LoopNet Lures a Crowd

And last year, LoopNet unveiled a database on historical commercial real state sales. When properties are sold through LoopNet, the company follows up with the agent for pricing details and gets feeds from the tax assessor's office. That, combined with the original listing information, makes for a valuable resource in pricing properties. LoopNet charges $30 a month for access to the database.

LoopNet is slowly building a service for commercial real estate that is similar to what Reuters did for equity prices and Bloomberg did for bond prices in the past: creating transparency in pricing and, subsequently, a more liquid and active market and lower commissions.

That may well cement its role as the go-to place for buying office and retail space and would make the stock -- at $16.02, it trades at about 32 times its recent earnings -- a promising long-term holding.