Earlier this week, Bullpen, a talent network for commercial real estate, released its 2023 Commercial Real Estate Contract Expert Pricing Guide. The report is intended to serve as a benchmark for industry professionals to determine their own rates and for businesses looking to hire real estate freelancers.
What Bullpen found is that the impact of the ongoing construction labor shortage is being felt off-site. The report shows that of all commercial real estate contract experts, project management personnel are paid the most. Among the report’s other key findings is that the asset class doesn’t seem to have as big of an impact on labor costs as one might expect. The general consensus is that multifamily and industrial are more stable than office and retail, yet the report indicated little variation in typical prices for professionals for those property types.
Also, industry professionals located in the southern part of the U.S. show the widest rate range, which mirrors the regional variations in the cost of living. The East and West coastal regions are more consistently expensive than the South, which encompasses both large urban centers like Miami and smaller secondary and tertiary markets, despite the fact that there is fluctuation everywhere. To this end, the report also claims that finding talent along the Sun Belt may be more cost-effective.