As of July 1st, New England Commercial Property Exchange (NECPE), a Commercial Information Exchange (CIE), switched their online commercial database hosting to Catylist. Similar to what residential brokers use to market their listings to other brokerages and to the public, Catylist is now one of the main national online commercial real estate databases used by commercial brokerages in N.H., Maine, Mass., and Vermont. Founded in 2002 and created in concert with several CCIM designees, Catylist currently hosts over 35 real estate associations nationwide.
New Hampshire CIBOR, the first State Overlay Board of Realtors created in the U.S., founded N.H. Commercial Property Exchange in 2000 to provide commercial brokers with an alternative to market their properties to other agencies and the general public. After acquiring the participation of Maine, Vermont, and parts of Mass., the name was changed to NECPE to reflect the different territories. Initially, the search engine ran through Commercial Search, Inc., but when it was bought out and dissolved several years ago, the search engine was changed to a new vendor. Due to complications with the second search engine, N.H. CIBOR worked diligently to find a hosting service that would allow commercial brokers to have more tools to market their listings and a generally easy to use database. By far, Catylist was the best option on the table. Commercial properties can now be searched internally by brokers and by the public and features of the Catylist system include "bird's eye" view and "Google street view" of properties, together with other search engines that pick up Catylist listings when prospects run searches, updates for brokers that identify the amount of hits that an individual property has received, customized property searches that can provide data sheets to clients with multiple layouts, and broker email functions that allows brokers to send other brokers' their client's property requirements. Other search engines that tie into Catylist include: Google, RE Business Online, LYCOS, Commercial IQ, and others.
David Lefebvre of Shanley Realtors, LLC of Portsmouth, N.H. has been one of the most instrumental people in the creation of NECPE and with the transition to the newly used Catylist system. "Since we have switched to Catylist, productivity has been monumental" says Lefebrve. "Brokers that were reluctant to join the database system in the past are now signing up as members." David also noted that the transition went extremely smooth and that on-site training for brokers learning how to utilize the system has been almost "on demand." It was the best move we could have made.
For the public to access the database, they can go to newenglandcommercialproperty.com or they can use the individual State sites; nhcpe.com, mainecpe.com, masscpe.com, and vtcpe.com . The database is very user friendly as the search engine allows people to start searches in a very broad manner and then lets people fine tune their search while the corresponding listings are narrowed down simultaneously. Other national databases also offer a lot of listing information but the Catylist system seems to be used more widely by the Northern New England commercial brokers. Prospective buyers and tenants looking for properties may want to cross reference their searches with Catylist to make sure they are able to see as many listings as possible.
In addition to members who are commercial brokers, NECPE offers affiliate programs for appraisers and other commercial real estate related companies seeking property comparables or use of the broadcast email system. People interested in the affiliate program or in membership, should contact Johnna Lorry of NECPE at 603-647-0100. Lorry will be able to direct each party to the appropriate contact person.

Matthew Cardente is a designated broker and owner of Cardente Real Estate, Portland, Me.