A new property website solely dedicated to marketing commercial property has been set up.
With existing property platforms such as Myhome.ie and Daft.ie focused almost exclusively on the residential market, PropertyLocator.ie aims to exploit a significant gap in the market by establishing a one-stop shop for commercial properties.
Up to now, commercial properties have been advertised on the websites of individual agents, making the process of searching for properties rather onerous.
PropertyLocator.ie, which went live on Tuesday, however, aims to centralise all available properties on one site.
About 90 per cent of the commercial agents here have agreed to advertise their properties on the new site.
It hopes to list thousands of available commercial properties across the various sectors – from retail and office to industrial and hospitality – in the coming months.
‘Three easy clicks’
The site allows users to obtain search results in “three easy clicks”, saving them from having to trawl through multiple property websites.
Speaking at the launch, PropertyLocator.ie founder and chief executive TJ Kearns said: “With existing property websites heavily weighted in favour of the residential market and shared space solutions, our market research has identified a gap in the ever-changing and growing commercial market that needs to be addressed.
"There are thousands of commercial sales and letting transactions in Ireland annually, and our investment property market regularly exceeds €3 billion in transactions per annum," he said.
“The commercial real estate market is now of sufficient size and scale to support a dedicated Irish commercial property platform, and this is why we feel we can become an important digital showroom for Ireland worldwide,” he added.
According to commercial property agent Cushman and Wakefield, turnover in the build-to-rent sector more than doubled last year, reaching a record high of €2.54 billion across 51 deals in the part of the market also known as the private residential sector (PRS).