One Good Raid Deserves Another; Five Top Pros Snatched by Firm's Competitor

LOS ANGELES-In the latest sign that the war for top talent in the Southland’s hot real estate market has reached a fevered pitch, the LA office of Cushman & Wakefield has hired away five top brokerage professionals from competitor Lee & Associates.

A senior C&W exec suggests his firm’s headhunting has just begun. “We going to keep recruiting top talent for our Southern California team,” Brad Cox, C&W’s senior managing director in the Downtown LA office, tells GlobeSt.com.

With rents and prices soaring across most of Southern California, local brokerages have found themselves competing against one another to obtain new talent, while keeping what they already have. The race for the “best of the best” arguably began last year, when Insignia/ESG hired away more than a half-dozen top commercial brokers–sometimes paying $1-million signing bonuses–to staff its new Downtown operations.