The Difference Between Costar and LoopNet

If you are looking to find office space on your own, it is important to understand how the tools work and their limitations.

The primary listing service that the brokers use is called Costar. There is no cost to the landlords or their agents to list their available spaces. Costar is the main vehicle for anyone with space to lease to post their availabilities along with pictures, floor plans, videos, descriptions, etc., to the entire brokerage community. Costar contains 90-95% percent of all available commercial space. However, to access Costar, one must have a subscription. The subscriptions are costly, running into the thousands per year per user, so only the firms dedicated to commercial real estate brokerage pay for the subscription.
➡️ For insights into how brokers use tools like Costar to uncover opportunities, check out Should a Company Hire an Exclusive Broker?.

LoopNet is owned by the same parent company as Costar. However, LoopNet is the opposite of Costar. It is completely free to browse, but the landlords must pay to list their properties. Because of this model, most landlords elect not to list their properties knowing that most tenants are represented by a broker, so being listed on Costar is sufficient. Therefore, the end user can find some spaces on LoopNet and get a sense of market pricing but will not have close to full access to the market.
➡️ To understand why having full access to market listings matters, read How Long Does It Take to Find a New Office Space in New York City?.

There are other free listing services such as Commercial Café. Commercial Café is free to both browse and list. The issue with the service is there is a lack of internal infrastructure to oversee the listings, so the listings are incomplete.

If you are in the market for space and want to understand all your options, it is beneficial and highly recommended to engage a broker to conduct a thorough space search on your behalf and run the process in conjunction with you and/or your team.
➡️ For more on how brokers assist with comprehensive space searches, explore Blend and Extend.

I would be delighted to learn about your occupancy objectives and provide an overview of the market and how I would work with your company/organization to secure a new office space.

Paul Walker

212-984-7117

Paul.Walker@cbre.com