First for Brokers
CRE North-West is privileged to offer you the First Rating of Saint Petersburg Brokerage Companies. The main aim of its publication is figuring the absorption of office, retail and industrial space in the city as well as analyzing the competitive environment in the market of brokerage services in 2010.
We included in this rating 15 companies taking lead in St. Petersburg commercial real estate brokerage market: ARIN, ASTERA in alliance with BNP Paribas Real Estate, BestЪ Commercial Real Estate, East Real, Colliers International, GVA Sawyer, IB Group, Jones Lang LaSalle, Knight Frank, LCMC, Maris Properties in association with CB Richard Ellis, MC ICB, NAI Becar, Praktis CB, and VMB Trust.
In the course of this rating compilation, we asked the market players some questions about the state of St. Petersburg commercial real estate market, their company’s place in this market, amount of transactions completed in different segments, and the share of income generated by companies from brokerage activities. The participants of the First Brokerage Rating were also proposed to characterize the level of competition on the market and their own transaction portfolios during the said period.
The consulting group Lair acted as an independent evaluator of the survey. Based on the analysis of obtained information, the company’s experts came to the following conclusions:
- about 25% of the First brokers rating is universal companies (engaged in all types of commercial real estate), but most of them operate in the retail-office segment specializing in these deals; only one of the survey participants mentioned its specialization in the warehouse segment;
- most corporate participants of the rating do not lay stiff requirements to properties trusted to their care and try to solve all problems posed to them by clients;
- almost no companies involved in the First brokers rating can appreciate the amount of transactions completed in 2010 and therefore identify their share in this market;
- about 85% of companies that participated in the rating survey rank brokerage among the main types of their business activity, but only 25% receive more than half of their revenues from brokerage activities;
- most companies we analyzed are not transparent and/or reluctant to disclose information on their financial results;
- about 40–60% of all transactions in St. Petersburg commercial real estate market is completed by property owners directly without mediation of professional brokers, as estimated by the participants of the First brokers rating themselves. For all that, more deals are closed through mediation of brokerage companies in the retail and office segments and less than half of all deals in the industrial segment. All big deals and also the deals at newly built complexes were cut only via brokers in 2010;
- very few purchase and sale deals were stricken in 2010; the lease market accounted for most of the business activity;
- the total office space let through mediation of the rating participants in 2010 is roughly estimated at 240,000 sq m while in the retail, service and warehousing real estate – 220,000 sq m found tenants thanks to the activity of brokers;
- all participants of the First brokers rating mention 4-5 companies which are perceived by them as the strongest players and main competitors on the market;
- five biggest companies that participated in the rating survey account for 62% of the commercial space lease market in the city based on the results of 2010, and one company accounted for slightly less than half of the entire business last year;
- Despite the crisis and flagging buying activity last year, 15 brokerage companies of Saint Petersburg closed almost 1,500 deals, having earned about 800 million rubles, as a result.
CRE North-West #3 (39), March, 01 2011
