What is a commercial real estate database?

A commercial real estate database is a structured collection of property and ownership data covering commercial buildings, designed to be searched, filtered, and exported. The defining characteristics:

• Property-level records for each commercial building, typically including address, parcel ID, square footage, year built, property type, lot size, and zoning

• Transaction history, including recorded sales, sale prices, deed dates, and parties to each transaction

• Ownership information, including the legal owner of record (often an LLC or trust) and, in the more sophisticated databases, the underlying decision-makers behind those entities

• Mortgage and lender data, showing financing history, lender identity, loan amounts, and maturity dates

• Market and demographic context at the MSA, county, or census-tract level

The best commercial real estate databases also link these records together, so a single query can return not just one property but the full portfolio of properties controlled by the same owner, or every recent transaction within a defined market.

The commercial real estate database category sits next to but is distinct from a few related categories: marketplaces (LoopNet, Crexi) where active listings are the focus; CRM and pipeline tools (HubSpot, Salesforce) where prospect tracking is the focus; and property management software (Yardi, AppFolio) where tenant and operations data is the focus. The lines blur at the edges, but the core job of a commercial real estate database is research and discovery, not transaction execution or tenant management.

What kinds of data live in a commercial real estate database?

Most CRE databases pull from a combination of public, private, and proprietary sources. Understanding which is which helps explain why two platforms looking at the same property can show different information.

Public data

The foundation layer for almost every CRE database. Pulled from county assessor and recorder offices, secretary of state filings, census data, and other government sources. Public data covers most of the basic property attributes (address, parcel, square footage, ownership of record) and is free at the source but expensive to aggregate, normalize, and keep current across thousands of jurisdictions.

Private partnership data

Layered on top of public records through commercial agreements. Examples include CoreLogic and Black Knight for nationwide property and transaction data, mortgage and title records from lender partnerships, and listing data from brokers and marketplaces. Private partnership data fills in gaps that public records miss, particularly around financing, sale prices in non-disclosure states, and off-market transactions.

Proprietary intelligence

Built on top of the data layers through machine learning and human curation. The clearest examples are entity resolution (resolving a chain of LLCs back to the actual human owner), contact verification (cross-referencing phone and email data against multiple sources), and predictive analytics (identifying buildings likely to transact based on owner behavior patterns). Proprietary intelligence is what separates a database from a data dump.

The most useful commercial real estate data sources are the ones that combine all three layers, then connect the records so a single search returns a coherent picture rather than disconnected facts.

The major commercial real estate databases in 2026

A few platforms anchor the category, each with different strengths. The right one for a given user depends on the job they're trying to do.

Reonomy

A property and ownership intelligence platform built for CRE professionals and commercial service providers, covering 54M+ commercial properties across all 50 states. Reonomy's core differentiation is the connected data layer: AI-powered entity resolution that surfaces the real decision-makers behind LLCs and shell entities, ranked by confidence; verified contact information for owners; and a portfolio view that links every property the same owner controls nationally.

Reonomy pulls from direct integrations with all 3,100 U.S. county assessors, exclusive partnerships with CoreLogic and Black Knight, Secretary of State filings, and census data. Property records, transaction history, mortgages, and ownership are all updated in real-time from primary sources.

Best for: brokers sourcing off-market deals, lenders evaluating borrowers, and commercial service providers (roofing, HVAC, solar, landscaping) building target lists where reaching the actual owner matters more than viewing active listings.

Try Reonomy free. Search 54M+ commercial properties, filter by property type and location, and reach the real owners directly. Request a free trial.

CoStar

The largest commercial real estate database by revenue, with deep coverage on leasing comps, institutional-grade markets, and tenant data. CoStar's strength is breadth, especially in core office and industrial markets, and the editorial layer (CoStar News, Market Analytics) that contextualizes the raw data. The trade-offs are price (CoStar is significantly more expensive than alternatives) and coverage gaps in smaller markets and sub-institutional deals.

Best for: institutional brokers, capital markets professionals, and large CRE firms doing leasing comps, market research, and large-deal underwriting.

LoopNet and Crexi

Primarily marketplaces for active listings rather than research databases, but both have built out database functionality on top of their listing inventory. They're useful for seeing what's currently for sale or lease in a market, and Crexi in particular has aggressive auction and transaction-data offerings. Coverage is limited to properties that were originally listed on the platform, which excludes most off-market and private transactions.

Best for: brokers and investors who want to see what's actively on the market, plus a partial view of recent listing activity.

PropertyShark (Yardi)

Strong coverage in major metros, especially New York City, with a usable comparables tool and clean property profiles. Coverage outside top markets is thinner. PropertyShark is part of the Yardi family, which gives it integration paths into Yardi's broader property management suite.

Best for: users in major metros who need detailed building-level data and comps, and Yardi customers looking for a tightly integrated research layer.

PropStream

Popular with smaller investors and wholesalers. Tilts more toward residential investing, with commercial as a secondary focus. The lead-list and skip-tracing features are the main draw.

Best for: smaller-scale investors and wholesalers, particularly those whose deal flow mixes residential and small commercial.

Real Capital Analytics (MSCI)

Institutional transaction data with a $2.5M+ deal-size minimum, designed for capital-markets analysis rather than pipeline prospecting. Strong on sales velocity, cap rates, and capital flows at the institutional level.

Best for: institutional investors, lenders, and capital markets analysts working with large deals.

CompStak

A leasing comps database powered by a contributor network of brokers and appraisers who exchange comps for access. Best in major markets with active broker networks.

Best for: leasing brokers, appraisers, and tenant reps doing lease comp research in major metros.

Trepp

Specialized in CMBS (commercial mortgage-backed securities) and structured-finance data. Different category from the other platforms here, but worth knowing about for any CRE professional working on the debt side.

Best for: lenders, debt analysts, and structured-finance professionals.

How to choose a commercial real estate database

The right database depends on the work you're trying to do. A practical decision framework:

A few things to evaluate beyond the brand name when choosing:

Coverage in your specific markets. A platform that's strong in NYC, LA, and Chicago may be thin in Charlotte, Indianapolis, or Phoenix. Test searches in your actual target markets before committing.

Data freshness. Ask how quickly new sales, mortgages, and ownership changes appear in the platform after they're recorded at the county level. Real-time integration with primary sources beats syndicated feeds that lag by weeks.

Ownership resolution depth. If your work depends on reaching the actual decision-maker rather than the LLC of record, the platform's entity-resolution capability matters more than total record count.

Contact data quality. A database that returns a phone number 80% of the time but the wrong number 30% of those is worse than one that returns a verified number 50% of the time. Ask how contact data is sourced and verified.

Workflow integration. Whether the platform integrates with your CRM, exports cleanly to a CSV, or has a usable API determines how much of the value gets captured in actual workflow versus stranded inside the tool.

Pricing model. Per-seat versus per-record versus enterprise license, and whether the pricing scales with team growth. The cheapest option upfront may not be the cheapest at scale.

Are there free commercial real estate databases?

There are free options for accessing commercial property data, but they require significantly more work. The main free sources:

• County assessor and recorder websites. Every U.S. county publishes property tax-roll and recorded-deed data online (with some lagging counties still requiring in-person requests). Free, authoritative, and one county at a time.

• State-level aggregators in a handful of states (Maryland's SDAT, Massachusetts's MassGIS, Connecticut's open data portal). Useful within those states but not a national solution.

• Public datasets. The U.S. Census Bureau publishes commercial demographic and economic data; the FFIEC and HMDA datasets cover lending activity; the SEC publishes commercial filings.

• Free tiers on commercial platforms. Most paid CRE databases offer some level of free trial, free search, or freemium access. These are useful for evaluation but rarely sufficient for ongoing work.

The trade-off with free options is consistent: time, coverage, and the absence of the connected data layer (entity resolution, verified contacts, portfolio views) that paid platforms provide. For one-off lookups, free public records are fine. For any kind of ongoing prospecting, comps, or market research workflow, the time cost of free options usually exceeds the cost of a paid platform.

For a deeper walkthrough of finding sold properties through public records specifically, see our guide to finding recently sold commercial properties.

How AI has changed commercial real estate databases since 2023

A few capabilities that were edge cases in 2023 are now table stakes in the leading commercial real estate databases:

Entity resolution. Tracing chains of LLCs, trusts, and shell entities back to the actual humans who own them used to require manual research through Secretary of State filings. AI-powered entity resolution now does this automatically, with confidence scoring on each match.

Real-time data integration. Direct API connections to county assessor and recorder systems mean new transactions appear in the database within hours of recording, rather than the weeks-long lag of older syndication models.

Predictive signals. Several platforms now surface buildings likely to transact within a defined window based on owner behavior patterns, mortgage maturity dates, and ownership tenure. This shifts CRE prospecting from purely reactive (find buildings that just sold) to forward-looking (find buildings that are about to sell).

Conversational search and LLM integration. Some platforms now support natural-language queries ("show me industrial buildings over 50,000 square feet in Phoenix that changed hands in the last six months") instead of structured filters. Adoption is uneven, but it's clearly the direction the category is moving.

What hasn't changed: public records are still the legal source of truth, county recorders are still indispensable for primary-document verification, and human judgment is still required to translate database output into actual deals. The technology has reduced the manual labor of CRE research, but it hasn't replaced the professional judgment that turns data into decisions.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best commercial real estate database?

There isn't a single best database for every job. CoStar is the largest by revenue and strongest on institutional leasing data; Reonomy is the strongest for owner intelligence and off-market prospecting; LoopNet and Crexi are the best for browsing active listings. The right choice depends on the work you're doing. The decision framework above maps jobs to platforms.

How much does a commercial real estate database cost?

Pricing ranges from a few hundred dollars per user per month for individual professional plans up to enterprise licenses in the six- and seven-figure range for the largest platforms. Most platforms quote based on team size, geographic coverage, and data volume rather than publishing rate cards.

What's the difference between a commercial real estate database and a CRE listings site?

A listings site (LoopNet, Crexi) shows properties that are currently being marketed for sale or lease. A commercial real estate database covers every commercial property, whether or not it's actively on the market, and includes ownership and transaction history regardless of listing status. Most CRE professionals use both, for different jobs.

Can a commercial real estate database show me who owns a property?

Yes, though the level of detail varies. All databases show the legal owner of record (which is often an LLC or trust). Platforms with entity-resolution capabilities resolve those structures back to the actual underlying owners, which is what most users actually want.

Are public commercial real estate records the same as a database?

No. Public records are the raw input layer that databases pull from. A database normalizes public records, combines them with other data sources, adds proprietary intelligence (entity resolution, contact data, analytics), and makes the result searchable. The raw public records are free; the database layer is what most professionals pay for.

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