Costar or not?

[Ken B]

Hire an appraiser?

(Sorry Ken .. I like my answer better than yours since the poster is from the general public.)

A person who tries hunting for his dinner may decide it is easier to go to the supermarket. He may also have a greater appreciation for his butcher.

I should write a book. :laugh:

 

[CBBoston]

As others have pointed out CoStar data is often unreliable. Often CoStar is aided by their relationship with commercial brokers and functions as a national MLS of sorts. If you think the Comp Search is expensice you should see the cost of the broker service which gives you access to active listings. However, I find that Loopnet is even worse. Both are a great source of leads but you've still got to dig most of the detailed info out yourself. Some areas have a completely seperate local commercial MLS. I agree that today its almost a necessity to have CoStar despite its short comings.

 

[Vernon Martin]

I buy comps by the piece because of the various geographic areas I work in. I stopped using CoStar two years ago, because I had to pay a search fee each day I used them (deductible from the first comp bought), but then usually got a list of comps with no income data. I use LoopNet and RealQuest instead.

I like LoopNet because it's a fraction of the cost compared to CoStar and many of the comps have detailed info from the listing brokers, which can be more meaningful than the facts collected by the entry-level employees employed by CoStar. Brokers are more likely to state things like "traffic count -- 50,000 vehicles per day!" LoopNet is not completely accurate, but then, neither was CoStar.

 

[protax]

Once again, thank you all for replying, loopnet is ok, but the reason im looking into costar is of the fact that it provided the grade of the building, year built, cap rate, etc...the only thing that is actually holding me back from buying it is the price, it is too expensive.

 

[Michigan CG]

.... is of the fact that it provided the grade of the building, year built, cap rate, etc...

But is it accurate?

 

[Walter Kirk]

I worked for CoStar's commercial are Comps.com several years ago. All of our research was based on from the tax assessor. It would be much cheaper for you as well as more accurate for you to simply start with the rax assessor's list and do your own research.

 

[protax]

thanks, walter kirk, that's what ive been doing, too, and its working out ok, but i did some research and the tax assesor in my area use costar, and the big tax appeal companies like Marvin Poer, O'connor are all using Costar, so i thought there must be something to it, now Walter Kirk, i am a one-man band, would you still recommend it?

 

[Walter Kirk]

protax,
I can't figure what the assessor would use Costar for. When I worked for the company, before the commercial sales and lease services were combined, the company would get a list of all of the commercial sales for a time period from the assessor. We researchers would look up the deeds, visit the sites, try to gather information from the street, take pictures and move on. I don't think that we averaged more than an hour on each property including driving time.

The field researchers had a quota of over 40 properties per week and as increadable as it seems there was an average of 40 transactions each week no matter what market the researcher was covering.

The main office in VA would contact the buyers, sellers or brokers identified by the field researchers and get whatever information they could. The company would never let a field researcher see a finished report and I know that many sales were unconfirmed or inaccurate.

It seems to me that an average appraiser spending a bit more time could do a better more accurate job.

 

[PL1957]

protax,
I can't figure what the assessor would use Costar for.

TX is a non-disclosure state.