CHARLOTTE, NC, USA.
ITRA Global (International Tenant Representative Alliance) just concluded its Fall Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. What a great city! Representatives from as far as France (and Seattle!) attended the 2 day conference to discuss world commercial real estate trends, market strategies, and technologies' impacts on the Commercial Real Estate "CRE" industry.
Worldwide market trends include very tight industrial markets, co-working company WeWork is here to stay (in some form or another), and the commercial real estate industry continues its slow implementation and limited impact from technologies like AI, automation, and machine learning.
Some technologies that have been useful and are enhancing the broker experience were demonstrated including Smartsheet (project management), Quarem (lease administration), and LinkedIn (marketing).
Charlotte as a host city provided beautiful weather, southern hospitality, and great representation from the Economic Development Partnership of NC and the Charlotte Regional Partnership.
What tidbit would I want to take away from this conference as a tenant? The consolidation of brokerage firms and formation of massive commercial real estate companies that need to create sustainable and consistent forms of revenue have caused the advocacy, consultancy, quality of service, and competency to erode significantly on behalf of tenants looking for representation in a lease transaction. On the contrary, ITRA's offices are all independently owned, the principals have decades of experience, and they all only represent the interests of tenants; which are all qualities that lead toward superior representation and advocacy on behalf of our clients.
The next ITRA Global conference will (finally!) be on the best coast/west coast held in Santa Monica, CA this Spring. Initiatives within the organization continue to streamline international communication, expand shared resources, leverage new marketing platforms, and further advancing its use of the newest technologies. It promises to be an exciting conference.
If your company has commercial real estate needs outside of the greater Seattle area, please reach out to us about ITRA Global and its affiliated offices throughout the world. More can be found on ITRA Global's website here: www.itraglobal.com.