who are the leading commercial brokers out there?
on the national level and if you know of local leaders in the DFW metroplex that would be great.

wow, no one has an idea?!

It might be more helpful if your request was more specific.

Leading Commercial Broker in what - sales, transactions, number of agents?

Here is a list of the top commercial brokers for 2008 published by Real Estate Forum Magazine, a commercial real estate publication: http://www.reforum.com/topbrokers2008/index.asp

The list breaks down "number of square ft leased/sold", "number of completed transactions", and "total dollar value of leases/sales."

Note: there are two lists - "Leasing" and "Investment Sales." You can view both lists by clicking the appropriate links at the top of the page. I personally know No. 2 on the leasing list - it's an amazing accomplishment for anyone, but especially so considering that he works for a small, independent brokerage. His stats for 2008 were:

125 leases completed
3,375,907 sf leased
Total value of leases - $646,935,450

Thanks El Luchador.

Troy,
i'm looking for the leading firms out there.
if you would ask the same question about residential i would answer Remax, Century21, coldwell banker etc.

Wisdom what is the fascination with that??

Most big commercial national or worldwide brokerages are reporting big cuts in costs and high losses of revenue right now.

Not much is moving in the market. For a small firm a big sale stil makes them alot of profit. For a national firm there fixed budgets are killing them right now.

In no particular order:
CBRE
Grubb & Ellis
Cushman & Wakefield
NAI Global
GVA Worldwide
Studley
Staubach
Binswanger
Marcus & Millichap
Colliers
Jones Lang LaSalle

super realtor, nothing in particular. I've been thinking on going into commercial in a while and before i do such a move i prefer to study the industry.

It's true that the commercial market is down now but in a year or so it will boom again cause when this is over companies will start recruiting again and they will need space to put all the new employees.

it's better to learn now and join, knowledgeable, when the market changes direction then to go in clueless then.
that's my 2 cents.

El Luchador,
i see non of the big residential companies are in your list. are they really not in the commercial game at all?

WR,
Since you were asking for a list of the "leading commercial brokers" that's what I provided. Residential companies, by definition, are not leading commercial brokers. That said, Remax, Coldwell Banker d/b/a CB Commercial, and Century 21 Commercial all have residential foundations but offer commercial services. Also, I know Keller Williams is trying to start a commercial division.

As to whether these residential companies "are in the game" probably varies by region and will depend on the size of the deal. In my area, CB Commercial has a pretty decent presence. Although they are technically part of Coldwell Banker, they focus solely on commercial and operate independently from the local Coldwell Banker residential offices. In my area they do not share an office with the residential offices and their agents do not offer resi- and commercial services. Remax and C21 in my area do both within the same office.

i know they all have commercial division. maybe i should re-phrase: are the leading residential company considered a factor in the commercial scene or their share is irrelevant?

They do a small share of the transactions.

Commercial is a MUCH more specialized field than residential where big transactional volume corporate clients demand assett class specialists and one stop shopping services for there buying and selling needs.


For the smaller guys selling land along with leasing and smaller corporations,and investors is more likley the client.

If you are going to do only commercial then you wouldn't want a residential firm.

I agree that Commercial is highly specialized and while the list of big firms above is impressive, there are also smaller firms that have a good share of the market.

If you are in a large metropolitan area, then that list above might be a place to start looking to start your commercial career, but if you're not in one of those large markets, you may not even have those companies as options.

I'm in Vermont, and I'm in one of the larger cities in the state, with 16,000 people. None of the firms listed above have offices here in town, but the large shopping centers use them for their leasing needs. The rest of the town is up for grabs.

I'm with RE/MAX and our commercial divsion worldwide has 3,618 Commercial Practitioners and 39 offices that are "Commercial Only" while there are 338 firms that have an official and recognized "Commercial Division."

I apologize if this sounds like an advertisement for RE/MAX, I just wanted to get across some solid numbers to prove my point.

I am in a residential office, doing commercial work. I have my own branding, identity and logos - so when driving around town, you can tell by the look of the signs what's residential and what's in the commercial division.

My advice is not to dismiss the residential brokers too quickly, because there is commercial business inside some of those doors.

As with any specialization, you're going to have to spend a lot of time learning, and while very expensive, the CCIM designation will teach you a lot, even after only a few courses.

Troy,
I clicked on your Commercial Property For Lease link on your website and all the text was written in....Latin?! You're really going after a niche market!

[quote=El Luchador]Troy,
I clicked on your Commercial Property For Lease link on your website and all the text was written in....Latin?! You're really going after a niche market! [/quote]

its true!
LOL

Oops, you're right.

I've been working on the sites, and somehow the original template got in there.. Need to look at that tomorrow...

Thanks for the heads up.

Troy is right. Often in small markets you will not see the big commercial brokerages - the deals that make sense for them just won't exist (esp. for office brokers). But it depends - a small market that is within reach of a larger market may not have an office of a large national commercial firm, but large commercial brokers from the larger market may be doing deals there - like industrial deals as an example.

Shopping centers are a bit of a different animal. Sometimes you will see a large center in a small market if it has a good regional pull. Also, the brokers that handle the leasing for these centers typically have no need to be local as the center's prospects are national tenants.

By the way...Semper ubi sub ubi.

Is there any statistical data to check the best commercial broker region wise.

One thing to consider is how many offices the leaders have (like CBRE) and what type of markets they are in. If a company is in a city with 2 million rentable SF of commercial space vs. a city with 500 million rentable SF of commercial space, the "leader" is relative.

Many independent firms do well in their markets, but do not have 500 offices across the world. Therefore, they wouldn't be in the running.

Another thing to consider is that working under CBRE costs a considerable chunk of every commission you get, regardless of whether it was a referral or not. Whereas TCN Worldwide only charges on referrals and a base number each year. If you only get to keep 50% of your commissions (before the broker cut), then it might make more sense to go with an independent firm that is well established.

Right now is a tough time to get into commercial, but if you can weather this, you will be VERY successful when the market comes back!

this has apparently been fixed...otherwise I've learned Latin and didn't realize!