CBRE Profit Jumps 95%, Fueled By Data Centers

CBRE strongly outperformed industry expectations in the first quarter, nearly doubling its net income for the same quarter last year and raising earnings guidance by 20% on Thursday. 

The world's largest commercial real estate company increased its net income by more than 95% year-over-year to $318M, according to its first-quarter earnings results. The company also delivered $478M in core adjusted net income to shareholders, a nearly 78% increase from last year.

“Strong momentum we saw during the first quarter in infrastructure, services and across other parts of our business has continued in the early weeks of the second quarter,” CBRE Chair and Chief Executive Officer Bob Sulentic said during an earnings call with analysts Thursday. “Considering this, we are upgrading our EPS expectations to a range of $7.60 to $7.80 for the year, which would result in more than 20% growth at the midpoint of the range.”

CBRE also increased revenue by 19% year-over-year to $10.5B, and the company’s three service segments grew operating profit by nearly 30%. Profits from CBRE’s data center land development program, delivered earlier in the year than expected, helped drive increases in operating profit and growth for the company’s real estate projects.

The company reported strong growth in its revenues from global property sales and property management. 

CBRE’s 43% global property sales revenue jump was buoyed by a 64% increase in U.S. deals as sales for every major property type rose by double digits. Property management revenue was up 17% and mortgage origination rose 53% as debt markets loosened.

"Among real estate projects, growth was driven by the technology sector and was broad-based, led by double-digit growth in Asia, the U.K. and the U.S.,” CBRE Chief Financial Officer Emma Giamartino said on the call. 

Industry analysts said the global brokerage firm’s outperformance is a positive sign for the broader sector and for fellow commercial real estate giants like JLL and Cushman & Wakefield, which have yet to report first-quarter earnings. 

“This appears to be a high-quality beat across service lines despite a slightly more challenging backdrop of higher rates and geopolitical uncertainty through late February and March,” William Blair analysts wrote in a note to investors Thursday morning.

CBRE's stock fell about 6% by the early afternoon as the Dallas-based company's strong earnings report failed to impress investors. That continues the stock’s negative momentum stemming from what analysts have called the “artificial intelligence scare trade.”

Since February, investors have dumped companies whose business models rely on human expertise and information advantages, which are the exact qualities real estate brokerages have used for decades.

CBRE’s stock has fallen around 10% during that time. 

During the earnings call, Sulentic said the company has reviewed all the data and analysis on how AI will squeeze out brokers but insisted that CBRE plans to use the technology to assist its people rather than replace them. 

"The real value in that business comes from that creative, strategic thinking," he said.

The stock pullback has prompted CBRE to buy back more shares.

After spending more than $1B buying back stock last year, the company has been aggressive on that front in 2026 as Giamartino said the brokerage firm doesn’t believe its share price reflects its long-term growth trajectory. 

CBRE has repurchased close to $540M in shares at an average buyback price of around $148 so far this year, she said. 

“Positioning in the stock remains generally long, from what we can tell, so the bar is high,” JPMorgan Chase analyst Anthony Paolone wrote in a note to investors Thursday. “But we think CBRE is clearing the bar, and we thus continue to like that stock.” 

Customer demand for AI-related property also continues to fuel much of CBRE’s momentum. The company reported strong performance from its resilient and transactional businesses during the quarter, with its infrastructure work related to data centers becoming a significant source of profit and growth across all segments.

Data center leasing revenue more than tripled from the first quarter of 2025 as the company secured dozens of land sites across the country that could eventually be used for the sector. 

“We're working with various data center users, especially the hyperscalers, to get that land entitled, get that land powered, get water to the land,” Sulentic said. “We'll have a relatively steady stream of opportunities and data center land over the next few years.” 

On Monday, CBRE announced plans to team with Meta Platforms on a long-term program designed to train thousands of fiber technicians to build next-generation data center infrastructure. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has nearly 30 data centers in operation or under construction, with additional projects in the planning stages.

“We're recruiting and training those people and sending them, not only into CBRE teams to support Meta, but into our competitors and others in the market,” Sulentic said. “They viewed us as having a unique ability to hire and train people.”