REIT and Property Capital Markets Counsel: 4.7% of the Bench's Deals

A finance chief choosing REIT capital markets counsel is buying time from a bench that serves other issuers first. Sartori & Partners data show 2,164 dated deals for real estate sector clients in the 12 months to October 2026, and capital markets lawyers worked on 27.4% of them. Turn the lens around and the weight changes. Of the 12,684 deals the capital markets practice handled, real estate clients were on 4.7%, while banks were on 13.8% and pharma and biotech companies on 13.7%. The relationship matters far more to the property company than to the firm, and the engagement terms should be written with that imbalance in mind.

Real estate companies call on capital markets lawyers often, but not unusually often. Across every dated deal in the Sartori & Partners record the practice appears on 26.4%, so the property sector's 27.4% sits just 1.0 points above the market. Inside the sector the practice comes second, behind real estate lawyers at 38.4% and well ahead of corporate and M&A lawyers at 12.7%. A single deal can carry lawyers from several practices, so these shares overlap and are read one at a time.

Banks and pharma companies lean much harder on the same bench. Capital markets lawyers were on 51.0% of bank deals and 53.1% of pharma and biotech deals. Those sectors issue on a steady calendar. A property company comes to market around acquisitions, refinancings and equity raises, and spends more of its legal budget with property lawyers in between. For a REIT, the capital markets firm is the second relationship on the panel, after property counsel, and it is hired for specific moments rather than a steady flow.

From the firm's side of the table the proportions reverse. In the Sartori & Partners deal record, real estate clients were on 592 capital markets deals, 4.7% of the practice's total and level with utilities at 4.7%. Banks and financial institutions were on 1,751 and pharma and biotech companies on 1,740. Banks alone brought the bench 3.0 times as many deals as property clients did.

Set against the whole deal market, the gap has a clear source. Banks carry 1.9 times their market weight inside the capital markets bench, and pharma and biotech 2.0 times. Real estate sits at 4.7% against 4.5% of all dated deals, about the weight it has everywhere else. Property is not a sector the bench is built around; it is one client group among several of similar size, from utilities to power and oil and gas. Partner time, associate staffing and sector know-how follow the bank and life sciences calendars, and a REIT that does not ask for a named team gets whoever is free that week.

Volume per client points the same way. Sartori & Partners figures show 1,000 distinct clients behind the sector's 2,164 deals, or 2.2 deals per client in 12 months, against 2.6 per client for banks. Those deals are spread across every practice, so the capital markets share of any one property company's year is smaller still. The average property client is an occasional visitor to a capital markets team, not a standing issuance program.

Ticket size adds to the effect. The median disclosed real estate sector deal was $401.2 million, against $563.2 million for capital markets deals across all sectors and $660 million for bank deals. The medians rest only on deals that disclosed a value, 23.0% of real estate deals and 29.5% of capital markets deals, and the property figure mixes acquisitions and disputes with offerings, so read it as a rough size, not a price. Fewer deals per client and smaller disclosed tickets mean a property issuer seldom ranks among a capital markets partner's largest relationships. That argues for fixing the team and the rates in writing, not for paying a premium to the busiest desk.

The firm list for the sector counts every real estate deal a firm advised on, from property transactions to offerings and disputes; there is no separate list for capital markets work for property clients. Its head is telling all the same. Latham & Watkins ranks first on real estate sector deals, in the 101-150 band, and 2nd on capital markets deals across all sectors, in the 701-1200 band. Sidley Austin ranks second for the sector and 10th on the capital markets list. Neither firm appears among the ten most active real estate practices shown further down.

The real estate practice list is a different group. Greenberg Traurig heads it and ranks 3rd for the sector, but has no place in the capital markets top 10. Clifford Chance sits in the top 10 of all three lists, ranking 4th for the sector, 5th in real estate practice and 5th in capital markets. For a REIT, a high place on the sector list can come from a firm's capital markets group rather than its property bench. Ask each firm which group produced its real estate record, and whether the partners pitching your offering are the ones who did those deals.

On settled 12-month windows, real estate sector deals rose 6.8%, from 2,001 to 2,138. Capital markets deals across all sectors rose 10.0%, from 11,838 to 13,024, and pharma and biotech deals rose 14.5%. Utilities, level with real estate inside the bench, rose 13.6%. No year-on-year figure exists for capital markets work for property clients alone, but a sector whose deal count trails the practice it buys from is not gaining weight with its advisers.

All dated deals rose 10.6% over the same windows, so property also trailed the deal market as a whole. The clients pulling harder on capital markets partners sit in life sciences and utilities. When issuance windows crowd, the associates and partners a REIT needs are being asked for by faster-growing issuers at the same moment. Book the team for a planned offering early, and agree in the engagement letter who steps in if the lead partner is pricing another transaction that week.

Treat the capital markets firm as a specialist hired for set moments, and write the terms to match. With capital markets lawyers on 27.4% of the sector's deals, the work is too frequent to buy ad hoc, yet real estate clients account for 4.7% of the bench's deals, so the firm will not organize itself around you. Four steps follow. First, name the partner and senior associate in the engagement terms and require notice before any change. Second, ask the pitching firm how its capital markets team splits its time across property, bank and life sciences issuers, and which of its real estate sector deals came from that team. Third, keep property counsel and capital markets counsel in one working group for each offering, since real estate lawyers appear on 38.4% of the sector's deals and capital markets lawyers on 27.4%. Fourth, plan around the calendar: capital markets deals rose 10.0%, faster than the sector's 6.8%, so the bench is busier than your own deal flow suggests.