The CRE Job Market Is Improving, But The 'Explosion' Won't Come Until 2026

It has been a hard year to work in commercial real estate. Things are looking up, with two rate cuts and more seemingly on the horizon bringing an expected market turnaround. Uncertainties around macro events like the election have been settled, allowing decision-makers to act with more confidence.

Hiring in the CRE industry has accelerated as the year comes to a close, showing improvement over last year and the earlier months of 2024. But despite the uptick in activity, a wholesale shift in the hiring picture, including changes to compensation, is many months off. 

“2026 will be where the real explosion happens,” CRE Recruiting CEO Allison Weiss said. “The pendulum has kind of swung back from being a candidate's market to an employer's market, and I think because of that, there's some downward pressure on compensation. I do see some stagnation as it relates to compensation overall.”

RCLCO’s industrywide salary and compensation survey projects 2025 pay will remain flat. The firm anticipates an average 4.2% compensation increase next year, roughly the same as last year. 

Between 2023 and the first half of 2024, turnover and hiring in commercial real estate remained pretty consistent, according to new data from RCLCO. But exclusive data from the SelectLeaders job board comparing nationwide CRE listings and activity in the second half of 2023 to the second half of 2024 shows there have been 41% more postings for management roles, 24.8% more for analyst roles and 37% more for financial roles. 

Even with this long-awaited upswing, there is consensus among analysts that there is still trepidation in the market around large-scale hiring and that it is far from fully recovered from the last few years of muted hiring and salary growth. 

New questions about tariffs, trade and economic policy in the incoming second Trump administration are keeping hiring growth concentrated in specific areas of CRE. New activity is most common around services that work to retain existing value, like asset and portfolio management, rather than deals and new development.

Surviving until 2025 has turned into waiting until 2026. There is a lot of churn in the market after years of stress and strain for many employees, Ascent Developer Solutions founder and CEO Robert Wasmund said. But firms first need to capitalize and hit a good run rate before hiring will truly begin to take off. 

“Everybody got squeezed,” Wasmund said. “Everybody has been fairly unhappy because the entire industry has been challenged. I think that compounds the stress and friction around the infrastructure and culture of these companies. Everyone is looking for light at the end of the tunnel.”

Part of the challenge impacting the market, especially top talent and executive hiring, stems from years of tighter budgets and lower pay. Now, as signs of a slight pickup emerge, employees — many of whom feel they are underpaid — feel driven to act on potential new opportunities, Ferguson Partners President of Global Executive Search Graham Beatty said.

That has pushed CRE firms to rethink compensation. He said that while bonuses will remain unchanged this year after falling last year, a small number of top performers will see more. 

“In an environment where we see the market starting to pick back up slowly, companies have to pay their top performers or they risk losing them, right?” Beatty said. “You’ve had this roller coaster for the last few years, especially in 2021 and 2022, and people’s expectations get set quite high, and then disappointment can be really bad for company culture and loyalty.”

The long-suffering office market has also shifted some compensation strategy, Ferguson Partners Senior Managing Director Katie Gaynor said. Firms see office leasing and ownership as more challenging than ever and have shifted from value creation to capital preservation, managing assets as opposed to expanding portfolios.

It is about saving that last dollar instead of creating a new one. The job is perceived as “harder than ever,” she said, which translates to asset management and experience, with much less entry-level hiring. 

SelectLeaders job data suggests as much. Between the second half of 2023 and the second half of this year, the demand for candidates with 10-plus years of experience rose 82%, while opportunities for those with two years or less in the industry dropped 9%. This is a worrying continuation of a longer-term trend toward fewer entry-level opportunities in CRE.

“A lot of companies have flipped from making money on transactions to becoming more balance sheet investors and long-term holders,” Gaynor said. “The challenge from a personnel and pay perspective is, how do we align people so they’re not just trying to be deal people? We need people to focus on managing the current portfolio, not leasing up the shiny toy we just built or bought.” 

Slightly rosier perspectives on the market have made capital raising and asset management key positions in demand, Beatty said. The beginning of the year may be more about righting the ship financially, with firms trying to raise money and prepare for 2026, pushing hiring back to the second half of this year, Wasmund said.

And the longer the wait until a more normalized job picture, the more pent-up frustration pervades the job market, Weiss said. Years of difficult working conditions or doing more with a smaller budget have meant that companies see a big upswing in hiring as a pressure release valve. That means those who haven’t thought about compensation strategies and better pay will lose talent. 

“There’s a retention risk when the market heats up,” Gaynor said. “We don’t think it can be ignored any longer.”