The Best Brands in the Business
Lipsey’s annual survey is based on qualitative data points from its ballot and from subjective phone interviews and focus groups.
For two decades, Lipsey has surveyed the CRE industry to determine what companies are the best brands in the business. And this year, CBRE leads the top 10.
The company’s annual survey includes qualitative data points from its ballot and from subjective phone interviews and focus groups among commercial real estate practitioners. When conducting the interviews, Lipsey looks for factors including innovation, responsiveness, quality of service, and level of proficiency.
The top 10 CRE brands for 2021 include:
CBRE: It is the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm based on 2019 revenue. The company has more than 100,000 employees excluding affiliates and serves real estate investors and occupiers through more than 530 offices worldwide.
JLL: A Fortune 500 company with annual revenue of $16.3 billion, operations in more than 80 countries and a global workforce of more than 93,000.
(Tie) Colliers International: The company has operations in 67 countries and more than 15,000 professionals that have delivered compound annual investment returns of almost 20% for shareholders.
(Tie) Cushman & Wakefield: It has 51,000 employees across 400 offices and 70 countries; in 2018, it had revenue of $8.2 billion across core services of property, facilities and project management, leasing, capital markets, valuation, and other services.
NAI Global: The commercial real estate brokerage firm has more than 375 offices located throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia Pacific, with over 6,000 local market professionals, managing in excess of 1.15 billion square feet of property and facilities.
Prologis: The publicly traded REIT focuses on high-barrier, high-growth markets and offers its customers and investors a modern and geographically diverse platform of distribution space throughout the world.
Newmark: Together with London-based partner Knight Frank and independently owned offices, Newmark’s 18,800 professionals operate from approximately 500 offices around the world. In 2019, Newmark generated revenues in excess of $2.2 billion.
(Tie) Lee & Associates: Lee & Associates is a commercial real estate brokerage and integrated services firm with offices across the United States and Canada.
(Tie) SVN International Corp: The commercial real estate franchisor consists of over 1,600 commercial real estate advisors and staff across nearly 200 locations, 500 markets, and four countries.
Avison Young: Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, the company consists of approximately 5,000 real estate professionals in 100 offices around the world in the office, retail, industrial, multi-family and hospitality sectors.
Marcus & Millichap: The largest firm specializing in real estate investment sales and financing, it has over 80 offices and 2,000 investment sales and financing professionals throughout the US and Canada. In 2019, the firm closed 9,726 transactions with a sales volume of approximately $49.7 billion.
Cresa: Cresa exclusively represents occupiers and offers such services as consulting, global portfolio solutions, capital markets, lease administration, location strategy & economic development incentives, project management, transaction management and workplace intelligence.