"Industry wide, too many associates spend too much time focused on transactions," Lipsey told the facilities group at its five-day winter conference here. "This is a service industry and there are a lot more services than negotiating sale and lease transactions."

The most successful brokerages over the next five years will be those that learn how to put "more 'service" into real estate services," he says.

Technologically, the commercial real estate industry is still in the dark ages, the consultant says. "Most of the service-oriented technology in use in commercial real estate services and commercial development industries today is 15-year-old technology," Lipsey says.