With all the upheaval and uncertainty rippling through the CCIM circles, it seems the leadership decided to go with Loopnet’s Looplink service. While not as user-friendly or well-appointed, it’s better than nothing. In my opinion, the Catylist service was more sophisticated, more useful and more forward thinking but it seems none of those can compete with being a well-run business with a million eye-balls looking at you everyday.

LOOP

And while I believe Catylist is the better platform and would whip Loopnet in a head-to-head comparison, it just doesn’t have the traffic or established network to be running with THE Big Dog of commercial real estate listings. In a Fool.com recommendation a couple months ago, I picked up a few shares of Loopnet based on this analysis. It’s given back a 32% return since then so I’m happy.

I’m hoping for CCIM’s sake they don’t simply run with the Looplink just because it’s there, but negotiate for some added features such as listing breakdowns by type and agent for each office. It’s just a database people, it should take them a month to roll something beta out and then roll out the tested version 30 days after that.