What is a Multiple Listing Service?
Most residential and commercial agents need a source to help them look for space for sale. A multiple listing service, also referred to as the mls, is an online listing service where agents pay to post their listings. Depending on the rules of the particular mls, the listings may or may not be available to the public. Personally, I belong to Costar, which isn’t available to the public. However, they have a related company called Loop-net that is online and available to everyone. When looking for space for a prospect, I use Costar, Loop-net, and the local commercial mls. I also contact a friend in residential real estate and ask them to run a report on the residential mls. Lastly, I send an email out to all the commercial agents in town to see if they have any pocket listings. A pocket listing is a building the agent may not want everyone to know about.