Reis/CoStar alternatives?

I can't speak entirely to the accuracy, but Real Capital Analytics was used for transaction comps in my last office (Big4). I'm sure they have some free trials that would allow you some time to research their database and compare to REIS and/or your own database. Other than RCA we typically used CoStar, REIS, or LoopNet (for listings only).

Dang, these are seriously the only information sources (RCA and LoopNet don't really provide the market data we need)? Since we specialize in a certain geographic area I'm thinking of recommending that we just use our appraisals and obtain market data from the Chambers of Commerce or economic development authority.

From my experience they all serve different purposes. We have subscriptions to all 3 (Reis, CoStar, RCA) and use CoStar for property level information, Reis for economic data such market/submarket trends, and RCA for transaction information. There is no one stop shop for data. Depending on your needs, we also find Axiometrics to be valuable for apartment data. They are great for student housing.

Ultimately, it is a tough task for any company to maintain a completely accurate database. I always try to confirm as much as possible directly with a broker/owner/manager.

Google compstak.

for multifamily: Pierce-Eislen

Agreed that REIS is unreliable. Although I've never seen any real estate market data source that fact checks all of the time, CoStar does seem to use a much larger property sampling pool than REIS. The smaller the market the worst the data too....

We also rely mostly on RCA for transaction comps, CoStar for property level data. Reis is more of a fallback or we'll use it for multifamily. Sometimes the brokerage houses can provide useful data as well.

We use CoStar and REIS to come up with an initial judgment of a market, that's it. We pay for both, but frankly we never use REIS for commercial space, multi only. Pretty sure I saw that CoStar just launched a multifamily platform, and I wouldn't be surprised if we cut REIS out entirely at some point in the future.

If one of the larger brokerages that has their own research department (e.g. CBRE) is pitching a deal, they often provide their own analysis, which is nice to have just as a cross check.

Ultimately, once we're underwriting, we fall back on whatever the appraisal says, because that's what we'll have to use to sell the deal later.

Have you tried M&M? PM me if you are looking for something supermarket specific.

RCA does a great job for transactions. What type of RE data are you after? We use Axiometrics for multi family data and find it far superior to Reis or CoStar.

Legitimate information on pipelines; commercial/multifamily vacancy and rental rates (that I trust); legitimate, up-to-date information on sales records.

I have done some extensive research on this and I have found Axiometrics in Dallas to be very good for Multifamily. They update the rents every month which i found out that none of the others will do. REIS and COSTAR do it quarterly at best and I don't think that is often enough in Multifamily. I also like how they break out the entire unit mixes and don't have ranges or combined info. I recommend them for sure. I also have found RCA to be awesome for transaction data.

REscour offers more institutional sized multifamily listings, along with a geolocated news service. cuts down on the time spent researching areas and brushing up on whats going on around properties we own or are looking to invest in. they also offer 1 week trials. they're still in the startup stage so new data features are coming out every few months.

Best comps are local brokers who have up to the minute numbers where deals are trading at... I always got good intel from brokers on new leases and sales prices that couldn't be found anywhere else.