Surging data center services revenue and a rebound in U.S. office leasing stood out in CBRE’s strong second-quarter results for 2026. 

During a Wednesday morning earnings call, the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm reported $11.2 billion in second-quarter revenue, roughly in line with analysts’ estimates. Revenue grew annually by 15.5 percent, and increased over its first-quarter results by roughly 6.6 percent. 

CBRE’s earnings beat analysts’ expectations, with core earnings per share of $1.56. Adjusted profit rose to $459 million from $361 million a year earlier, stripping out one-off line items like fire-safety repairs on U.K. buildings.

The firm’s second-quarter report included more than $700 million in revenue from data center services. U.S. office leasing notched a second-quarter record, too, in a welcome signal of continued commercial recovery. 

CBRE’s more volatile segments, like property sales, mortgage origination and leasing, saw revenue growth of 19 percent year-over-year. U.S. leasing revenues spiked by 24 percent, led by office and industrial activity. 

Most notably, U.S. office leasing generated its highest-ever second-quarter revenue, according to Emma Giamartino, CBRE’s chief financial officer. The strength was driven by gateway markets, as well as space upgrades from financial and legal tenants. 

CBRE’s global property sales saw increased revenues of 20 percent, with the U.S. tracking a 24 percent increase across most property types. Despite the strong performance, there’s still room for recovery.

“On the leasing side, we’re still not back to 2019 levels,” Giamartino said. “We see there’s more room to go this year, and that will extend into next year. And on the sales side, we’re still pretty early. We’ve seen strong growth, but not near the levels of growth that we’ve seen coming out of other recoveries.”

Infrastructure services, including data centers, emerged as CBRE’s fastest-growing businesses in the second quarter. Revenue in that segment rose more than 45 percent annually to nearly $1.2 billion, according to Robert Sulentic, CBRE’s president and CEO. 

Data centers made up the bulk of that growth, with revenues rising nearly 30 percent year-over-year to surpass $700 million. More than half of data center profits came from ongoing work, like managing and refitting facilities, and did not include data center land sales. CBRE   currently has about 30 such sites in its U.S. land bank, according to Giamartino. 

Company leadership expects data center services revenue to keep growing by around 25 percent annually for the next five years as significant AI investment continues. The business partnerships initiated by CBRE’s data center services are particularly fruitful, Sulentic said. 

“I don’t think I ever remember us being involved in any area of our business where the revenue synergies were as great as they are in the data center business,” Sulentic said.

CBRE’s “resilient” businesses, a source of recurring income that includes facilities management, valuations and loan servicing, also saw positive results, with revenue up 15 percent over the year, boosted by data centers and the firm’s acquisition of critical infrastructure maintenance firm Pearce Services in November 2025.

Weaknesses could be found in the firm’s real estate investment management segment, the value of which declined from the prior quarter. Sulentic pointed out that some investors, particularly Middle Eastern capital, remain cautious against a volatile geopolitical backdrop.

As a result of a recovering transactional market and revenue from data center build-outs, however, CBRE leadership raised the company’s full-year forecast for core earnings per share to between $7.80 and $7.90, up from a prior range of $7.60 to $7.80.

Emily Davis can be reached at edavis@commercialobserver.com.