What to Put in a Commercial Property Listing
A checklist for a commercial listing that gets inquiries: the headline, photos, summary, highlights, price or rate, building facts, and documents.
Updated
A commercial property listing that gets inquiries has seven parts: a headline that says what the property is and where, good photos, a short summary of who it suits, three to five highlights, a price or lease rate, the building facts buyers filter on, and the documents they would otherwise have to ask for. Buyers and tenants skim many listings and contact few, so every part should answer a question before they need to ask it. Here is what to put in each one.
The headline
The headline is what shows in search results. Say what the property is, its size, and where it is:
- "12,000 SF Warehouse with 4 Dock Doors in Commerce City"
- "Corner Retail Pad with Drive-Thru, Colorado Springs"
- "Class B Office Building, Fully Leased, Downtown Boise"
Leave out words that every listing uses, like "great opportunity" or "must see." They take up room without telling a buyer anything.
Photos
Photos are the first thing people look at, and the main reason they keep reading or move on. Aim for:
- The outside, from the street and from the angle that shows the property best.
- The inside, empty and well lit.
- The features buyers ask about: the docks, the storefront, the parking, the lobby.
- A map or aerial view if location is the main selling point.
Take them in daylight, hold the camera level, and remove clutter first. On SPACEXPLORATION there is no limit on the number of photos, and each photo passes an automatic content check before it goes public.
The summary
Two or three short paragraphs: what the property is, what condition it is in, who it suits, and what makes it different from the building down the street. Write it for the buyer or tenant, not for other brokers.
On SPACEXPLORATION, the summary needs at least 80 characters to publish. If you leave the headline or summary blank when you publish, SPACEXPLORATION writes one for you, and anything you wrote yourself is never overwritten.
Highlights
Highlights are the short facts a reader takes in at a glance. Use three to five, and make each one specific:
- "Signalized corner with 28,000 cars a day"
- "New roof and HVAC in 2024"
- "Zoned for light industrial and outdoor storage"
A SPACEXPLORATION listing needs at least three to publish.
Price or rate
A price lets buyers and tenants tell at a glance whether the property fits, so the people who call are ready to talk.
- For sale: the asking price, or "price upon request." For an income property, add the cap rate and net operating income.
- For lease: each available suite with its size and rate, and the lease type (NNN, modified gross, full service gross, or gross), since the same rate means different things under each. The rate can be "on request" too.
Building facts
Buyers filter searches by facts. If a fact is missing, the property drops out of every search that uses it. Fill in everything you know:
- Every property: building size, lot size, year built, parking, and zoning.
- Industrial: clear height, dock and drive-in doors, power, and sprinklers.
- Retail: frontage, traffic count, drive-thru, signage rights, and whether it is a corner or end-cap unit.
- Office: building class, layout, elevators, and whether the space is move-in ready.
- Land: topography, utilities at the site, road frontage, and entitlement status.
Your SPACEXPLORATION listing page adds public data about the building on its own, such as the flood zone, natural hazard risk, environmental records nearby, and demographics of the area. Those come from public sources, not from you, so buyers can weigh them alongside what you wrote.
Documents
Attach the PDFs a serious buyer would ask for: the offering memorandum or flyer, floor plan, site plan, and survey, and for an income property the rent roll and financials. On SPACEXPLORATION each document can be up to 50 MB, shows on the listing page with a title and a short summary, and opens without signing up.
Your contact details
A listing should make it easy to reach you. On SPACEXPLORATION your name and verified phone number appear on the listing's contact card, and every inquiry arrives in your email with the buyer's name, email, phone if they gave one, and message.
Put it together
Start with a flyer or offering memorandum if you have one: upload the PDF and the built-in assistant drafts the listing from it, ready for you to check and add to. Start your listing now; it costs nothing to list. For a property type with its own checklist, see How to list a warehouse for sale or lease.