LoopNet Institution Thieves and Liars!
In the beginning LoopNet promised a well know group that LoopNet would support the group with free listing services if that organization provided listing (the basic inventory for LoppNet) to post on their website. After the organization became hooked LoopNet arbitrarily announced it was going to start charging the members of that group. The charge as I recall was $69.00 per quarter for a premium member.
A few years later that same offer was changed to $169 per quarter for unlimited use and posting of listing. Simultaneously LoopNet began a campaign of asking for closed sales data so that LoopNet could build a comparables data base. It cost a member $3 per comparable the last time I looked but they request information for free. Shortly thereafter the membership was raised to $269 per quarter for premiums members.
I called and questioned the price increase and the reductionist answer was we're LoopNet the biggest and the best and if you don't like it you don't have to use us This year the price was raised yet again to $469 per quarter plus $5 per quarter to be listed in the professional directory. Most recently I was billed $697 per quarter because LoopNet has now changed the pricing structure to one based on the number of premium listings per quarter. When I enquired as to why that happen I was told it was announced in a email to all membersan email that I was not provided or could even be directed to.
LoopNet restricts access to listing based on whether the listing is a premium listing or not and has an ala-carte approach to everything. The comparables mentioned above range in quality from completely worthless to laughable (none of the data is verified) when confronted with the poor quality the answer is usually that's not our problem we're not in the business of verifying data.
LoopNet has a history of deceptive and misleading business practices, arbitrary and capricious decision making especially when it comes to pricing and they are shameless in the manner in which they attempt to gather information and then resell the same data provided for free back to their members. The prevailing attitude at LoopNet is we are the biggest, the best, and essentially the only game in town it is my fervent wish that LoopNet is boycotted by the entire commercial investment real estate community.
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