ShareIn order to provide commercial real estate information services, the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) recently announced Xceligent as a new REALTOR Benefits® Partner. As part of Xceligent’s expansion into providing a national public marketing platform for commercial real estate listings, Xceligent purchased ePropertyData from Second Century Ventures, the strategic investment arm of NAR. As part of the REALTOR Benefits® Program, Xceligent will be the exclusive provider of commercial real estate information services with preferred pricing for REALTORS®. Pricing is also guaranteed to be lower than Xceligent’s competitors. The national public marketing platform will launch in early fall 2012 at CommercialSearch.com. We have included answers to some frequently asked questions below.
For the most up-to-date information, visit www.nar.realtor/commercial or NAR Commercial’s blog at http://blog.commercialsource.com.
Q: How will NAR members benefit from the partnership created between Xceligent and NAR’s REALTOR Benefits® Program?
Answer: Xceligent operates fully researched databases in more than 30 US markets and offers professionals proactively researched information on all properties, listings, tenants, lease and sales transactions, market analytics, historical trends and demographics. Xceligent is the only multi-market, fully researched competitor to CoStar in each of those cities. The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) recent Consent Decree regarding the CoStar and LoopNet merger provided a number of specific conditions in order to create competition in this marketplace. Xceligent in partnership with NAR presented a plan to the FTC that would allow for the quick expansion required to compete with CoStar and LoopNet. This expansion plan included finding a funding partner, dmg :: information (dmgi) with a 15 year history of investing and growing real estate information companies and Xceligent acquiring ePropertyData. The objective is to create a global trading platform for commercial real estate information and REALTORS® would receive preferred pricing on those products.
Q: What happens to CommercialSource.com?
Answer:. Commercial real estate property listings on CommercialSource.com along with their individual account holders will be transferred to the new national public marketing site, CommercialSearch.com. Individual account holders will be prompted to visit CommercialSearch.com when it goes live and will be able to claim their free account on CommercialSearch.com. If your listings are on CommercialSource.com today via a feed from your firm, Multiple Listing Service (MLS) or Commercial Information Exchange (CIE), those listings will also transfer to CommercialSearch.com. Firms, MLSs and CIEs with CommercialSource.com data content provider agreements are being contacted about those feed transfers.
Q: How much will it cost to post my listings on CommercialSearch.com?
Answer:. There will be no cost to post listings with a Basic account on CommercialSearch.com. Basic listings will be searchable by brokers only. A Premium account will also be available and for REALTORS® the Premium listing exposure will be free for the first 18 months. Beginning January 1, 2014, REALTORS® will receive significantly discounted pricing on the Premium Access to CommercialSearch.com.
Q: How will CommercialSearch.com be able to compete with LoopNet?
Answer:. The system will have over 400,000 listings in the beginning. The content will be expanded proactively by Xceligent’s research teams who are consistently creating new data relationships with listing companies rather than waiting for the industry to load their own data. This will accelerate the content creation and adoption of the site.
Q: How will Xceligent compete with CoStar?
Answer:. Xceligent’s national drive team has already begun physically inspecting each commercial building in every major US market to create the matching footprint to CoStar’s research system. Over the last 14 years, Xceligent has been perfecting their research process and now collect over 150 fields of information per property including an original photograph prior to that market’s launch.
Q: When will Xceligent reach my market?
Answer:. Xceligent will launch approximately 10 to 12 major US markets per year until they have completed coverage of the top 65 metro areas in the first 36 months. They will accelerate in the fourth year to complete 90 metro areas by the 48th month. The research process requires a great deal of planning (working around weather patterns, etc.) to guarantee the best data for each market. For more information on the Xceligent market launch schedule, we recommend you contact NAR Commercial at (800) 874-6500 or email membersupport@REALTORS.org.
Q: What if my market area isn’t considered a ‘major market’?
Answer: Markets that do not meet the threshold for a research solution in the original roll-out period with a coordinated interest in a member loaded Commercial Information Exchange (CIE) solution should contact Xceligent to discuss their CIE options.