International property consultants and the transformation of local markets

The paper presents the findings of a case-study research on the role of British property consultants in consolidating a transnational market for property in Europe. It examines comparatively the incorporation of Madrid and Milan into networks of transnational property investment and development and seeks to clarify the relationship between the expansion strategies of British firms and changes in property market structures in both cities. The focus is on the dynamic of the relationship between the consultancy firms and the different legal, institutional and cultural contexts of those property markets. The paper looks at the implications of that relationship for the firms and the markets, and at the role of the firms' strategies in bringing about market structures, practices and cultures compatible with the types of interest they mediate. The paper suggests that the structures and dynamics of the two markets have set a number of reasonably well-defined routes of entry for the consultancy firms, shaped by the different response of the institutional, cultural, economic environments of each city to similar pressures towards market internationalization. These alternative possibilities of insertion into the evolving relations of provision of commercial property have conditioned how firms have developed in the markets and how they have related to processes of market change.