Top 12 Commercial Real Estate Broker Skills to Put on Your Resume
In commercial real estate brokerage, your resume has to punch above its weight. Tight, credible, and sharp. Spotlight the skills that move deals forward and make owners, tenants, and capital partners trust you with high-stakes decisions. Do that well, and doors open—bigger listings, better clients, faster momentum.
Commercial Real Estate Broker Skills
- Negotiation
- Salesforce
- Market Analysis
- ARGUS Enterprise
- Networking
- Financial Modeling
- CoStar
- Lead Generation
- Yardi Voyager
- Contract Drafting
- BIM 360
- Presentation
1. Negotiation
Negotiation for a commercial broker is the disciplined dance of price, risk, and timing—shaping terms so both sides can say yes without regret. It’s strategy and empathy welded to facts.
Why It's Important
Deals live or die on terms. Strong negotiation protects client outcomes, speeds time to close, reduces retrades, and builds reputation—the currency that wins the next assignment.
How to Improve Negotiation Skills
Do the homework: comps, absorption, tenant credit, landlord concessions, debt costs, timing pressures. Facts win arguments.
Set walk‑away points in advance. No wobble when emotions flare.
Ask more, talk less. Surface the other side’s real drivers—vacancy pain, 1031 deadlines, TI budget caps.
Trade, don’t give. Concessions come in pairs: if we do X, you do Y.
Use time as a lever. Deadlines, expirations, and seasonality can tilt the field.
Recap in writing after each turn. Reduce drift. Lock understanding.
Review every deal post‑close. What worked, what slipped, what to tweak next time.
How to Display Negotiation Skills on Your Resume
2. Salesforce
Salesforce is a CRM backbone—pipeline, relationships, activities, dashboards—centralized so you never lose track of a lead, a renewal, or a follow‑up.
Why It's Important
Cleaner data, tighter follow‑through, fewer dropped balls. Automation nudges the work forward while you prospect and negotiate.
How to Improve Salesforce Skills
Build role‑specific dashboards: pipeline by stage, next actions, deal velocity, commission forecasts.
Automate touchpoints with Flows: reminders, post‑tour emails, LOI follow‑ups, renewal alerts.
Create custom objects and fields for properties, deals, commissions, and key terms.
Standardize activity logging. If it’s not in Salesforce, it didn’t happen.
Use mobile for on‑the‑go notes and task capture right after tours.
Adopt CRM Analytics (formerly Einstein Analytics) to spot patterns: win rates by industry, deal length by asset type.
Integrate marketing and calendar tools so lead capture and scheduling stay in sync.
How to Display Salesforce Skills on Your Resume
3. Market Analysis
Market analysis turns scattered signals—rents, vacancy, cap rates, construction pipelines—into direction. It guides pricing, positioning, and timing.
Why It's Important
Better reads on supply and demand mean better underwriting, sharper negotiations, and fewer surprises mid‑deal.
How to Improve Market Analysis Skills
Track fundamentals monthly: effective rent, net absorption, concessions, renewal spreads, time‑on‑market.
Map competitive sets. Tour them. Validate the glossy claims against reality.
Study pipeline risk: new deliveries, rezoning, infrastructure shifts, retailer openings/closures.
Build scenario models—base, upside, downside—and include sensitivity to interest rates and exit caps.
Layer micro‑location factors: foot traffic, access, daytime population, freight routes, visibility.
Keep a comp file you trust. Annotate: landlord posture, actual deal terms, one‑off quirks.
How to Display Market Analysis Skills on Your Resume
4. ARGUS Enterprise
ARGUS Enterprise models property cash flows, valuations, and scenarios across leases, expenses, reimbursements, and debt—standard language for investors and lenders.
Why It's Important
It aligns your underwriting with how capital thinks. Cleaner assumptions, credible outputs, faster buy‑in.
How to Improve ARGUS Enterprise Skills
Complete vendor or accredited training and practice with real cases until inputs feel second nature.
Build a template library: office, retail, industrial, multifamily—with standard assumptions and notes.
Audit models: reconcile to historicals, lease abstracts, and GL data to kill errors.
Stress test: rollover cliffs, expense spikes, refinancing risk, downtime by tenant quality.
Document assumptions clearly so buyers and credit committees can trace the logic.
How to Display ARGUS Enterprise Skills on Your Resume
5. Networking
Networking is deal flow. Owners, tenants, lenders, attorneys, architects, contractors—each conversation seeds the next opportunity.
Why It's Important
Information advantage wins listings and placements. Relationships shrink friction and expand reach.
How to Improve Networking Skills
Show up consistently: brokerage meetups, lender breakfasts, ICSC, ULI, BOMA, NAIOP chapters.
Give first—market intel, intros, quick valuations. Reciprocity follows.
Post useful insights regularly. Market notes beat self‑promotion every time.
Track touchpoints in your CRM. Cadence matters; memory fails.
Build a short list of target owners/tenants and create reasons to connect quarterly.
Host small roundtables—attorneys, CPAs, lenders, developers—and learn while bonding.
How to Display Networking Skills on Your Resume
6. Financial Modeling
Financial modeling translates a property’s story into numbers: revenue, expenses, debt, taxes, cash flow, value—month by month, year by year.
Why It's Important
Credible models de‑risk decisions, backstop pricing, and sharpen negotiations. They also make you indispensable to clients.
How to Improve Financial Modeling Skills
Master spreadsheet fundamentals: clean structure, consistent formulas, transparent assumptions.
Build debt schedules correctly—IO periods, amortization, covenants, refinance scenarios.
Use sensitivity tables and data tables to test rent growth, cap rates, exit timing.
Standardize templates for acquisitions, leasing, renewals, and dispositions.
Tie models to reality: lease abstracts, historicals, market comps, and actual operating statements.
Learn quick‑turn underwriting for tours and owner calls; save deep dives for live deals.
How to Display Financial Modeling Skills on Your Resume
7. CoStar
CoStar provides verified property data, comps, tenants, availabilities, ownership info, and analytics—fuel for research and positioning.
Why It's Important
Reliable data sharpens pricing, prospecting, and marketing. It also gives you faster answers in the room.
How to Improve CoStar Skills
Save targeted searches and alerts for expansions, expirations, and new listings in your niche.
Maintain your listings meticulously—accuracy builds credibility.
Lean into analytics: submarket trends, rent bands, time‑on‑market. Spot the outliers.
Cross‑check ownership and debt history to tailor outreach.
Schedule regular training refreshers to catch new features and shortcuts.
How to Display CoStar Skills on Your Resume
8. Lead Generation
Lead generation is the system that feeds your pipeline—owners who will list, tenants who will tour, investors who will bid.
Why It's Important
No pipeline, no production. With a steady inflow, even slow quarters land strong.
How to Improve Lead Generation Skills
Dial in your niche and ICP (ideal client profile). Precision beats volume.
Build a simple, fast website with clear CTAs, strong bios, and proof: case studies, testimonials, recent closings.
Publish market notes and brief deal breakdowns—substantive, consistent, scannable.
Run targeted email drips by segment: owners, tenants, investors—different hooks, different asks.
Use paid search and social for intent and remarketing; test copy, landing pages, and forms.
Host webinars or property spotlights; follow with curated one‑to‑one outreach.
Turn clients into advocates—request testimonials and referrals right after wins.
How to Display Lead Generation Skills on Your Resume
9. Yardi Voyager
Yardi Voyager is property management and accounting software used across portfolios—leases, CAM, AP/AR, reporting—all in one system.
Why It's Important
For brokers working with institutional owners or property managers, fluency shortens the back‑and‑forth: faster data pulls, smoother reporting, tighter collaboration.
How to Improve Yardi Voyager Skills
Customize dashboards for leasing KPIs: expirations, occupancy, rent rolls, delinquencies.
Align data fields with your CRM to keep owner, tenant, and deal info consistent.
Automate recurring reports for owners and prospects—no last‑minute scrambles.
Use mobile tools to update notes and photos from site visits.
Maintain data hygiene: standardized naming, periodic audits, user permissions.
How to Display Yardi Voyager Skills on Your Resume
10. Contract Drafting
Contract drafting means shaping clear, enforceable documents—LOIs, listing agreements, leases, PSAs—that reflect the deal you actually intend to make.
Why It's Important
Clarity prevents disputes. Precision speeds legal review. Strong clauses protect your client when the unexpected shows up.
How to Improve Contract Drafting Skills
Master core clauses: reps and warranties, contingencies, indemnities, assignment, default, remedies.
Write plainly. Cut jargon. Define terms. Ambiguity is expensive.
Keep a vetted template set for common deal types; update with new case law and market norms.
Add practical timelines and deliverables—who does what, by when, and how it’s evidenced.
Coordinate early with counsel on tricky items (environmental, title, exclusives, SNDA).
Adopt e‑signature and version control to reduce errors and speed execution.
How to Display Contract Drafting Skills on Your Resume
11. BIM 360
BIM 360 (now commonly delivered through Autodesk’s BIM Collaborate/Build offerings) connects construction teams and models so stakeholders can track issues, documents, and progress in real time.
Why It's Important
While not a core brokerage tool, access can help brokers coordinating with developers and tenants: verifying as‑builts, understanding build‑outs, and illustrating what’s feasible during tours and pitches.
How to Improve BIM 360 Skills
Learn navigation of models, markups, and issue tracking so you can speak to design and schedule impacts credibly.
Create simple client‑facing views—stacking plans, test fits, and annotated screenshots for proposals.
Standardize file organization and naming to keep plans, specs, and RFIs easy to find during deals.
How to Display BIM 360 Skills on Your Resume
12. Presentation
Presentation is how you frame the story—property, market, returns—so clients see the upside and trust the path to get there.
Why It's Important
Quality presentation earns attention and accelerates yes. It makes the complex clear and the value obvious.
How to Improve Presentation Skills
Start with outcomes. Lead with the why: value drivers, tenant fit, return profile.
Use crisp visuals—photos, plans, short video walk‑throughs, virtual tours—no clutter.
Cut words. Use headlines, numbers, and callouts. Speak the rest.
Build a tight narrative arc: context, opportunity, proof, plan, next step.
Rehearse timing. Leave space for questions. Anticipate objections with data.
End with a clear ask: tour scheduling, LOI timeline, diligence checklist.
How to Display Presentation Skills on Your Resume
