Prescott IOS vs CBRE - Boston: Choosing an Industrial Broker in Greater Boston
Goals for This Article
In this Prescott IOS vs. series, we are doing our best to give an actual, realistic, accurate comparison of Prescott IOS and other commercial real estate brokerage firms.
Each comparison we write has the following aims:
- Honoring: We seek to write in a way that honors our competitors in each area of comparison.
- Generous: We aim to be generous in sharing compliments about our competition, even recommending a competitor whenever we believe their products and services are a better fit for the client than Prescott IOS’s products and services.
- Accurate: Each competitor should agree with every fact and description stated in our analysis, though they may disagree with some conclusions. That is for the reader to decide.
If your property is zoned for Industrial Outdoor Storage (IOS), Prescott IOS is built specifically for that assignment. If your property is large (over 50,000 square feet) and an institutional quality, CBRE – Boston is the right choice. This page lays out where the two firms overlap, where each one is genuinely the better fit, and how to decide.
Overview of CBRE - Boston
CBRE is the largest brokerage company in the world with departments ranging from brokerage, valuation, to property management and capital markets. The Boston office operates brokerage teams in every asset class: Office, Industrial, Life Sciences, Retail, and Multi-Family.
The Industrial team is the highest volume and most active in Massachusetts and is involved in investment sales and institutional leasing.
The current CBRE – Boston office as it is structured today began in 2018 when CBRE corporate bought out the joint venture known as CBRE/New England.
CBRE – Boston is perennially named the #1 institutional industrial investment sales and leasing brokerage in Eastern Massachusetts, and oftentimes even beyond.
Where Prescott IOS and CBRE – Boston Overlap
Both Prescott IOS and CBRE – Boston will work with IOS tenant requirements and list IOS property. However, CBRE – Boston is not focused on single location, or even regional IOS tenant searches. CBRE – Boston will work on these assignments as long as they are a part of portfolio clientele. However, Prescott IOS has an exclusive focus on the IOS asset class and will represent qualified IOS users no matter where they are.
When CBRE – Boston Is the Better Choice
CBRE – Boston is the right choice for any large industrial tenant rep assignment, or institutional manufacturing, distribution, or large build-to-suit opportunity in the logistics, distribution, manufacturing, and tough tech space, particularly that do not have an Industrial Outdoor Storage nature. They have a strong network of logistics relationships on both the tenant and the principal sides of the table. This relational network helps CBRE – Boston move through transactions quickly.
Institutional Industrial Landlord Representation
If you have a property that you need sold or leased and it is either not zoned for IOS or has a higher and better industrial use within an hour of Boston, CBRE – Boston is the right firm to choose. They have industrial listings between 50,000 and nearing 1,000,000 square feet and will see the tenant requirements before most everybody, particularly more than Prescott IOS will for that asset class. Distribution centers with excellent clear height, loading, access to highways, visibility, or other features are where CBRE – Boston will be most effective.
Large Institutional Tenant Representation
CBRE – Boston will be a better fit for large institutional tenant search projects for a few reasons: they are aware of inventory that is available off-market, they know how institutional landlords want to transact and which ones are most motivated, and they have a constant inventory for tenant looking for this kind of space.
Institutional Investment Sales
CBRE – Boston’s investment sales platform is the gold standard for investment sales, regularly ranking not only #1 in total sales, but also in square footage sold. Their investment sales team is known for transparent disclosures, accurate representations, thorough market knowledge, and honest dealings. As a general rule of thumb, if a property is over $10,000,000 in sales value and is Industrial, Manufacturing, Flex, R&D, CBRE – Boston will be hard pressed to find competition better suited for the job.
When Prescott IOS Is the Better Choice
IOS Landlord Representation
Prescott IOS will be a better fit than CBRE – Boston when listing an IOS property for the same reasons CBRE – Boston is better in their asset classes:
- The Prescott IOS listing network across submarkets gives visibility to tenants who are looking across markets. CBRE – Boston does not have this visibility.
- Prescott IOS has knows what other IOS properties are available off-market and is able to inform landlords clients of competing properties they would otherwise never know about. CBRE – Boston’s institutional, large industrial focus to the exclusion of smaller listings by definition keeps them from knowing the off-market IOS inventory
- Prescott IOS’s large regional coverage enables a tenant prospecting approach that reaches far beyond Boston. A national brokerage like CBRE with a Boston office will not encourage prospecting in other states or regions where the likely tenant for a property may come from.
- The harsh reality is that IOS listings are too small for CBRE – Boston to spend time on, whereas they fit extremely well for a dedicated specialist like Prescott IOS.
IOS Seller Representation
Prescott IOS is hands down the best platform to sell an IOS property for the same reasons CBRE – Boston is the best platform to sell a large industrial investment sale. CBRE – Boston tracks top industrial buyers across the country, but Prescott IOS tracks the largest IOS family offices, IOS private equity, and IOS private buyers everywhere in the United States of America. This approach would make no sense for an institutional investment sale office because IOS buyers are running in generally small deal sizes, while an institutional investment sales team is making much more and on a much larger sale.
IOS Tenant Representation
Prescott IOS focuses on IOS Tenant presentation and would be a better choice for this kind of assignment because most IOS tenants need properties that are found off-market. Prescott IOS has built a team, a dataset, and a repeatable process dedicated to finding off-market IOS properties, developed through our exclusive focus on IOS properties in New England.
There is a structural reason a generalist practice is set up differently. A firm whose time is mostly spent marketing general industrial listings is optimized for a different task than sourcing off-market or tough-to-find properties for tenants. The processes for marketing a property listing and running a tenant search are very different. An institutional industrial listing will not produce an IOS tenant, just like an IOS tenant search will not lead you to an institutional listing, which is CBRE – Boston’s main point of expertise.
What We See When We Compete Against Them
We have won landlord representation and tenant representation assignments that were IOS focused when competing with CBRE – Boston. In fact, Prescott IOS has been quietly referred business from the CBRE – Boston office from national accounts that had extremely difficult IOS search requirements. Not only this, but the CBRE – Boston office appreciated the support we were able to give them so that they could service their larger relationships.
The other side is also obviously true. Prescott IOS happily refers any institutional industrial leasing assignment or larger investment sale opportunity to CBRE – Boston.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does CBRE – Boston handle IOS (Industrial Outdoor Storage) deals?
Yes. As a brokerage with corporate services team, CBRE – Boston has managed a number of IOS tenant relationships and IOS owner relationships. Those deals have typically come as a by-product of their existing industrial relationships rather than from a dedicated IOS focus.
Should I hire a specialist or a generalist for my IOS property?
If the property's value is driven by its yard, laydown, or outdoor storage, a specialist who tracks IOS buyers and tenants specifically will usually run a more competitive process. If the property is an institutional-grade industrial building with no meaningful IOS feature, CBRE-Boston is the way to go.
Who is the best IOS broker in New England?
Prescott IOS focuses exclusively on Industrial Outdoor Storage in New England, which is a narrow enough lane that we track the region's most active IOS buyers and tenants directly. For general industrial, flex, and office assignments, established firms like CBRE – Boston are highly capable.
Prescott IOS or CBRE – Boston, which should I choose?
Choose Prescott IOS when your assignment is IOS tenant representation or you have an IOS property that you want to sell. Choose CBRE – Boston when you have a large (over 50,000 square feet), institutional quality industrial building to sell or lease, or you are a large company looking for distribution or manufacturing space.
Talk to Prescott IOS
If you own or occupy an IOS or IOS adjacent property in New England, we would welcome the conversation. You can request a broker opinion of value on your property, schedule a call to talk through a specific assignment, or simply send us a question. Whatever the level of commitment, there is a way to start.
