CBRE Reports Strong Earnings That Could Carry It Through Potential Recession

CBRE saw strong growth in global markets, recording billions in revenue during the first quarter of 2025.

Although markets such as office and industrial have shown few widespread signs of distress from political turmoil, CBRE is still treading lightly going into the second quarter, thanks to uncertainty around tariffs and continually high interest rates, Bob Sulentic, CBRE’s chair and chief executive officer, said Thursday morning during the company’s first-quarter earnings call.

Still, the brokerage started the year off strong. Revenue across the brokerage was $8.9 billion, up 12 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, while net income rose 29 percent to $163 million during the same time, CBRE reported.

“We ended the quarter with strong pipelines … but some corporations who are uncertain about what’s going to happen to them due to the tariffs, whether we might go into a recession, have started to slow down on some of their bigger programs,” Sulentic said.

Industrial still enjoyed momentum in the first quarter thanks to high demand with a 12 percent revenue increase over the previous quarter. Meanwhile, CBRE is more hopeful in terms of potential for office leasing revenue, which saw a 38 percent rise last quarter, but dealmaking could be slowed thanks to “scarcity” in the construction pipeline, Sulentic said.

CBRE also opened two new revenue streams through building operations and experience, mainly through the acquisition of coworking provider Industrious as well as project management via an improved integration of advisory Turner & Townsend. Both mergers were completed in January 2025.

On the capital markets side, global property sales revenue increased 11 percent on a quarter-over-quarter basis, with the U.S. alone seeing 26 percent growth thanks to strength in the multifamily and industrial sectors. Capital markets saw a small, but insignificant pullback in March and early April due to tariff uncertainty, according to CBRE.

Sulentic said he’s an old veteran of economic downturns and said that if there is a recession, CBRE is in a strong position to withstand the uncertainty.

“I don’t think we’ve been as well positioned to take advantage of a downturn as we are now,” Sulentic said.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.