Who's More Powerful -- Owner, Broker or Tenant?

"Home Run" Commissions vs. Teamwork... Go see "Cinderella Man" at any AMC theater this weekend. Don't like it? Just ask for a refund. Customers rule.

And "tenants rule" ran through my mind last Tuesday at Realcomm in Anaheim. Because it sounds like corporate real estate tenants are beginning to exercise their muscle in two areas: client satisfaction and data standards.

When speakers on our Is It Time to Change the Guard? panel focused on the growing need for teamwork, one audience member (a corporate real estate professional!) asked a pointed question. "Isn't there a conflict between the 'homerun' model of broker compensation in the U.S. and the need to correlate broker payments with performance?"

Yes, there's a potential conflict. But that's beginning to change. For example, panelist George Bouris at Deloitte recommends that large corporate assignments promote teamwork through a combination of fixed and discretionary compensation.

And Jeff Finn at NAI Global and John Frager at Grubb & Ellis | BRE in San Diego have occasionally seen compensation models based on achieving specific financial targets (like price or timing) or with completely discretionary portions of commissions.

Corporations also are driving the adoption of data standards, particularly through OSCRE (Open Standards Consortium for Real Estate). For the first time I heard the expression "OSCRE Compliant." (Like you hear "ISO 9000 Compliant.")

Is this important? Absolutely. OSCRE compliance means that information delivered to a tenant (like property analyses, market studies, sales comparables, etc.) will be easily exportable into other programs (like lease administration and property management) for more efficient data management.

Wow. If this really happens, owners, service providers and information providers will be able to exchange data quickly and widely. That's a big deal. So what do you think? Is it likely?

Notes... I think you'll enjoy Cinderella Man. ... Next Dispatch will be sent July 12.

-- Peter Pike