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After reading, Where Real Estate Listings Fail, we thought we would address how this translates to the search for commercial space. You would think looking for commercial real estate to lease in Houston would be easy in this technology driven age (I mean I can find the best chinese food within a mile on my iPhone in seconds). This is not for lack of trying… there are hundreds of websites dedicated to listing properties, which include many attributes, including photos, descriptions, and prices. What consumers do not know is that online listings can be dangerous and counter-productive for a few reasons.

First, online listings are often old and the most common problem is that the information on current listings is not always updated. Listings for commercial real estate to lease in Houston are sometimes left online even after the properties are leased. This is called the good ole bait and switch–just to get your information in the door.

These commercial listings are frequently full of errors: some mistakenly say a property has ample parking when it does not or use puffery to build it up. Another great example are the photos as part of the listing. Have you ever found an apartment or house online, and then when you actually visited it you found that it didn’t have what was advertised?  You learned the hard way wide angles and photoshop can do wonders…

Don’t get us wrong, these listing services do provide online shoppers a convenient way to look for property and offer an advantage over how people searched for properties before the Internet. However, please keep in mind this is just one part of the search and is another part of the process which takes time and knowledge to do correctly.

How can a prospective tenant verify listings information they find online the most effective way?  With a tenant broker, of course, who knows the market and is up to speed on what space has been taken off the market and what’s still available. In addition, brokers may have pocket listings, which are not even available online.

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