Commercial real estate professionals have basically two goals — find more clients and close more sales. In commercial property, though, finding the current owners of commercial property can be challenging. Commercial property owners are often sought after and as a result, in many cases, choose to keep their contact information private.
But a vast part of doing business in commercial real estate relies on being able to identify building owners — and contact them.
In addition to private contact information, the information typically available for commercial property owners isn’t just tough to find, it’s tough to verify — especially if you’re trying to build a building owners list.
Plus, commercial properties have a tendency to change hands frequently, so:
- Finding owner information
- Verifying the information is correct
- Compiling the information into a list
- Repeating the above in a scalable fashion
- Contacting the owner before your information is outdated
…is quite a job.
Using ProspectNow can keep you up to date.
Who Owns the Commercial Property?
If you sell or lease commercial property, you build your business on solid relationships with commercial property owners. You can find the title for commercial properties at a local county clerk’s office. Depending on where you specialize, this type of record might be all you need to build an owner’s list.
But if you want to ensure you have “true ownership” info, public sources might not be enough. Public records don’t always provide owner information such as actual full name, current phone number, or email addresses. And in some cases, a property owner may title their commercial properties in a business name. The ability to uncover the owner behind the veil of corporate is tremendously valuable. Fortunately, more and more online services offer the chance to find it.
Who Needs CRE Property Owner Information?
Well, there are a lot of reasons you might want this information. If you’re a commercial property investor, knowing who currently owns a property is helpful. If you know who the owner is and you know approximately how much debt the property holds, you can compare that figure to what similar CRE properties are worth. If your math reveals that an owner is barely treading water with their mortgage, that owner might be looking to sell.
On the other hand, property owner records can shed light on patterns of unusual property sales. Properties that have had multiple owners in a relatively short timeframe could signal problems — with the building, with its tenants, with customers, or lack thereof.
On the other hand, it could also mean that the property simply hasn’t found the right owner yet, who knows how to handle typical CRE property issues.
If you’re a debt broker, having ownership information is quite valuable. If you’re already adept at searching through public records, you can discover how much debt a property holds and the debt’s terms, such as:
- Interest rate
- Maturation date
- Balloon payment(s) date(s)
Having this info helps debt brokers put together a list of potential properties that might be ready to refinance their current CRE mortgage.
Finally, service providers can also find value in knowing accurate CRE property owner info. Cable and internet providers, roofers, solar salespeople, and other professional services providers can use ProspectNow to filter and sort CRE property info and reach out to owners about services depending on what’s needed, the type of building, and how large or small it is.
The Old Way to Find Commercial Property Ownership Information
As mentioned above, there are different ways you can uncover owner information. Some of the most comprehensive information to help locate commercial property owners can be found in county records searches or through a ProspectNow search. As you’ll see, your long-term success relies on your ability to put together your own database of owner info — after all, you’ve worked hard to compile it.
County Clerk or Tax Assessor Records
This is an easy way — and usually free of charge — to locate commercial property owners. A tax assessor’s website normally has a feature allowing you to search through their records by parcel numbers or addresses. If you already know the property owner’s name, you might even be able to locate all the properties associated with that owner. Keep in mind, however, that their database only shows the properties for that specific area, such as the county or region they cover. True ownership data isn’t available on these types of sites, and while they’re a good start, it can amount to a lot of wasted time with nothing to show.
How To Actually Find Owners of Commercial Properties
Honestly, trying to find commercial property owners using free or next-to-free options like county assessors and tax records isn’t always the most reliable method. For instance, you might be able to snag a deed. This shows you who currently owns the building and who the current owner bought it from — the problem is that in most cases, both of the “owners” will be a Limited Liability Company (LLC). So, you’re still in the same spot — without the information you need.
ProspectNow Commercial Property Owners Information
With ProspectNow, though, you get access to all the property owner information you want in just a few mouse clicks. You can sort the information according to such filters as:
- Location
- Address
- Tenants
- Asset types
- Sales history
- Debts
- Lot size
- Age of building(s)
…and more.
Let’s take a look at the information you can obtain.
CRE property owners by location address
You can vary the granularity of your commercial listings search with just a city and state, a neighborhood, or the actual address.
CRE property owners by asset
You can even narrow your property owner search by asset type. Looking only for owners of industrial properties? Vacant lots? Add this to your filters and get into further detail as you narrow the results. You can hone in on specific markets or assets using location filters paired with filters for asset type.
CRE property owners by building characteristics or lot size
If you’re only looking for owners of multifamily apartment complexes in Los Angeles or Class A commercial office space in New York, after you filter for property types, narrow your results using building or lot characteristics.
Then, further narrow your search with the lot or building square footage, age of the property, degree of renovations done or needed, and more.
CRE property owners by sales
Sometimes, both commercial and residential properties might be off-market but could be likely sellers. ProspectNow’s Likely Seller algorithm helps pinpoint these properties in just a few clicks.
If your commercial real estate brokerage is looking specifically for properties that aren’t on the market, it’s likely you want to know the sales history of the property. For commercial buildings, it can mean a real deal — or no deal.
Use our filters to look for buildings that, when sold, weren’t on the market for long. Or you can look for properties that sold for a certain price, within a specific timeframe, or for businesses with a certain cash flow. Using a combination of filters, you can find commercial landowners who’ve had their property for many years or who just recently made their purchase — it’s really up to you.
CRE property owners by debts
As mentioned above, debt brokers have a reason to scour for CRE owner info, too. ProspectNow offers a debt history filter so you can search just for the properties that have the debt history you’re looking for.
For instance, you can view:
- Mortgage amount
- Cap rate
- Date of origination
- Current tenant lease types, such as Triple Net, or NNN
- Comps
- Maturation date
- Lender information
No matter what you’re looking for, you can find it using ProspectNow. Need to find a specific type of owner or property? Use our sort and filter functions to receive a list of results, then click any result to see details about that property, such as building specifications, whether it’s a multifamily property, shopping center, other retail space, storage facility, or office building, and, most importantly, current owner information. Click on the Owner tab and you’ll see who owns it, whether it’s an individual or an LLC.
Build Your CRE Building Owners List with ProspectNow
ProspectNow has been providing this information since 2008. The service was founded because “true ownership” information isn’t always everything you need to know — and it isn’t easy to find. ProspectNow’s focus is property data — all of it. The service even has predictive analytics built in to help agents, brokers, mortgage professionals, lending institutions, and even the average person discover properties that might go up for sale. And ProspectNow doesn’t just have commercial property information — they offer information for residential markets, as well.
If you want to build the best owner list possible, start prospecting with ProspectNow.