The real estate consultancy and brokerage firms have firsthand information about developers’ investment appetite and demand on the real estate market and during the crisis, they also developed property management or building energy efficiency certification departments to diversify their streams of revenue.
Therefore, real estate consultancy firms hired more than 100 people on entry level and senior consultant positions in 2014, with the latter recruited from investors or real estate developers in some cases. At the onset of the crisis, people would most often take the other route, from consultancy to investors.
The local office of US’ CBRE hired most people, going from 34 employees in 2013 to 85. Razvan Iorgu, CBRE manager, took the reins in 2011, following restructuring process that saw 70% of the employees leave the company.
CBRE launched new lines of business and resumed growth and last year recruited many people from rivals and real estate investors. It also started an internship program for students.
Coldwell Banker, the largest player on the residential segment, increased headcount by 10% to about 250 employees. The group’s operations include real estate brokerage, valuation, retail and property and non-performing asset management. Coldwell Banker brokered about 2,000 transactions involving homes, half of them new apartments, in 2014 compared with 1,500 transactions in 2013.
Although they did not post significant growth in the last few years, JLL and DTZ Echinox, too, have bigger teams than they did during the boom days of the real estate market, as a result of the property management contracts gained.
DTZ Echinox now has 68 employees, compared with 57 in 2013 while JLL has 43 employees and started adding staff in 2011, after absorbing the local office of King Sturge, following a worldwide merger.
Esop Consulting, one of the largest domestic companies, which mostly operates on the office space market, kept its team at 20 people in 2014 but plans to hire more this year.
Although the real estate consultancy firms have almost as many or even more employees than they did during the boom days, the real estate consultancy market value is down to half, so a group of eight to ten companies are vying over about EUR30 million fees a year. Under the circumstances, consultants make less money, but a good broker on the office space market may earn about EUR50,000 a year in gross amount.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)