The 5 Best Apps For Commercial Real Estate

More and more real estate investors are ditching old-school tools like pagers and yellow books in favor of cutting-edge commercial real estate apps. It’s a shift that’s hard to fault, given that these apps bring remarkable communication, marketing, and lead management improvements.

You're in excellent company if you’ve also contemplated transitioning to this tech-driven era. In this article, we’ll review the best apps for commercial real estate, covering what they’re best for, their pros, and cons.

• What Are Commercial Real Estate Apps?
• 4 Types Of Apps For Your Commercial Real Estate Business
• Five Best Commercial Real Estate Apps
• Loopnet: Best Commercial Real Estate App For Listings
• Co-star: Best App For Market Analysis
• Procore: Best App For CRE Construction
• Visual Lease: Best App For Lease Management
• DealCheck: Best Real Estate App For Property Analysis
• Final Thoughts: Which CRE App Is Best For You

What Are Commercial Real Estate Apps?

Commercial real estate apps are software programs designed for real estate professionals and investors involved in commercial real estate transactions and asset management.

These apps cater to various aspects of commercial real estate investing and feature tools that facilitate and simplify processes like property research, analysis, marketing, and overall commercial property management.

Read Also: How To Invest In Commercial Real Estate: A Beginner's Guide

4 Types Of Apps For Your Commercial Real Estate Business

As noted, there are apps for nearly every aspect of real estate investing. They often fall under the following four categories:

• Property search and listing apps: Commercial real estate apps under this category are primarily designed to help real estate professionals find suitable commercial investment properties. Some showcase property listings in particular regions, while others only feature specific property types. Property listing apps also often feature a search function and include filters like location, property type, size, and price, allowing users to easily narrow searches.
• Customer relationship management (CRM) apps: CRM commercial real estate apps enable real estate professionals to manage their interactions with clients, leads, and prospects in the real estate business. They allow users to store and organize lead information such as contact details and communication history.
• Administrative apps: These apps help commercial real estate professionals manage and organize day-to-day tasks, thus streamlining everyday operations. They offer document storage and management features, allowing users to upload, scan, sign, and share important documents such as contracts, leases, property listings, and financial reports. Others include maintenance, financial management, and performance monitoring, allowing users to automate and simplify otherwise repetitive real estate operations.
• Property Analysis and Investment Apps: These apps for commercial real estate are designed to help real estate investors and professionals analyze the financial viability of commercial properties. They feature tools like calculators and property analyzers, allowing users to evaluate the profitability potential of investment properties before they commit to any investment.

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Five Best Commercial Real Estate Apps

Now that you know what they are and the various types available, check out five of the best commercial real estate apps in the market and what they’re best for:

1. Loopnet: Best Commercial Real Estate App for Listings
2. CoStar: Best App for Market Analytics
3. Procore: Best App for CRE Construction
4. Visual Lease: Best App for Lease Management
5. DealCheck: Best App for Property Analysis

Loopnet: Best Commercial Real Estate App For Listings

Are you looking for your next investment property? Loopnet is the best commercial real estate app for listings. Available as a website and a mobile app, Loopnet boasts a database of over 800,000 commercial real estate properties for sale, lease, and auction.

Moreover, each listing includes detailed data, including property address and key details such as floor plans, square footage and photos, owner details, listing broker, and tax and mortgage history. With this data, assessing a property's investment potential becomes remarkably more straightforward.

Beyond the extensive, comprehensive listings, Loopnet streamlines the search for your next investment property by providing a wide range of filters. These filters allow you to refine your search based on property type, square footage, build year, monthly lease rates, and pricing. If you only invest in specific property types, Loopnet offers the convenience of saving your search criteria, eliminating the need to set filters for subsequent searches repeatedly. Additionally, you can save and share listings directly through the app.

Once you’ve found and invested in a property, Loopnet even facilitates listing it for sale again. And thanks to its extensive user base, connecting with potential buyers should be seamless. In a nutshell, Loopnet enhances your ability to discover, evaluate, and secure your next real estate investment.

Loopnet Pros

• A vast, free commercial real estate listings database
• Features data-packed listings
• Diverse filters to simplify your search
• Users can save searches
• You may also list your property for sale
• Boasts cross-platform capabilities
• The app is free
• Specifically designed for commercial real estate

Cons

• It’s primarily a property listing app-no other tools
• Lacks a realtor directory

CoStar: Best App For Market Analysis

Real estate investors must stay well-informed about market dynamics because they directly impact investment profitability. So, is there an app for commercial real estate markets? CoStar is the most renowned option.

CoStar offers meticulously researched and verified commercial real estate market data, updated daily by its team of over 1,600 research professionals.

This wealth of data empowers real estate investors with deep insights into market trends, pricing dynamics, and demand, enabling them to make informed and strategic decisions. For instance, with info on market demand, a realtor or investor can seize investment opportunities when demand is low and optimize their sales during high-demand phases to maximize profitability.

Moreover, CoStar’s extensive market data enable users to mitigate risks, accurately price investment properties, and readily adapt to evolving market conditions.

Beyond its market data capabilities, the CoStar app for commercial real estate also features an expansive property listing database comprising over 5.2 million commercial properties across the US, UK, and Canada. It also offers an array of user-friendly filters to streamline property searches and access to property comps for comprehensive analysis.

Pros

• Vast, verified market data
• It also features an extensive commercial property listing database
• It can be used in the US, UK, and Canada
• Wide range of filters that streamline property search
• Includes market comps

CoStar Cons

• Might be a bit tricky to use for new users
• Some users report outdated property owner contacts and listings

Procore: Best App For CRE Construction

Managing construction projects can be a headache, but Procore simplifies things. It’s a construction management software designed for project owners, contractors, and subcontractors. This real estate platform features project management, quality & safety control, and financial management tools, allowing real estate companies to control construction projects seamlessly and even remotely.

Procore’s project management tools centralize construction project correspondence, ensuring that everyone involved, from the field workers to stakeholders, is in the loop on what’s happening. On the other hand, the quality and safety feature allows field teams to log daily field data, enabling managers and stakeholders to identify and mitigate potential risks while tracking improvement opportunities.

Procore financial management suite enables project managers to easily log, sync, and share cost and budget data with construction project owners and stakeholders. This not only keeps everyone on tabs on the costs of a construction project, but it also streamlines payment processes. Procore’s financial management tools also enable project managers to document the financial impact of construction projects and scope changes, thus easily identifying cost-saving opportunities.

Pros

• Designed for project owners, contractors, and subcontractors
• Centralizes communication and financial management, promoting transparency in construction projects
• Eases financial management, allowing project owners to identify cost-saving opportunities
• Promotes seamless collaboration between field workers, project managers, and project owners

Cons

• Poses a steep learning curve
• Users reported unwanted notifications

Visual Lease: Best App For Lease Management

Do you deal with commercial leasing projects? Visual Lease is one of the best commercial real estate apps for you.

This web-based platform serves as a centralized hub where you can organize financial, operational, and legal lease data, thus simplifying the complexities of lease project management.

Visual Lease also offers the Lease Accounting Solution Transition (LAST) planner, a tool designed to facilitate lease accounting and ensure adherence to critical modules such as the FASB ASC 842, GASB 87 & 96, and IASB IFRS 16. By doing so, Visual Lease keeps users on the right side of the law and simplifies compliance, making it one of the most invaluable commercial property apps for commercial leasing professionals.

Pros

• User-friendly interface
• Simplifies lease portfolio management
• Streamlines lease compliance with key modules
• Eases lease accounting

Cons

• Setting up Ad Hoc reports can prove tricky
• Navigating dates can be a little tricky depending on the country you’re using it from

DealCheck: Best Real Estate App For Property Analysis

DealCheck is a property analysis software that caters to all real estate professionals looking to improve their real estate investing game. Established in 2015, this platform gets the hard work out of deal analysis with its property analysis tool. The tool uses intelligent algorithms to analyze key investment parameters such as listing price and rehab costs. Subsequently, it generates metrics such as cash flow and cap rate, allowing you to assess a property’s profitability in advance.

DealCheck also has a property comparison tool that facilitates side-by-side comparison, aiding in identifying real estate deals that promise the most bang for your buck. The platform even has an offer calculator to help you pinpoint the optimal price you should offer for an investment property for maximum profits.

Moreover, it’s highly versatile, accommodating analysis for all types of investment properties, from rental property, wholesale deals, and multifamily homes to Airbnb and vacation rentals.

In addition, DealCheck has a property report-generating tool, a lender directory, a portfolio management feature, and a financial analysis tool. Additionally, it extends functionality to a mobile app compatible with Android and IoS devices. 

DealCheck Pros

• Highly efficient property analysis tool
• Accommodates analysis for a wide range of properties
• It has a mobile app
• Supports portfolio management and professional-grade investment report generation
• Offers a free version
• Boasts cloud-based capabilities

Cons

• A steep learning curve for beginners
• Has limited integrations
• It’s more suited for USA-based investors

Final Thoughts: Which CRE App Is Best For You

Are you still wondering which CRE app is best for you? To thrive in this dynamic industry, you should consider using a combination of the best commercial real estate apps.

The key to leveraging what these commercial property apps offer is understanding their unique features and where they best fit in your daily operations. Also, note marketing in CRE can be expensive.

Sign up for our Real Estate Skills Training course to learn how to invest wisely without heavy marketing expenses. Your journey to real estate success begins here.