LoopNet vs CoStar — Two Products, One Company, Different Buyers

People compare these as rivals; they’re actually one company’s storefront and back office. Knowing which is which saves either money or blindness — depending on which mistake you were about to make with your NNN search.

What each product is

LoopNet is the public marketplace: free browsing, paid placement for sellers, the biggest brand in commercial listings. CoStar is the subscription research platform underneath — comps, ownership records, tenant data, analytics — priced for professionals at five figures a year and sold by seat. CoStar bought LoopNet in 2012; since then the marketplace advertises and the database informs.

What investors actually need

For an individual buying one to three net lease assets, CoStar’s subscription rarely pencils — you need its outputs (sale comps, ownership history, market rents), not its login. Those outputs reach you three ways: through a broker who carries the subscription, through appraisals, and through the deal-specific comp work any competent buyer’s representative runs before you offer. Institutions and full-time investors do the math differently.

The blind spot both share

CoStar records what happened and LoopNet shows what’s advertised — neither surfaces what’s circulating right now among buyer lists and developer pipelines. Data platforms lag the tape; marketplaces show the tape’s leftovers. The market’s front edge remains stubbornly human, which is inconvenient for software and convenient for buyers whose representation lives there. See also: LoopNet vs Crexi for the marketplace-vs-marketplace version of this question.