Do you work with commercial real estate as well as residential? Follow this guide to see which software is better as we compare Reonomy vs CoStar.
Real estate is a huge industry with markets so different that sometimes one software solution isn’t enough to cover everything. So real estate agents and investors who work with both residential and commercial properties in the same area need different software to handle both. One platform just physically cannot have all the rental comps that are needed to make an informed decision on what property to invest in.
Join us on this review to see a comparison between the two largest platforms for commercial real estate, Reonomy vs CoStar. By the end, you will have a general idea of what you can expect from both, what’s the best choice for you, and what platform is best for residential real estate as well.
Table of Contents
Related: 7 Things You Need to Know About Commercial Real Estate
What is Commercial Real Estate Software?
It’s possible to find commercial real estate listings everywhere, even on Craigslist, but it’s not the best idea for a professional agent. Finding a property is the easy part, the hard part is finding the one that will produce a decent return on investment. Estimating how well will a property perform requires understanding not only the pricing in the market but multiple market conditions. Depending on what type of property you’re looking at, you need to understand what businesses are already in the area, how the job market is doing, as well as how large is the demand for commercial property in the area.
All of that is impossible in-house without a dedicated data analytics team, and that’s not a feasible option for the majority of real estate agencies. That’s why commercial real estate software exists. Both sides of the Reonomy vs CoStar comparison provide real estate comps for millions of commercial listings all over the US.
What’s more important, since the database is so huge, this software is not just a listing service that provides comps and cap rates. It can also show where real estate is being bought the most and how well are owners filling their spots with tenants. So if you’re wondering how to invest in real estate effectively, the answer is by investing in real estate software.
Reonomy vs CoStar Features Comparison
Both Reonomy and CoStar offer rather similar services, but each company has its best areas of application and benefits. Let’s look at features that Reonomy and CoStar feature, one by one.
Advanced Search
The first step of any real estate deal is finding the right commercial property for sale. It’s also the first area where we compare Reonomy vs CoStar.
Reonomy has a huge database of commercial real estate listings all over the United States. However, it seems to lack information on more rural listings, focusing on larger cities instead. Within city limits, this website is one of the best solutions for searching commercial properties, including off-market ones.
On the Reonomy website, you can filter properties by multiple factors like form of ownership, debt status, and sales period. You can also get creative with the interactive map and draw the boundaries where you want to search for property.
CoStar may not have the fancy drawing feature, but it does have a robust database of commercial listings. You can use the platform to both sell and purchase real estate, and the form for submitting a listing is pretty detail-heavy. You can expect to find several dozen data points on each property from type of construction to renovation date.
When discovering new properties, you can create a filter for most of these data points to find the perfect match.
Related: The Ultimate Investment Property Search Tool
Commercial Sales Comps
The main feature real estate agents and investors are looking for is real estate comps and supplemental data. It’s this information that can make or break the deal, serving as an indicator of the cap rate. Here’s how Reonomy vs CoStar compare against each other in this respect.
Reonomy provides reliable comparables on all of its properties, which is made possible by the company having a large database of listings. But that’s not all, Reonomy is pretty detail-heavy when it comes to their listing information. The company promises up to 100 data points on each property listed on the website.
CoStar is more reliable in this respect. It has records on 5 million commercial buildings for sale in the US and has been responsible for handling deals totaling $11 trillion. This gives CoStar a lot of data to analyze for real estate comps, and users have not been complaining about the quality.
For each property, you can access debt and loan information, any public information and deeds that are available, as well as detailed analytics of the commercial real estate market in the area. CoStar is king when it comes to comps and real estate analytics.
Customer Management System
Finding the right property is only a part of the deal. After you’ve narrowed your search down to several properties that you believe will provide a decent cap rate, you need to contact the sellers, talk to them, and make the final decision. Good commercial real estate software should help you to not only find but also to buy investment properties.
Reonomy’s web-based platform allows users to access owner data on every property. Most typically, it includes a couple of phones and emails that you can try to contact the seller at. However, some users report that not all email addresses are up to date and emails cannot be delivered. That’s most often seen with rural listings and isn’t that terrible within city limits.
CoStar easily dominates Reonomy in this area. It doesn’t just maintain a pretty correct database of seller contacts, but it also has a built-in CRM system for managing relationships with the clients. Not only can you find a property to sell, but you can also put it up for lease and find tenants on the site. This makes CoStar a good pick for real estate comps and an efficient commercial real estate ecosystem.
Pricing
Both of these companies charge rather high fees, and neither disclose them. Both Reonomy and CoStar do not charge a single fee for using the platform. Instead, you can choose the amount you pay by picking only the services you need.
Each user ends up paying a different monthly fee depending on their unique preferences and the markets they work with. Despite this, we can still look at estimated pricing and see how Reonomy vs CoStar compare.
Reonomy cost is the cheaper option with fees varying from $159 to $499 per month, depending on what data you need.
CoStar, on the other hand, is much more expensive when you look at the bigger picture, but you can still get a similar pricing range as its contender if you need access to a small pool of data. The pricing starts at around $200 and can be as high as several thousand dollars if you need access to nationwide data in multiple markets. However, if you are not a national real estate agency and only need access to data about a small submarket in a couple of counties, you can expect a smaller monthly fee.
Reonomy Pros and Cons
When it comes to commercial real estate software, there are no best options. Since both Reonomy and CoStar are highly customizable and focus on slightly different markets, both companies have their own audience. Let’s look at how Reonomy vs CoStar compare in terms of pros and cons.
Reonomy Pros
- Good source of real estate comps
- Covers all the US
- Up to 100 data points
- Good pricing
Overall, Reonomy is a decent platform, especially if you’re interested in sales within city limits. The best thing for investors and real estate agents and investors is that Reonomy is a much better platform in terms of price-to-quality ratio.
Reonomy Cons
- Inaccurate data on rural areas
- Inaccurate contact information
Reonomy has built a great system, but as many users point out, it lacks information on rural listings. That isn’t necessarily a problem as long as your needs lie in the big cities.
CoStar Pros and Cons
CoStar is a large company but it doesn’t mean it’s better in any respect. Here’s a shortlist of the company’s pros and cons.
CoStar Pros
- Superior real estate comps
- Over 4.9 million listings on the platform
- Data on all US submarkets
- The option to find tenants on the same platform
Overall, CoStar is much more robust in terms of the data it offers its clients, but not every real estate agent needs every bit of data they can get their hands on. Without the budget and the ability to analyze it, it’s just useless information.
CoStar Cons
The only drawback CoStar has is the pricing. With the high end of their services reaching several thousand dollars per month, it’s not that affordable for your average investor or agent. You can get a payment plan ranging from $200 to $500 per month, but it is going to be limited in terms of submarket and area covered.
Reonomy vs CoStar: Who Is It for?
Reonomy has a good database, even though it’s a bit flawed when it comes to rural areas, and its pricing is rather moderate when compared to its competitors. So even though CoStar is a bit better in terms of the quality of information it offers, Reonomy still has its uses and is popular among real estate agents. Reonomy is best for smaller real estate firms, and ones that focus on a smaller area, typically within cities. If your firm doesn’t have the budget to cover several thousand dollars in monthly fees and doesn’t need data on the whole state, this software is your best bet.
CoStar, meanwhile, is the pricier, more refined commercial real estate platform. It has terabytes of data on properties all over the US and leverages that to provide accurate comparatives. On top of that, you can use CoStar to both find an investment property and put it up for lease.
Naturally, that comes at a price, and the highest fees range in several thousand dollars. If you represent a large real estate company that has interests all over the US and operates the budget that allows you to afford the high fees, it’s the option that’s right for you.
Need a Residential Real Estate Solution? Try Mashvisor
Reonomy and CoStar are very robust real estate analytics companies, but their usage is limited to commercial properties. If you or the company you represent deals with both commercial and residential real estate, you will have to employ two software solutions.
Mashvisor is one of the best choices when it comes to residential real estate comps. Let’s take you through its main features.
Explore Properties
Mashvisor’s Property Finder lets you browse real estate in up to five cities with applied filters. This allows you to broaden your search in terms of territory covered and narrow it in terms of price and estimated cash-on-cash return.
Related: Rental Property Finder—A Revolutionary Tool for Investing in Real Estate
Mashvisor’s Property Finder lets the user narrow down their search to only see properties that fit their criteria.
Find Real Estate Comps
The next step after finding a couple of properties that fit your search criteria is looking up real estate comps. Mashvisor has access to a lot of sales data all over the United States and provides accurate comparatives on listings. You can see statistics on both Airbnb and traditional rentals because Mashvisor gathers Airbnb data to estimate occupancy rate and median rental price.
On every listing published on the Mashvisor platform, users can find a list of comparable listings similar to the property that they are looking at, which will help with their market analysis.
Close the Sale
On top of providing a large database of listings and rental comps, Mashvisor also has a database of seller contacts. This allows real estate agents and investors to contact sellers directly from Mashvisor and receive all the details needed to close the sale. The website also has a platform that allows handling all client communications in-house, making it simpler for the real estate agents.
Reonomy vs CoStar: Wrap Up
Both companies have their pros and cons and fit slightly different types of users. Reonomy is best suited for smaller investors with a limited area of coverage, preferably within large cities. Meanwhile, CoStar is best for institutional investors with interests that span across the US and a large budget.
Whatever your choice is for commercial real estate software, you can always complement it with Mashvisor for searching for residential rentals. Sign up for a 7-day free trial of Mashvisor now, followed by 15% off for life.