Commercial Real Estate Executive Survey: Planning for Efficiency & Growth

To provide benchmarking data, we invited senior leaders of sponsor firms to participate in a survey that covered topics ranging from fundraising and acquisitions performance to plans for staffing and technology.

This summary provides benchmarking data on hiring plans, outsourcing, fundraising performance, acquisitions pipeline, and technology investments. See responses to questions such as:

• How do you anticipate the number of your full-time staff changing over the next 12 months: increasing, decreasing, or staying the same?
• Do you outsource today?
• How are you thinking about spending on outsourced talent over the next 12 months?
• What do you anticipate your fundraising performance to be this year compared to last year? Next year compared to this?
• How would you characterize your acquisitions pipeline this year compared to last year? Next year as compared to this?
• How has your investment in software changed this year as compared to last year? How do you anticipate your investment in software will change next year as compared to this year?

This survey was fielded from September 24-October 2, 2020 on Principals, CEOs, CFOs, and COOs at U.S.-based commercial real estate firms. The participants represented a cross-section of regional and nationwide sponsors with a mix of property types.