Which commercial real estate prospecting tools should a broker use, free and paid?

What free tools can a CRE broker prospect with?

County, state and public web sources cover most of the facts a broker needs, one lookup at a time. The county assessor gives ownership and parcel details, and the recorder gives deeds and the owning entity. The state Secretary of State registry shows who manages an LLC. Google Maps and Street View show which businesses occupy a street, and their signage.

For timing, job boards show who is hiring in your market, and state WARN notice lists show planned closures and mass layoffs. County permit portals show build-outs and expansions. For public companies, SEC EDGAR filings describe properties in Item 2 of the 10-K and material contracts in 8-Ks. Google Alerts on company names catches news. LinkedIn shows people and job changes.

The cost of free tools is time. Building a list of fifty businesses with the right person and a reason to contact each can take a working day or more by hand.

What do paid CRE data tools add?

Paid data tools add speed, coverage and history. CoStar brings building, tenant, lease expiration and comp data together for the US. Reonomy and Crexi Intelligence combine ownership, debt and owner contacts. ProspectNow, owned by Buildout, adds sell and refinance scores. CompStak provides detailed lease comps.

They save research time, but they are shared. Every subscriber sees the same expirations and the same owners, so the advantage comes from what you do with the data, not from having it.

Which tools find the right contact at a business?

Apollo, ZoomInfo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Hunter find contacts; the harder part is knowing which title to look for. For industrial occupiers, it is usually the VP of operations, the director of logistics or supply chain, or the plant manager. For office occupiers, the CFO, COO or head of workplace. For retail, the director of real estate or expansion. At a small business of any type, it is the owner.

Generic contact tools return the title you ask for; they do not know which one decides on space at a given company. Scayled returns the person who decides at each business it finds, and keeps every contact you reveal in your own Occupier Database so you do not pay for it twice.

Which tools work best for each outreach channel?

Email works best sent from your own inbox in small, personal batches. Sending high volume from a new domain through a sequencing tool is cheaper per message but risks your deliverability and reads like marketing. Phone works best after an email, with a specific reason to call. Direct mail still works for owners. Signboards and walking an industrial park remain the most direct way to meet local occupiers.

Whatever the channel, the message has to say why this property suits this business. Scayled drafts one email per business, referring to the property, for you to edit and send from your own inbox, and records what was sent.

How do you combine prospecting tools into a weekly routine?

A simple weekly routine is enough: one or two properties, a targeted list, personal emails, and follow-ups on a schedule. On Monday, pick the properties and build the list: the businesses around each one, plus businesses elsewhere that fit. Find the person who decides at each and send a short, specific email to each.

Follow up a few days later and again the following week, and call the ones who opened a conversation. Once a week, review which tracked businesses have shown a new sign, such as hiring or a contract win, and contact those first. Log everything in your CRM. Scayled covers the list, the decider, the drafts and the weekly tracking review in one place; a 3-day free trial with 4 scans is at scayled.com/start.

When is a done-for-you campaign better than buying tools?

A done-for-you campaign makes more sense than a tool when you have one property to fill and no time to learn or run CRE prospecting software. Scayled's The Campaign at scayled.com/campaign covers that one property for one payment, with no subscription: Scayled compiles the businesses most likely to lease or buy it, both nearby and market-wide, adds the decision-maker for each, marks the ones with signs of needing space, and drafts the emails.

Focused takes the strongest 100 to 150 businesses from US$449 in about 3 days, while Full takes 250 to 350 for US$749 in about 5 days. With We Send It For You (+US$299), the emails go out from one mailbox on your company email and replies land with you, so owners and landlords use it as well as brokers.