CBRE also brokered six of the top 10 office leases on theyear-end CoStar list, and arranged four of the top 25 investmentsales across the five boroughs, as compiled by Real CapitalAnalytics. Matthew Van Buren, executive managing director at CBRE,chalks up his firm's strong showing to its market share, its trackrecord and the "industry icons" it numbers among its roster,including Mary Ann Tighe, CEO of the New York tristate region, andStephen Siegel, global chairman.

To Van Buren, '09 was "a tale of two years." The first fewmonths of '09 were in many respects a continuation of theuncertainty that cast a pall over the market in the latter part of2008. "You saw a lot of very short-term deals getting done," hetells GlobeSt.com.

As the year went on, though, "the major sectors—financialservices, law firms, etc.—returned to normal term in their leases,sometimes even going longer-term than before," Van Buren says. Oneof the key factors driving this surge of activity was that ownersand tenants reached "agreement" on what space should go for. It wasa lack of certainty about pricing that kept the deals from gettingdone in the first part of the year, he says.