A Buyer’s Guide to Leveraging the B+E Platform

The typical commercial real estate brokerage website advertises for-sale property listings much like an online billboard. B+E is changing the status quo by providing a truly interactive marketing and sales platform for the buyers and sellers of net lease properties. 

The B+E name stands for brokers + engineers, which reflects the original idea behind the company –  to marry brokerage expertise and tech. That combination creates a unique marketplace for buying and selling of net lease properties that functions much the same as any other e-commerce site ranging from the likes of Amazon to Charles Schwab. B+E aims to provide the most pertinent information in the most user-friendly way. It is important to note that the B+E platform is backed by real people with brokerage expertise. The technology helps to streamline transactions by removing some of the traditional pinch points from property search to close and making it faster and more efficient. 

 Buyers can see all of B+E’s property listings from their own user dashboard. Each property listing page includes standard features, such as a property description and photo gallery, offering memorandum, Google Earth Integration, and due diligence documents. Additional highlights of the B+E dashboard include the ability to:

• Submit offers online: One of the big game changers in the B+E platform is the ability to quickly and easily submit an offer or letter of intent (LOI) online via the dashboard. Buyers simply have to register as a user to be able to submit an offer on an available property. They enter basic offering information on their proposed bid, amount of earnest money, time to close and any financing contingency, or they also can upload their own standard LOI form.

• Gain a bird’s eye view: The B+E platform integrates a Google Earth feature that allows buyers to easily access a 360° view of a property and the immediate area. That view shows aerial and street-level perspectives that provide insight into details such as the physical structure, infrastructure and key access roads and neighboring properties. That feature allows buyers to do a “virtual drive-by” of a property from anywhere and at any time.

• Share information: Buyers can easily keep business partners and team members in the loop with the ability to share and forward key information. A user can “invite” other people to see information, such as an attorney or company CFO. B+E creates a group of team members that gives everyone access to the dashboard and allows team members to make notes and access the message board to leave comments.

• Access real-time market information: Whereas many brokerage firms provide quarterly reports and market updates, that information can get outdated very quickly. B+E produces real-time reports that show live listings on the market, cap rates and terms. Reports can be generated for a particular type of property, such as cold storage or grocery stores, or a specific tenant, such as 7-Eleven or Walgreens. The reports give buyers real-time insight on the inventory of live deals in a particular category, as well as showing averages on pricing and cap rates and the bottom and top of those spreads.

Added perks for exclusive buyer representation 

Buyers who sign an exclusive representation agreement with B+E gain additional access to platform features and properties. A representation agreement allows a buyer to access information on the entire net lease for-sale market, which currently spans some 3,300+ on-market listings in addition to a confidential pool of off-market transactions. A buyer can navigate those listings through their individual dashboard, where they will find interactive tools that allow them to easily leverage the expertise and experience of their B+E advisor. 

For example, if a buyer wants to purchase a net lease Walgreen’s property, full access to the B+E platform will show the dozens of Walgreen’s properties available in the U.S. at that moment – not just those listed for sale by B+E. The dashboard provides a detailed look at all of the Walgreen’s listings for comparison purposes with information on location, term, listing price and cap rate. Rather than searching for those for-sale properties and going from one brokerage website to the next, a buyer can quickly see the entire universe of for-sale Walgreen’s properties in just a few minutes. Additionally, buyers can use the B+E search features to filter results to fit their specific criteria, such as looking only at Walgreens net lease assets that have 10+ years of term, or only those Walgreen’s properties with 10+ years of term located in the state of Florida. 

One of the things that buyers like about the B+E platform is that it gives them more control in the process. They can submit an offer on a property immediately and get fast feedback on where that offer stands. They also can control how much, or how little, interaction they have with the listing broker. Some buyers are content to move through the purchase process fully online and rely on information conveyed through their dashboard. Others may want more direct interaction with the broker at certain points, or from start to finish.

View current B+E listings here, and subscribe to get a first look at our exclusive listings.