Pay hikes and hiring as commercial market gathers steam.

A resurgence and a renewed optimism in the nation's commercial real estate marketing are fueling modest hiring and compensation increases, according to the 20042005 Compensation Report, recently published by the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP).

"The 2004-2005 Compensation Report provides commercial real estate companies with current benchmarks from which to review compensation and benefit policies," said

Thomas J. Bisacquino, NAIOP national president. "The release of the report comes at a particularly opportune time because it affords companies the opportunity to better manage salary increases, new hires and employee turnover as the markets enter a more competitive upswing."

The 132-page report, which is conducted every two years, highlights compensation and benefit levels for 45 employee positions in the commercial real estate industry. A total of nearly 175 companies responded, reporting information on more than 7,000 employees. Overall, most of the positions surveyed showed moderate increases in compensation averaging approximately four percent during the past two years.

Among the report's key findings: Size of Company is Important. Employee compensation showed a direct relationship with size of the company for nearly all staff positions. Larger companies tended to pay more than smaller ones. CEOs in companies with annual gross revenue of $5 million or less, for example, earn a median total compensation of $170,200. Those in companies with annual gross revenue more than $100 million, however, earn a median total compensation of $692,400. Similarly, CEOs in companies with larger staffs and more square footage (owned and managed) paid higher levels of compensation. In general, this same pattern was found with most of the other job titles.

Primary Property Type Revealing. Responding companies were grouped by primary property type, which included industrial, office, raw land, retail and mixed-use. Companies indicating their primary property type to be retail tended pay higher compensation than other property types.

Results by Region Mixed. While there was no consistent relationship between geographic region and compensation, companies in the Northeast tended to pay the most. In addition, companies with properties in multiple regions also tended to pay higher than average compensation to their employees.

Ownership Type Matters. Companies were also grouped by ownership type. These groupings include Publicly Traded (non-REIT), Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), Private and Other. Companies that are publicly traded and REITs tended to pay the highest levels of compensation to their employees. Using the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) as an example, median total compensation for publicly traded companies was $414,400, while REITs paid $468,600. In contrast, private companies paid a median total compensation to their CFO of $163,300. Much of this difference is likely due to the disparity in annual gross revenue, with publicly traded companies and REITs being decidedly larger than private companies.