Advertise Online

In the online age, advertising has largely turned to the Internet, and nowhere is that more true than for property. Whether commercial or residential, the first place most people look when they’re considering renting or buying a property is to the World Wide Web.

Todd Tilzer, senior vice president for RocProperties LLC is an advocate for the benefits of advertising space online to get his properties seen by other brokers. “It’s a great way to get passive marketing done,” says Tilzer, who uses sites such as OfficeSpace.com, LoopNet.com, DMCAR.com (Denver Metro Commercial Association of Realtors) and CoStar.com to advertise and search for commercial properties.

Although smaller tenants (700 sq ft or less) might use Craigslist or Backpage, most of the bigger fish go to professional sites. “Pretty much every broker in the city [of Denver] uses CoStar or LoopNet or DMCAR or any of the above,” he explains. “It allows me the opportunity to get in front of all those people when they do radius searches for spaces. When people are looking for office space, they are looking in an area, just like they do with housing.”

OfficeSpace is a free, national service. “It’s not just for brokers,” says Tilzer. “We list all of our open vacancies for how much space there is, how the suites are set up. We put plans in there, maps to where the properties are, base rates and that kind of thing so that people know going in what they’re looking at.”

LoopNet is also a free, national service. “You can pay more for better response, better coverage, but it’s free to start,” Tilzer explains. DMCAR.com only advertises locally and charges a per-user fee, but that fee is included in membership fees to the organization. “And if you’re a commercial realtor in the Denver area, you belong to DMCAR,” he explains.

But the site that Tilzer favors is CoStar.com. “CoStar tends to get the best response,” he says. “It seems to be used industry-wide. People start looking there.”

Tim Trainor, director of communications for CoStar, explains what commercial brokers can gain from using his site. “Although based online, our service is much more than simply a ‘Web site,’” says Trainor. “We provide a subscription based online information service that is backed by a research service that maintains and updates the data and keeps it continuously up to date.”

“We have a database of all the listings. It’s more a census approach where we physically contact and count and measure and update every building in every market,” he continues. “It’s not just the address and a phone number. It’s the class, the zoning, the available space, asking rent, recent sales that have happened, who’s owned it in the past.”

In addition, CoStar provides specialized advertising. “We don’t just have random images or ads appearing as you click through,” Trainor says. “We have a smart advertising, where, based on the property type they’re looking for, we’ll serve up an ad for a property that matches that person’s search criteria. It’s a little twist to the usual all-things-to-all-people.”

Unlike other sites, brokers do not have to pay to list their buildings with CoStar, but they do have to pay subscription fees in order to be able to search.

As useful as online advertising for your commercial properties may be, though, Tilzer says it still can’t completely replace the personal touch. “You don’t get a feel for the actual building or someone actually being able to sell the space in a site,” he says.