Steve Hyatt answers: Why choose a smaller regional commercial brokerage firm like Berger Commercial Realty, over a large, national real estate brokerage firm?

Well I’ve actually worked for both, and I think it boils down to two reasons. First of all, it’s a local business. You have to have a local broker who knows the market, knows the market conditions, knows the landlords, and tenants, knows the owners, and occupiers, you need to know who … What the latest information is on a per market basis, and you don’t find that in a national firm. In addition, it’s an individual basis, it’s an individual you’re betting on that horse. Who is the best broker that can handle that, what is his track record, what’s his deal flow, what kind of transactions has he done in that particular sub-market. You’re going want to know all of those things. At Berger we’re a little bit of a hybrid. What we have is we have a strong local brokerage, with local knowledge, but we also have national footprint through our affiliation with TCN, which also just went international. Some properties do require some international exposure, depends on the type of property, but for the most, the business is local.