of online real estate marketplaces, which provides an effective marketing platform for real estate professionals looking to maximize exposure for their listings portfolio.  

Alongside top brands like CommercialCafe, CommercialSearch, and PropertyShark, 42Floors now contributes to attracting 2 million monthly visits and generating more than 350,000 broker contacts per year, across the network.

OfficeSpace.com

OfficeSpace.com (acquired by Biproxi) specializes in all types of office space, including large scale space, smaller offices for independent businesses and coworking spaces. The site currently has more than 570,000 active listings across the United States. Many of these are located in major US cities and users can search by city or state.

The site offers both basic and exclusive listing services. The basic option is free and includes unlimited photos, floor plans and brochures, while the Featured Listings services starts at $39.95 per month with options for volume discounts. This provides real time connections with tenants, broker profile upgrades, and featured listing placement.

CommercialMLS.com

Commercial MLS features commercial properties in Washington and Idaho. They have gathered 125,000 properties with 4,600+ current member brokers and 1,300 offices represented. Properties include a number of different types of commercial options. An application is required to join as an office, associate or appraiser. There is a standard membership fee which includes a one-time payment of $150 and annual dues of $325.

Square Foot

Square Foot serves office space listings throughout the country, with a focus on 12 major cities that they have the largest reach into. There are currently between 250 and 900 listings in each of these major cities and fewer in many other cities, for a total of roughly 4,000 listings across the site.

Pricing for listings is not provided on the website, but there is a form to submit your listing and you’ll receive a direct contact from the Square Foot team.

Total Commercial

Total Commercial has been providing commercial real estate listing information online since 1995. They position themselves as a full-featured commercial real estate listing service without the high-price hassles and publishing listings costs $120 per year per agent.

Cityfeet

CityFeet, owned by CoStar, has listings for every state in the Country, but is primarily focused on New York City with custom search built for New York neighborhoods and boroughs. Listings include office space, retail space, industrial space, and other types of commercial property. In New York alone, they have 13,200 listings available.

Plans are available monthly or quarterly, with the Standard plan starting at $99/month and the Platinum plan which includes access to their partner network and top search placement, starting at $316.65/month.

Office Freedom

OfficeFreedom is a comprehensive office space search engine with a global focus. The homepage allows you to break down your search globally, for the UK or for the US. With a portfolio of 10,000 business centers and 50 consultants around the world, they strive to make connections or offices, shared offices, virtual offices, conference space, light industrial and virtual offices.

Search Office Space acts as a broker rather than a search engine from a monetary perspective. That means there is a 10% rate charged for successful leases.

Showcase.com

Showcase, owned by CoStar, is a search engine allows you to search for all types of commercial real estate including office, industrial, retail, multi-family, and land with options to buy or lease. Focused on the US and UK, there are thousands of properties to review.

It is free to list your properties on Showcase.com, though there are several advertising options to feature your properties, build out custom profiles, and more to feature your properties. You must contact the company to get rates.

The Broker List

The Broker List (tBL) is the CRE community’s first free online platform for finding brokers, deals, services and vendors. Verified members get access to share their listings, wants and transactions, via social media, e-blasts and RSS feeds. Features include easy migration of data via listing upload tool and concierge service to add and update teams and an internal messaging system.

RealNex Marketplace

RealNex‘s Marketplace portal offers a free alternative to list and search a growing nationwide portfolio of property offerings. Built upon the 25-year legacy of PropertyLine and the innovative technology of Buzz Target, the MarketPlace launches with 200,000 listings across North America, totaling $300 billion for sale and 5 billion sf for lease.

LDCRE

LDCRE (Leavitt Digital) enables brokers and owners to increase local and global reach on listings through LDCRE’s national and international listing syndication platform into city based news websites.

It allows brokers to list their properties in one location and have it distributed through a long tail of local listing platforms.

Craigslist

Craigslist is one of the largest listing engines in the world, with tens of thousands of listings for every major geographic region in the world. In the Office & Commercial property section you’ll find a collection of listings for most major regions. Listings are free in this category as well.

CIMLS

With more than 370,000 registered members and $500+ billion in available property, CIMLS (the commercial investment multiple listing service) is a large commercial real estate listing service with all types of properties, throughout the united states. From land to retail, office and multi-family properties, there is a bit of everything on this search engine.

A basic plan is free and allows you to submit listings to the site, or you can upgrade to the $20/month gold membership which allows you to include additional images, documents, and lead generation tools in your listings.

Instant Offices

Instant Offices has a listings of office spaces around the world, with top searches localizes to the United States. There are currently 15,000+ offices in their listings, which include general office space, shared office space, managed office space, light industrial, and other general office locations.

Instant Offices charges a success fee and does not provide pricing or listing information for agents or brokers on their website. You have to contact them directly to learn more about partnership or operator connections.

BizBuySell

BizBuySell, owned by CoStar, has 65,000+ active for-sale listings of businesses including individual locations and franchises. The site includes several features such as broker matching and financing assistance for those interested in investment. If you are selling a property, a basic listing costs $59.95/month for 6 months, a showcase listing costs $79.95/month for 6 months, and a diamond listing costs $129.95/month for 6 months. The higher the listing level, the more exposure and features.

Land and Farm

Land and Farm, owned by CoStar, specializes in farm land, ranches, commercial and residential property with land attached. Currently, the site has 680,000 listings across all categories and locations. Organized by state and with several hundred properties minimum per state is a substantially sized search engine.

Registration on Land and Farm is free, however, advertising costs may vary. There are three different types of advertising plans, the standard, the premium (4x more exposure) and the signature plan (10x more exposure).

Conclusion

If you’re looking for free commercial real estate listings or a Zillow for commercial real estate, there is likely a service or search engine available to help you. The above list will provide the necessary information needed to choose the sites that best fit your needs and budget for those looking for alternatives to LoopNet, CoStar or (now liquidated) Xceligent.

Are you considering using a Commercial Real Estate CRM to optimize your business processes?

By utilizing features such as deal tracking, contact management, and client communications, a CRM can simplify your operations and support your commercial real estate marketing and sales efforts.

In this blog post, we will explore the advantages of using a commercial real estate CRM and provide an overview of the 10 best commercial real estate CRM software solutions currently available. Review key features, pricing, and all the other key considerations required to make an informed choice for your business.

What Makes a Good CRM?

Customer relationship management software is designed to help you manage and oversee the interactions you have with prospects, clients, and tenants seamlessly. Rather than a messy datebook or poorly formatted spreadsheet, a good CRM is a resource that streamlines and improves the process of engaging with key people in your business.

Specifically, for commercial real estate companies, there are several benefits to having a good CRM in place, including:

• Contact Management – A CRM system allows you to store all customer information in one place, making it easy to access and organize customer data.
• Enhanced customer segmentation – With a CRM system, you can segment their customers based on various criteria, allowing you to target specific groups with relevant and personalized marketing campaigns.
• Pipeline Management – A good CRM will ensure you follow up with deals when needed. No more forgotten calls dropped leases or lost prospects because someone in the office forgot to call them.
• Better Collaboration – With a good CRM in place, your team can collaborate more effectively, especially if they are rarely in the office together.
• Accountability – It’s easier to track and oversee how your team is managing prospects with a central system that everyone is accountable to.
• Back Office Management – Some of the more robust CRM options offer back-office management as well, greatly reducing the time spent tracking multi-agent commission plans, sending or customizing invoices, and applying payments.
• Customization and scalability – A good CRM enables customization so it can be used to handle specific business needs, as and when they arrive. There should also be a level of extensibility to the system so you can manage increasing amounts of data as you scale, and integrate third-party tools for additional functionality.

A good CRM will save you time, keep your data clean and organized, and ensure you follow up with prospects when needed. It is that enhanced accountability and communication that will have the biggest impact on your business.

What to Consider When Choosing a CRM?

What matters most when choosing a CRM for your business? It depends highly on your business and the specific needs you have in managing your relationships.

These might include:

• Property Database Integration – For CRE companies, properties are as important as deals or contact records and need to be as fully integrated as possible. The best CRMs in this space do just that, allowing you to create a custom local database and link it to deals and prospects.
• Marketing Tools – Integration with your existing email and calendar systems, and email marketing options (either via API or built-in tools) is vital to ensure you are following up with prospects at regular intervals and it is all tracked.
• Accessibility – Real estate brokers are on the run constantly. A good CRE CRM needs to be accessible anywhere, either through a web browser or as a mobile app.
• Technical Support – Because of how heavily customized these systems are, you should have support on hand who can help to get the most out of your system. This includes onboarding, technical support, and training documentation.

Drawbacks of CRM Implementation

Anytime you onboard new software there will be challenges and CRM is no different.

Whether you are currently using a locally installed CRM or are tracking everything in spreadsheets, there will be a learning curve for your team as you move so much of your business into a centralized system.

Importing all of that data can take days or even weeks to complete, and then you’ll need to train everyone on your staff to use the system and then follow-up frequently to ensure they are using it properly.

Compliance is key for a new CRM – without it, the system starts to fall apart quickly.

Fortunately, the five platforms we’re going to look at in this article are successful because of the support they offer new customers – in the form of onboarding, training, and ongoing support. Take full advantage of these resources to get the most from your new commercial real estate software.

What is the Best Commercial Real Estate CRM?

To help in selecting an effective CRM that fits your team’s needs, we’ve collected and reviewed the top 10 best commercial real estate CRMs for 2023 below including Salesforce, HubSpot, SharpLaunch, Apto, ClientLook, REThink, AscendixRE, Apptivo, Freshworks and Zoho.

Salesforce

Salesforce is widely recognized as the number-one CRM option available today, and that customer-relationship expertise helps make it the most effective commercial real estate CRM on the market.

Salesforce commercial real estate CRM is a flexible, adaptable, intuitive, and completely cloud-based tool. Built on the award-winning Salesforce CRM platform, agents and firms can collect, analyze, and retrieve nearly limitless amounts of data in real time and at the touch of a button. Additionally, Salesforce CRM solutions are designed mobile-first, which means that users can enjoy full access to the entire catalogue of CRM capabilities, regardless of what kind of device they may be using.

Key Features

Salesforce offers a number of features built around how commercial real estate brokers operate on a daily basis. These include:

• Contact Management – Ability to organize contacts, schedule tasks, and manage deals.
• Opportunity Management – Manage all your sales deals with Salesforce while staying connected to the people and information you need to close every sale, from anywhere.
• Lead Management – Show the impact of your marketing activities on your sales pipeline and invest your time on the hottest leads.
• Email Integration – Ability to automatically sync and track everything from contacts and events to tasks and more directly from your inbox.
• Sales Forecasting – Get a real-time view of your entire team’s forecast, including in-line forecast adjustments, and override visibility up and down the management hierarchy.
• Files Sync and Share – Share and collaborate on files, publish the best and most relevant content, and track it all in real time. Quickly find what you’re looking for from anywhere, on any device.

Pricing

Salesforce offers a few pricing plans from $25-$300/user/monthly depending on the features used.

HubSpot

HubSpot’s CRM platform has all the tools and integrations you need for marketing, sales, content management, and customer service.

The CRM product tracks and manages interactions between a company and its customers and prospects. It enables companies to forecast revenue, measure sales team productivity, and report on revenue sources.

With detailed reports on sales activity, productivity, and individual performance, users can track their team’s performance toward and have all the data to coach the team to success.

HubSpot provides tools for social media marketing, content management, web analytics, landing pages, customer support, and search engine optimization.

Key Features

• Reporting dashboard – Answer important questions about sales performance by bringing all your data together in one place. Get full visibility into your process so you can forecast effectively and deliver exceptional results.
• Customer Profile Software – Get powerful context about the people and companies you’re emailing, right inside your Gmail or Outlook inbox.
• Pipeline Management – Stop letting lucrative deals slip through the cracks. Add deals with a single click, assign tasks, and track progress in your dashboards.
• Appointment & Meeting Scheduler – Eliminate the painful back and forth of meeting scheduling. Share a link that gives prospects the power to choose a time that works for everyone — it’ll automatically sync with your Google or Office 365 calendar
• Sales Automation – Automate your sales process with a personal touch. Set up a series of personalized emails and follow-up tasks to ensure you stay top of mind throughout the sales process.
• Live Chat – Connect directly with prospects when they’re actively engaging with your website. Route chat conversations to the right salesperson to build better relationships and close more deals.

Pricing

SharpLaunch

SharpLaunch offers an integrated Lead Management tool that is both lightweight and powerful.

What differentiates SharpLaunch from other systems is that it is a fully integrated tool that is connected to your website to capture leads and also other components of the platform including Email Marketing, Document Portal and Reporting.

It also offers automated tracking capabilities of user behaviors such as CA execution, document downloads and email engagement. This

Key Features

SharpLaunch offers a number of features built around how commercial real estate brokers operate on a daily basis. These include:

• Contact Management – View, organize and segment your contacts by property, by pipeline stage, or by custom tags.
• Lead Capture – Build and grow your own database of leads by automatically capturing all website inquiries.
• Automated Tracking – Get granular insights on customer interactions across your properties and marketing campaigns.
• Reporting and Analytics– Vie and export detailed reports on your contacts and leads.
• Integration– Integrate with other industry-leading CRMs including Salesforce, Hubspot and Apto.

Pricing

SharpLaunch offers a tiered-based pricing structure based on the number of properties. Pricing starts from $399/month and includes access to all features and tools in the platform.

Apto

Apto offers a web-based solution for managing customer relationships, properties, listings, deals, and back-office.

It is this approach that has helped them grow so quickly in recent years with a “built by broker, for broker” approach.

One of the things that makes Apto unique is that it is built on the Salesforce.com platform. A Salesforce embedded license is included in your membership, but you’re getting a system fully customized and optimized for commercial real estate brokers. As a result, it is possible to manage the full lifecycle of a deal from start to finish in the same interface.

Apto offers a number of features built around how commercial real estate brokers operate on a daily basis. These include:

• Appointment Setting – Browsing ability to set appointments for clients against property and personnel availability.
• Automated Tasks – Automation of lease-expirations, follow-up tasks, and more.
• Renewal Management – The built-in stacking plan makes it easy to stay up to date on renewals and list a space at the right time.
• Project Management – Built into the system is a CRM-integrated project management tool to keep track of milestones, tasks and events.
• Collaboration – Deal creation is optimized for tracking relationships with multiple brokers involved in a deal.
• Forecasting – Apto offers both commission estimates and probability estimates for your projection needs.
• Back Office – The back office functionality includes a Book Deal Engine to capture transactions details, invoice creation and tracking, record monitoring for accounts payable and receivable, and agent split calculation.

Pricing

Apto offers a relatively straightforward pricing structure.

For a flat $89/month per user (billed annually), users gain access to all of the functionality in the CRM and Deal Management modules of Apto.

Back Office access is an additional $29/month per user (billed annually). This includes API access and Salesforce.com embedded license with either membership.

ClientLook

Another highly customized all-in-one commercial real estate optimized CRM, ClientLook (now part of Lightbox) manages all three major components of a brokerage in one space – contacts, properties, and deals with heavy integration of the three.

Additionally, ClientLook offers extensive API integration with Google, MailChimp, RPR Commercial for REALTORS®, and TheAnalyst® PRO.

While flexibility is important, ClientLook also provides a bit of additional support for your legacy systems and communications tools.

Key Features

With three major components, ClientLook is designed to combine all of the facets of your business in one toolset. Features include:

• Contact Management – The contact management system allows you to quickly log notes and emails, create and manage tasks, and sync everything to your mobile devices. This includes Outlook and Google Sync, Private Data management, teaming support for brokers working together on deals, and advanced importing and exporting features.
• Pipeline Management – You can create deals and organize activities, files, emails and other resources accordingly. This also allows you to work with clients actively and record information in real time.
• Property Management – ClientLook includes a personalized property inventory database, allowing you to relate any given property to specific contacts and companies in the database for easier management.

Pricing

ClientLook offers a similar pricing model to Apto with seats billed annually per user.

When paid annual, the price is $58/month/user.

They also offer a month-to-month plan for $69/month/user.

This includes their extensive support options as well with Virtual Assistance services, in-app chat, and a video library for training your team.

REThink

REThink (now part of Buildout) offers another Salesforce.com powered CRM option for commercial real estate companies, with full CRE database and prospect management support, deal pipeline features and reporting and analytics customized for the commercial real estate companies they work with.

Key Features

Key features of REThink include the following with a handful of additional features available at the Enterprise level for larger companies.

• Contact Management – The core CRM offers the power of Salesforce with customization for commercial real estate companies.
• CRE Database – Property management within the CRM, with the ability to integrate and tie each property to contacts, prospects, or deals in the system.
• Pipeline Management – Deal creation and management tools that tie to prospects, contacts, leases already in the system, and properties.
• Reporting and Analytics Tools – Reporting tools have been customized for CRE use, allowing you to drill into the information you care most about more easily.
• Customized Onboarding – REThink offers a robust onboarding process that takes 6-8 weeks. This allows the system to be catered to your business and populated with relevant information, with the appropriate training to support your efforts.

Pricing

REThink offers a monthly plan (when billed annually) for the Team and Office options for a minimum of four users.

Additionally, there is a single one-time flat fee charged for REThink Onboarding. Onboarding is assessed on a per-customer basis depending on your needs in the CRM and is mandatory for all users.

There is also a multi-office and enterprise plan designed for larger firms – pricing for these plans is provided on a request-only basis.

AscendixRE

 

AscendixRE is a commercial real estate CRM option built on the framework of both Salesforce and Dynamics 365. AscendixRE includes Salesforce/Dynamics 365 license. Besides, brokers already using one of the two leading CRMs on the market, can quickly integrate with their current systems.

Key Features

AscendixRE CRM tool can be customized to the needs of your brokers. Ascendix performs all customizations using their own team.

There are three different plans for AscendixRE CRM tool, with the top tier offering advanced supped of Salesforce features. The core features include:

• Core Contact Management – Management of your contacts, activity tracking, property listing and lease tracking, deal and history tracking, all of them linked to one another to fit your tracking needs.
• Dashboard Management – Create and display dashboards for key information to members of your team in real time, track lease expirations and other essential information.
• Stacking Plans, Commission and Lease Tracking – Available as part of the Enterprise package, these advanced tools are powerful additions to any commercial real estate broker’s tool set.
• Automated Tasks – Lease expiration tracking, follow ups, workflows, tasks management automation, mass edits, mass emails.
• Email Integration – Easy integration for both Google and Outlook, MailChimp.
• Ascendix Search – a geo-search, multi-criteria tool to create lists of prospects, properties, analyze your CRM data, export it to Excel.
• Composer – The Composer allows you to generate custom collateral, brochures, and other documents your brokerage will be using by sourcing data and images from AscendixRE.
• Property Listing Portals, Deal & Collaboration Rooms – AscendixRE Unlimited users can automatically publish and update their listings, invite prospective clients to private Deal and collaboration rooms.
• Concierge Service – All Enterprise and Unlimited users can delegate contact management, data entry to Ascendix team at no additional cost.

Because of the variable nature of the AscendixRE plans, the best solution will depend on the size of your company and the way in which you want to interact with your data.

The Salesforce integrated solution, for example, offers no seat minimums and a lower entry price point per user. Also, it has special editions for Capital Markets, Land Brokers, Property Managers. The Microsoft Dynamics system works only with 5 or more users.

Pricing

AscendixRE offers three pricing options, with several add-ons available.

The base price for AscendixRE Foundations is $49/user/month. For AscendixRE Enterprise, the cost is $79/user/month. Concierge service, Ascendix Search, Commission Tracking, stacking plans are included.

AscendixRE Unlimited is $99/user/month and includes property listing portals, automatic lead capture, Deal and Collaboration tools. Every plan includes Salesforce license without user minimum.

The AscendixRE for Dynamics 365 option is a bit more at $95/user/month with a 5 user minimum to get started.

Apptivo

Apptivo is a CRM solution that brings together more than 50 applications on a single platform to help small and medium-sized businesses run their operations successfully. The integration of all applications offers a wide range of solutions for any business. Its unique features, combined with 24-hour customer service, offer users an incredible experience.

Apptivo integrates with tools including Google Workspace, Slack, QuickBooks, PayPal, Office 365, RingCentral, and Dropbox. This allows you to manage everything in one place without having to hop from app to app.

Key Features

• Contact & account management
• Partner relationship management
• Opportunity pipeline management
• Task management
• Contract management tools
• Lead, email and campaign management
• Case management
• Customer support portal
• Support analytics
• Reporting
• Dashboard
• Forecasting

Pricing

Apptivo offers 4 different subscription options:

• Lite version: $8 per month
• Premium: $12 per month
• Ultimate: $20 per month
• Enterprise: Prices for this plan may vary

Freshworks CRM

Freshworks CRM is a cloud – based customer relationship management (CRM) solution that helps companies of all sizes manage their leads with the use of AI. Freshworks combines sales automation, marketing automation, chat and telephone in the same platform. This platform enables you to attract leads, engage with them as well as close deals and nurture your customer relationships.

Key Features

• AI-powered features: Freddy AI captures, scores, and ranks leads.
• Client communication: Make calls, send emails, or start chats within the CRM.
• Custom features: Tailor modules, reports, and more to your company’s needs.
• 24/5 support: All tiers include customer assistance via email, chat, or phone.

Pricing

There are several pricing options available depending on your needs:

• Freshworks Free-for-Life: Unlimited users
• Growth: $29/user
• Pro: $69/user
• Enterprise: $125/user

Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is currently used by 250,000 different companies in 180 countries. This platform helps businesses convert more leads, engage with their customers with the final objective of growing their revenue.

By integrating with live chat software, email, and social media, you can set up real-time notifications to be in the know any time a lead or customer interacts with your business. The real-time reports and insights ensure you can have up-to-date data at your fingertips no matter your location.

Other features include the ability to automate workflows, manage contacts, and manage deals from stage to stage. You can also build a sales process for your real estate agents so that prospective buyers get a consistent experience regardless of the team member they work with.

Key features

• Automation – Automatically assign leads to sales reps using predefined filters based on territory, likeness of deal closing and much more.
• Zoho’s AI – the technology suggests for the best time of the day to message your leads in order to optimize your response rate. In addition, the technology implemented into the software learns usage patterns so your team gets personalized suggestions in order to complete their daily tasks more efficiently.
• Process management – You can generate leads from multiple channels including: social media, offline campaigns, business cards, online campaigns.
• Lead scoring – The solution gives you the ability to see which leads your sales team should focus their efforts on.
• Collaboration – Zoho gives you the ability to collaborate with your teammates by integrating a chat tool to your CRM.
• Document management – Access important property information such as property details, transaction history and service reports.

Pricing

Zoho offers several different pricing options:

• Standard plan: $14/month.
• Professional plan: $23/month.
• Enterprise plan: $40/month.

Conclusion

There are many different options when it comes to contact, property, and deal management for your commercial real estate company. The ability to more efficiently manage the different types of commercial real estate leases, contacts, automate important components of the follow-up process and cycle and score leads to maximize opportunity are all incredibly important.

Depending on the size of your company, the number of deals you manage on a routine basis, properties you need to enter, and the people who will be accessing the system, each of these platforms has something unique to offer.

As the commercial real estate industry continues to grow and evolve, the use of software to manage and analyze properties has become increasingly important. Commercial real estate software can help property managers, investors, brokers, and appraisers streamline their operations, improve efficiency, and make more informed decisions.

There are a variety of commercial real estate software options available, including property management software, commercial property management software, real estate investment software, and commercial real estate analysis software. These tools can help users track and manage properties, leases, tenants, and financial data, as well as perform market analysis and forecasting.

The importance of using software in commercial real estate

Implementing commercial real estate software can be a major undertaking, but the benefits are significant. By streamlining operations, improving efficiency, and making more informed decisions, commercial real estate software can help businesses of all sizes succeed in an increasingly competitive market.

Features to look for in a commercial real estate software

When shopping for commercial real estate software, it’s important to consider the specific needs and goals of your business. Some key features to look for include the ability to manage and track properties, leases, and tenants; generate financial reports; and perform market analysis and forecasting. Other useful features may include the ability to create and manage marketing materials, integrate with other business systems, and provide mobile access.

Ultimately, the right commercial real estate software for your business will depend on your specific needs and goals. It’s important to thoroughly research and compare options to find a solution that meets your requirements and fits within your budget.

How to choose the right commercial real estate software for your needs

When it comes to choosing commercial real estate software, it’s important to consider the specific needs and goals of your business. Be sure to thoroughly research and compare different software options, and choose a solution that meets your requirements and fits within your budget.

Before purchasing your next CRE software, consider the following:

• Clearly define your needs and goals for the software
• Consider your budget and look for value for money
• Take into account implementation and maintenance costs, as well as training and support needs
• Evaluate the scalability of the software to ensure it can grow with your business over time

Keep in mind that implementing commercial real estate software can be a significant commitment, so it’s important to choose a platform that will meet your needs in the long term.

Types of commercial real estate software available

1. Property management software

Property management software helps property managers and landlords efficiently oversee and maintain rental properties. It can be used to manage various aspects of property management, including tenant communication, rent collection, maintenance requests, and financial reporting.

There are many property management software options available, ranging from basic to advanced systems. Basic software may include features such as the ability to create and send invoices, track rent payments, and manage maintenance requests. More advanced systems may include additional features such as the ability to create and manage marketing materials, perform market analysis, and generate financial reports.

Property management tools to consider:

• MRI Software
• Yardi
• Building Engines
• Appfolio
• Buildium

Learn more about: top commercial property management software

2. Tenant experience software

Tenant experience software relates to technology helps landlords and property managers improve the experience of working or living in a property. It typically includes tools or apps that are used to help create a sense of community and improve the overall tenant experience. 

One of the key benefits of using tenant experience software is the ability to improve communication and engagement with tenants. Many systems include features such as online portals or mobile apps that allow tenants to easily submit maintenance requests or pay rent, as well as participate in community events or activities.

Tenant experience tools to consider:

• Equiem
• Eden
• HqO
• Comfy

Learn more about: top tenant experience software and apps

3. Real estate investment software

Real estate investment software helps investors analyze and manage their real estate portfolio and streamline investor relations. It can be used to track and manage properties, perform market analysis and forecasting, and generate financial reports. Real estate investment software often includes features such as property databases, financial modeling tools, and analytics capabilities. It may also be integrated with other business systems, such as accounting software or CRMs. 

Using real estate investment software can help investors make more informed decisions about their portfolio and improve the performance of their investments. It can also help streamline and automate many of the tasks involved in managing real estate assets, saving time and resources.

Real estate investment tools to consider:

• Juniper Square
• DealPath
• RealPage IMS

4. Real estate CRM software

A commercial real estate CRM (customer relationship management) is a software tool that helps businesses in the commercial real estate industry manage and analyze their interactions with clients, leads, and properties. 

It can be used to track and manage contacts, deals, and transactions, as well as perform market analysis and forecasting. CRMs for the commercial real estate industry often include features such as property databases, lead and deal management tools, and marketing automation capabilities. They can also be integrated with other business systems, such as email marketing platforms or accounting software. 

Using a commercial real estate CRM can help businesses streamline their operations, improve efficiency, and make more informed decisions. It can also help improve communication and collaboration within a team, and provide valuable insights into market trends and client behavior.

Real estate CRMs to consider:

• Salesforce
• Hubspot
• SharpLaunch
• Apto
• Ascendix

Learn more about: top commercial real estate CRMs

5. Commercial real estate marketing software

Using commercial real estate marketing software can help businesses streamline their marketing efforts and improve the effectiveness of their campaigns. It can also help save time and resources by automating many of the tasks involved in creating and distributing marketing materials. 

When choosing commercial real estate marketing software, it’s important to consider the specific needs and goals of your business. Be sure to thoroughly research and compare different software options, and choose a solution that meets your requirements and fits within your budget. Keep in mind that implementing marketing software can take some time, so it’s important to choose a platform that will satisfy your needs in the long term. 

Commercial real estate marketing tools to consider:

• SharpLaunch
• Matterport
• Property Capsule
• Brandcast

Learn more about: top commercial real estate marketing software

6. Commercial real estate databases

A commercial real estate database stores and organizes information about properties, markets, and transactions. It can be used to track and manage properties, perform market analysis and forecasting, and generate reports on a variety of topics.

There are many commercial real estate databases available, ranging from basic to advanced systems. Basic databases may include information such as property location, size, and type, as well as ownership and transaction history. More advanced databases may include additional information such as financial data, market trends, and tenant information.

Commercial real estate databases to consider:

• CompStak
• Cherre
• Reonomy
• Real Capital Analytics

Conclusion

In conclusion, commercial real estate software can greatly improve the efficiency and productivity of your business. When choosing the right software, it’s important to consider your specific needs and budget. Some popular options include MRI Software, Yardi, and RealPage, but there are many other options available. It’s also a good idea to try out demos or free trials to find the best fit for your business. With the right commercial real estate software, you can streamline your processes and make better informed decisions, ultimately leading to success in the industry.

When potential tenants and investors find your commercial real estate company online, they aren’t necessarily wondering about your company history or team’s background. They want to know what you can offer them now. In fact, about 80% of the time spent on a CRE website is on the properties section of your company website.

That means if you are not making it easy to find, search and view your available property listings, you are at a competitive disadvantage.

Lacking a commercial property search engine is a little like a merchandise company having a website without a products page.

Fortunately, the reverse is true. Having a commercial real estate search engine that aggregates and displays all of your current inventory delivers some serious benefits.

Why Should I Include Property Search on My Website?

You don’t want to have to market your properties individually at every turn. You also need a way to display your entire portfolio. With a commercial property search engine, you compile all of your listings into one place.

Displaying your full inventory provides significant advantages:

• Create trust among the CRE community
• Turn website visitors into leads
• Boost engagement and create a memorable experience for prospective clients
• Improve search engine optimization (SEO) to maximize visibility on Google
• Extend the digital footprint of your property listings
• Elevate your brand

That’s true of most all commercial real estate search engines, but different options can deliver additional benefits.

How Do I Add Properties to My Website?

There are several ways to add and display your property listings to your own company website. To start, you need to choose one of the three paths below for displaying your available listings that will also give features specific to the option you choose:

• Use a turnkey platform. Choose a “plug and play” marketing platform that automates the creation of your search engine. With this option, you can significantly reduce costs and time-to-market because you won’t need to hire a web design agency to build it from scratch. In addition, you take advantage of ongoing software improvements which means less maintenance and headaches to worry about.
• Hire a website design agency. If you hire an agency to build a custom property portal, you can ensure that the branding on the search engine is consistent with your company’s other marketing efforts. With this option, you’ll get all of the features you want paired with the proper branding, but it also means time and money for initial setup, plus ongoing costs whenever you want to make changes.
• Employ an internet data exchange (IDX). This feed essentially pulls listings from a database to your website. The downside here is that IDX solutions pull properties from the MLS which is heavily focused on residential properties . Plus, choosing this route means everything on the IDX shows up on your site, which could include properties in your market that you don’t own.

These days, most CRE companies utilize a turnkey platform that includes a WordPress listing plugin, providing various customization and integration options — API, embed widget, or inline frame (iframe).

An API integration will give you the highest level of customization and control, but will require some initial implementation work.

To ensure your search engine delivers maximal benefit for your company with minimal drawbacks, you should look for one that delivers all of the key features you might want.

What Features Should I Consider?

Before implementing a property search or inventory plugin, there are several characteristics to consider:

• Ease of use (how quickly can you add or remove listings )
• Filtering options so users can refine their search among your available listings
• Display options such as map and grid views
• Customization capabilities to match your design preferences
• Quality of individual property listings
• Syncs seamlessly with your marketing platform for lead capture
• Maps to your own domain to prevent website visitors from leaving your site
• Displays closed transactions with no additional work

To give you an idea of what your company search engine could look like when beautifully designed and feature-rich, check out these property search engine examples.

Can I Display Properties Listings on My Own Domain?

There are several ways to integrate your property search engine on your own website, and the way you do it depends on the technology you use. That tech will also determine how the property search engine and your property listings will be linked to your own website domain.

First, you need to figure out what you want to call the property search engine section on your website. Common names include:

• Listings
• Properties
• Availabilities

Then, you need to determine how you want to map the individual properties to your website domain. In other words, you want to figure out where someone goes when they click on one of the availabilities they see in your commercial property search engine.

Your options here are:

• Keep them on your company domain. That means that the user never leaves your site, even as they explore any listing from your search engine. So, for example, when they click on Property X from the search engine, they’ll head to a webpage with a URL like yourcompany.com/propertyx
• Put them on a subdomain. If you want to host the individual property pages within the realm of your website but still differentiate them for marketing purposes, you can use a subdomain. In this case, the user would click on Property X from the search engine and be directed to propertyx.yourcompany.com. These more differentiated links can help you market your individual properties with a more memorable web address.
• Send them to an external provider’s subdomain. If you choose a turnkey platform that doesn’t link your listings to your company website, you could send someone who clicks on Property X outside your website to a domain like loopnet.com/yourcompany/propertyx. At that point, the user has left your website and could stumble across other listings from other CRE companies as they navigate around the external provider’s website.

In the vast majority of cases, your company will be best off keeping the users on a domain that you own. Otherwise, you risk them seeing content from someone else that could catch their eye.

Moving Forward with the Right Option

Clearly, there’s a lot to consider when it comes to building the right commercial property search engine for your company.

You need something that will be easy to use so you can get listings to market fast. You also need a way to retain users on your website and deliver consistent branding whether they’re looking at your search engine — and when they click through to an individual property.

What comprises an effective commercial real estate marketing stack?

Your marketing stack is a collection of commercial real estate marketing tools that help you optimize the marketing processes throughout the property lifecycle. We decided to analyze what tools high-performance CRE teams are using, day-to-day, to gain a competitive advantage.

Here’s a list of the 11 best commercial real estate marketing tools that you can try out.

1. SharpLaunch

Get an all-in-one marketing command center that can help you get the most out of your property marketing efforts. With SharpLaunch, you can modernize your online presence and streamline your digital marketing activities to be more efficient.

Best Features:

• Mobile-friendly interactive property websites to help expand online visibility
• Automatically display properties on your own company website with a property search engine
• Professional, high-impact email marketing campaigns
• Comprehensive reports and data about property marketing performance
• Modern and user friendly commercial real estate website design

2. Matterport

Matterport offers an impressive 3D platform allows commercial real estate teams to capture the essence of an in-person tour and augmenting it with key information about individual components of the space.

Best Features:

• Photorealistic and fully interactive 3D floor plan perspectives
• Use Notes to collaborate efficiently with commenting
• Guided Tours offer the ability to create high-quality tours of your 3D model
• Protect the privacy of people by blurring faces or personal information

3. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is a full-feature marketing automation platform that combines email marketing, marketing automation and CRM for powerful segmentation and personalization across social, email, messaging, chat and text.

Best Features:

• Automate lead nurture, lead scoring, and any other part of the customer lifecycle
• Live chat and automated chatbot workflows to connect with your customers across channels
• Personalize web pages with custom content for each visitor
• SMS marketing automation

4. Apto

Apto is a CRM and deal management software that helps commercial real estate brokers manage contacts, properties, listings, and deals. It offers a full suite of solutions for prospecting, marketing and deal management.

Best Features:

• Contact management allows you to access and update key data points from any device
• Manage all of your deals from one simple dashboard
• Prospecting tools so you can contact the right people at the right time
• Property data including national tax, deed, and mortgage data that stays up to date

5. Call Rail

CallRail is a call tracking software that uses a unique phone number that forwards calls to your main phone number. The software gives customers visibility into which advertising efforts, content posts, email campaigns, and keywords are performing best.

Best Features:

• Call tracking to match calls and texts to marketing campaigns
• Automate call transcriptions with AI-powered analysis
• Manage all calls, leads and messages from one dashboard
• Mobile app with instant notifications sent to your home screen

6. VTS

VTS is a full-feature leasing, asset management and marketing platform for landlord, agency brokers and tenant reps. The software enables office, retail, and industrial landlords and brokers to transform their leasing process and convert leads to leases more efficiently.

Best Features:

• Get 360-degree insights into all portfolio activity
• Showcase listings online with VTS Market
• View verified real-time data on tenant demand with VTS Data
• Enable a better tenant experience with VTS Rise

7. Property Capsule

Property Capsule is a retail marketing software that creates interactive websites, site plans, maps and flyers published with the most recent property information and accessible on any platform, from any device (web, mobile phone, iPad app).

Best Features:

• Create interactive maps for your property
• Personalized retail site plans
• Create interactive tour books
• Auto-generated flyer creation

8. Flipping Book

FlippingBook is a publishing platform that converts PDFs into lifelike online flipbooks you can share and track. It includes embedded videos, images, outbound links.

Best Features:

• Directly embed PDFs into a website
• Enrich content with video, images and animated gifs
• Set privacy permissions with a secured login to protect content
• Track engagement and receive real-time open notifications

9. Reonomy

Reonomy is a data platform that provides CRE market insights, empowering top brokerages, financial institutions, and commercial services providers with actionable data and solutions.

Best Features:

• Access sales and debt data to better understand property history and gauge opportunities
• Integrate Reonomy’s API with internal systems
• Create new records and update existing with ownership portfolio data

10. Canva

Canva is an online graphic design tool that makes it easy to create professional looking designs for flyers, emails, presentations, social media posts and more.

Best Features:

• Drag and drop editor for easy customizations
• Over 250,000 design templates and more added each week
• 1+ Million free graphics and stock photos
• Invite others to design and work on projects

11. RCM

Real Capital Markets is the global marketplace for buying & selling commercial real estate.  Solutions include integrated property marketing, transaction management, and business intelligence tools to unify work flows.

Best Features:

• Buyer database of 72,000 principals
• Professional property website templates
• Email marketing tool
• Virtual deal room with real-time analytics and reporting

 

Digital disruption in commercial real estate is forcing firms to make changes to increase their online visibility in an increasingly busy digital space. CRE companies that are lagging at adopting technology are at risk of getting left behind.

Whether they are relying on a disjointed array of commercial real estate marketing tools, analog tactics that don’t translate well in our new virtual reality, or outdated commercial real estate marketing software, many are searching for a better way to meet the exceptional demands of the moment.

But how do you sort through the ever-growing number of options available?

In this guide we’ll cover eight key questions to help you consider your options when choosing the best commercial real estate marketing software and we’ll discuss why you might need specialized software to streamline and speed up your marketing efforts.

8 Questions for Evaluating a Commercial Real Estate Marketing Software

There are several factors you might take into consideration when evaluating potential marketing software solution.

How do you find the one that best fits the unique needs of your company?

To start, let’s look at 8 questions that can help identify the most important features for your company, and ensure the software you select will be a viable solution for years to come.

1. How much customization is allowed?

You want a tool that streamlines your efforts, but not one that homogenizes them. The best solution will let you create listing websites, marketing collateral, and other content quickly, but in a custom-fit way that sets it apart from the pack.

Does it let you create custom URLs for each property? Can you tailor content, graphics, and layout for every listing? Can you easily change up your marketing emails on the fly? You want creative control wherever possible.

2. How scalable is the solution?

If you want to grow as a business, then your marketing platform needs to grow with you. Evaluate how scalable each platform is and its ability to serve you today, tomorrow, and years down the line. More importantly, how quickly can the solution scale and will you need any extra tools, resources, or cash to do it?

Try to think of your business five or 10 years down the road, and evaluate a software with your future-self in mind. Would it still pass the test, or would you need to switch solutions again?

3. How long is the setup process?

You should also evaluate the implementation process for any tool you consider. What’s involved in the platform’s set-up? How long does it take to implement, and what kind of resources do you need to make it happen?

Make sure you’re choosing a tool that you can integrate and start leveraging as soon as possible. The longer it takes to set up and get going, the less you stand to gain from it.

4. How much support is provided?

As you get started with your new CRE software, you may need some support along the way — at least if you want to use your new tools to their full potential. To make sure you have the help you need, always ask about the support team. How and when can you contact them? What can they help with?

Also be sure they can provide support across all devices and operating systems your team uses.

5. Does it integrate with other tools or platforms?

Does the platform work with other tools and software solutions you use, or will you have to change your workflow completely? How easily does it integrate with your website and other commercial real estate tools?

You don’t want to reinvent the wheel here, but instead improve your processes and increase your overall efficiency.

6. How user-friendly is it?

Support is great, but you shouldn’t need help with every step along the way. The best CRE marketing platforms are intuitive, easy to understand, and user-friendly. If they involve a lot of manual processes and back-and-forth between tools, they’re probably not the best use of your time and resources.

To be sure you’re getting an intuitive platform, always demo a CRE solution before buying in. Ask for a guided demonstration or free trial from the provider, and give the software a test run to ensure it meets your needs and feels right.

7. What companies are already using it?

Ask for a client list or, at the very list, look at testimonials and reviews for any platform you consider. If big commercial real estate companies already trust their business to a platform, then you’re probably in good hands. If there aren’t reviews and the company isn’t tight-lipped about its current or previous customers, then you may want to keep looking.

8. How much does it cost?

The cost of the platform obviously matters. Know your budget, get a full breakdown of the costs, and make sure there are no hidden fees that might crop up along the way.

You should also do a full comparison of what you’re getting with each solution you consider. While one may be cheaper than the other, if it doesn’t offer all the features and tools you need to properly market your portfolio, then it might actually cost you more in the long run.

Why do you need a commercial real estate marketing software in the first place?

An effective CRE-focused software can help elevate your commercial real estate marketing strategy and help automate the tedious and time-consuming manual processes that often weigh businesses down. This means you’ll spend less time on administrative back-and-forth tasks and more time growing your business.

If you’re currently using several marketing tools, it can also help you consolidate considerably, cutting down on overall inefficiencies, costs, and hassle.

Have Better Control Of Brand Consistency

One of the best parts of using marketing software is the scale and continuous consistency it brings to all of your materials.

The last thing you want is an ad hoc approach with your team producing inconsistent marketing assets, diluting your overall brand equity. A marketing software can help bring consistency to your entire portfolio featuring similar color schemes, fonts, photos, logos and match up with your company’s branding.

Centralize All of Your Data

Gone are the inefficient days of maintaining your data in multiple isolated islands. The advances in cloud-based technologies offer you the power and speed to quickly access property and contact data from anywhere at any time.

Besides centralizing all your admin information, a property marketing tool can help create public facing information hubs to store all your property data for tenants, leasing teams and property managers accessible by one single URL.

Automate Marketing Activities

Without a doubt, one of the most crucial benefits of a full-feature marketing software is the time it saves for your team. You can automate tedious marketing production activities (website updates, client reporting, flyer generation, etc.) and make sure all the moving pieces of your marketing operations are cohesively connected together.

Get Listings To Market Faster

It goes without saying, SPEED is essential when getting ready to list a property on the market. Do you hate creating static aerial maps?

Updating property listing data? Manually updating your company website? Then find yourself a solution that can help you build listing presentations quickly and efficiently, so you can focus your time on higher-value activities.

Access Multiple Tools From One Solution

Full-feature platforms, like SharpLaunch, solve many problems with a suite of commercial real estate marketing tools that are integrated together. This provides a true solution for commercial real estate firms that want to simplify and consolidate the number of tools they’re using. The added benefit of a fully integrated platform is that you only need to purchase, learn, and train your team on one platform vs. several disparate tools.

Gain Visibility To Key Metrics And Client Activity

Another major advantage of a marketing system is the wealth of data and insights it provides you so you can make better sales decisions. Data provided by a CRE marketing system can provide a bird’s eye view to help you analyze your properties and clients. It can surface insights about the sources bringing visitors to your property listings, who has executed your CA/NDA agreements, who has downloaded your documents and who has opened/clicked your emails, etc.

Conclusion

Good software should save you time and improve results. It should allow you to launch new campaigns faster, link resources together, and augment your existing marketing efforts. It should provide visibility into the impact of your efforts and which campaigns are most successful in driving new prospects to your website.

By asking the questions above and evaluating the key benefits that a marketing platform offers your company, you can be sure you get the very best solution for your needs.