CBRE Revenue, Earnings Up Sharply in the Second Quarter

The world’s largest commercial real estate services firm appeared to shake off all the mishegoss buffeting the wider economy to turn in an unusually strong second-quarter performance.

CBRE’s operating revenue clocked in at $9.75 billion, a 16.2 percent jump from the second quarter of 2024. Adjusted net revenue was up 14 percent annually, to $5.67 billion, the Dallas-based company announced on Tuesday morning. 

“The strong momentum we exhibited at the start of the year continued in the second quarter,” CBRE Group Chairman and CEO Bob Sulentic said on a call after the results were released. “Despite the uncertainty in the macro environment, occupier and investor clients largely proceeded with executing their plans.”

In fact, just about every major measure of financial health that CBRE used was up, including core adjusted net income — up 44.4 percent to $358 million for the second quarter — and core earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, which was up 30.3 percent to $658 billion. Its net income — aka earnings — was up 65 percent, to $215 million. 

Cash flow from operations was down more than 80 percent annually, however, to $57 million.

As for the (many) positives, the brokerage’s top executives credited CBRE’s advisory services business line — including leasing — for a big part of the performance. Advisory services revenue was up 14.4 percent annually in the second quarter, to nearly $2 billion. Within that, revenue from leasing was up more than 14 percent from the same period in 2024 in both the U.S. and globally. Leasing was particularly strong in office and industrial, the company said. Revenues from investment sales and mortgage origination services were also up annually by double-digit percentages. 

Revenue was up as well by double digits for CBRE’s building operations and project management lines. 

Within the project management line, CBRE’s Turner & Townsend subsidiary contributed a double-digit revenue increase for the quarter compared to last year. CBRE has owned most of the construction consultancy since 2021, and earlier this year combined Turner & Townsend with its project management business. In the building operations line, CBRE said that flex space provider Industrious “enhanced the growth rate” of revenue. A longtime investor in Industrious, CBRE announced in January it was taking full control of the company. 

Based on its performance so far in 2025, CBRE announced it was increasing its core earnings per share forecast for the year to a range of $6.10 to $6.20, up from $5.80 to $6.10. The company has roughly $4.7 billion in liquidity, including $1.4 billion in cash. Another reason for the rosier outlook? The company said it no longer anticipates a recession this year. 

“We expect to set a new earnings peak this year, just two years after the 2023 trough in the commercial real estate downturn,” Sulentic said, “even though capital markets activity remains below prior peak levels.”

Tom Acitelli can be reached at tacitelli@commercialobserver.com.

UPDATE: This article has been corrected to reflect that Turner & Townsend is part of CBRE’s project management business, and not its property management business.  It was also corrected to reflect that the revenue growth was in that project management business.