Valuation Divisions Becoming Hot Commodity

The dominoes started falling in October. That's when CBRE created a new position--senior managing director of Valuation & Advisory Services for Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska--and hired veteran appraiser Scott Biethan for the position. Biethan was at Cushman & Wakefield of Washington at the time.

Since January, Cushman & Wakefield filled its availability with Gretchen Young, an experienced appraiser most recently a senior vice president, manager and shareholder at GVA Kidder Mathews. Around the same time, Colliers International launched a new valuation division and to run it hired Daniel Boring, another experienced appraiser and broker who worked alongside Young at Kidder Mathews.

Boring tells GlobeSt.com that the push to build valuation businesses is a result of the major houses recognizing that Seattle and the rest of the Northwest is an important market long term. Part of the reason is that more attention is now being paid to the Northwest by institutional investors, many of whom have relationships with the national brokerage houses, he says.

Indeed, at the time Biethan joined CBRE, corporate said it was "the first step in our plan to build a valuation capability in the Northwest that is equal to our operations in the rest of the country." As for Colliers, Boring says his addition is part of a major push by Colliers to beef up its US operations. "We're dominant in Canada and Asia, and now the US operation is being expanded significantly," he says, explaining that Colliers is also adding valuation to its service offerings in California markets as well.

Another reason the major brokerages are focusing on the region is its proximity to Asia, says Boring, whose task is to launch and grow the Seattle valuation division and then repeat the process for the Portland, OR market. "There is a long-term view from corporate that as New York was to Europe for the past 100 years, Seattle and Vancouver, BC, will be to Asia over the next 100 years," he says.

C&W's local senior managing director John Miller tells GlobeSt.com that the reason for maintaining and growing the company's valuation division is simply to provide a full-service platform for its clients. "So while we're excited to see that interest is growing in our region by various institutional clients, we believe that being a one-stop shop for our clients, both locally and nationally, is the key," he says.

C&W's new valuation team leader, Young, is a past president of CREW-Northwest who joined her valuation business with Kidder Mathews in 2001, becoming a shareholder in the firm as well as its managing director of valuation services. She tells GlobeSt.com she left Kidder for "the opportunity to be with a firm that does more national business."

Young is now responsible for growing C&W's valuation unit by attracting not only new clients but also additional appraisers. Young tells GlobeSt.com she expects to add between eight and 12 appraisers over the next six months to the current total of three.

In addition to recruitment, Young will provide appraisal and valuation counsel for office and institutional investment properties within Cushman & Wakefield's Capital Markets Group. She also will provide consulting services such as highest and best use analysis, evaluation, market analysis, partial interest studies, estate valuations, lease arbitration and portfolio analysis.