Hiring a real estate consultant should feel less like rolling dice and more like picking a surgeon. You are trusting someone with opaque markets, seven-figure decisions, and timelines that rarely forgive mistakes. References are your X-ray. Done well, they reveal the consultant’s process, temperament, blind spots, and consistency across different market cycles. Done poorly, they only confirm someone has three friends willing to say nice things.
I have been on all sides of these calls: as the client dialing references, as the consultant hoping the past client returns the call, and as the third party listening while someone soft-pedals a project that went sideways. The truth hides in the gaps, not the soundbites. If you know how to listen, a five-minute reference check can tell you more than a glossy case study with hero photos and an uplifting caption.
What follows is not a rigid checklist. It is the way experienced buyers, developers, and asset managers quietly pressure-test the people who will guide their capital. You will find patterns, questions, and small tests that produce big tells. Use the pieces that fit your situation. Ignore the rest.
Start before the first phone call
The best reference checks start long before you ask for names. You want to know enough about the consultant’s claims that you can steer the conversation with context rather than curiosity. If a real estate consultant says they have placed 200,000 square feet of life sciences tenants, or performed valuation support for nine multifamily acquisitions in the past year, or shepherded three complicated entitlement approvals, you should have a rough map of those claims by the time you dial.
There are easy ways to do this. Pull public records for closed transactions and permits in the relevant counties. Search for leases announced in local business journals. Scan LinkedIn for mutual connections who spent more than a single project together. Look at the consultant’s past employers and get a sense of deal size and scope. You are not trying to catch them lying. You are building a better script so your reference calls ask for specifics rather than vibes.
A small example: a mid-market industrial investor bragged to me about a “land assemblage masterstroke” in a logistics corridor. The public plat maps showed a straightforward three-parcel consolidation without any zoning change. Impressive speed, sure, but not a multi-year chess game. That calibrates the reference call. Instead of “tell me about their strategic brilliance,” you ask “what allowed them to move quickly on seller outreach and diligence, and where did they rely on outside counsel or brokers.”
Decide what kind of reference you actually need
Not every reference is equally useful. The right mix depends on what you plan to hire the consultant to do. If you are hiring a relocation specialist to negotiate a headquarters lease, you need different input than if you are engaging a development advisor for a brownfield site. Ideally, the references mirror the type of work, the dollar stakes, the timeline, and the market.
There are four flavors of references that matter. Past clients are obvious. Counterparties never lie on purpose, but they reveal power dynamics and negotiation style. Professional partners, such as attorneys, lenders, project managers, or architects, expose process and follow-through. Team references, like junior analysts or subcontractors, show how work is actually executed and whether deadlines suffer death by delegation. If you can, pull at least one from outside the neat list they give you. Nothing tells you more than the uncurated voice.
Remember the bias built into curated references. No one hands out the name of the client who fired them. Balanced references begin with the consultant’s list, then widen to people you find yourself. If your budget or time is limited, choose quality over volume. Two well-run reference calls, each fifteen to twenty minutes with clear objectives, beat eight generic chats.
Ask for names the right way
How you ask telegraphs how you operate. If you email a vague “send me three references,” you will get three friends. If you ask for two clients from the past twelve months whose projects match your scope, plus one that was tough, plus one professional partner who saw them under pressure, you set an expectation. The consultant either meets it, proposes a thoughtful alternative, or flinches. The reaction is data.
Give permission for imperfection. Say that you want at least one reference from a project that did not go to plan. Good consultants keep those relationships because they owned the mistakes. One of the strongest recommendations I ever heard came from a client whose entitlement strategy fell apart after a city council flip. The consultant laid out their misreads, redesigned the path, and saved two-thirds of the timeline. You do not get to hear that story unless you ask for messy projects.
There is also a quiet filter for truthfulness: dates. Ask for the month and year of engagement, the scope, and the primary counterparty. Put them in a simple timeline. Projects that overlap implausibly or float across market regions without travel will prompt clarifying questions. These are not gotchas. They are signals of how carefully someone keeps their books and tells their story.
Prepare your reference questions so they land
The difference between a perfunctory reference check and a diagnostic one is preparation. You want structured questions that invite specifics, and you want a clear arc to the call. Start with context, move through process, test for stress, and finish with future intent.
Here are five questions that consistently produce real information.
- What was the objective when you hired the consultant, and what did success look like in your words at kickoff? Tell me about the first two weeks. What did they do that you did not expect, good or bad? Where did their advice change your decision, and what was the outcome? Describe a moment when things went sideways, even a small one. How did they communicate and course-correct? If you hired them again, what would you ask them to do differently the second time?
These are not trivia questions. They force the reference to recall concrete moments. If the answers feel vague, ask for timestamps, numbers, or documents. “You said they accelerated your site selection. By how much, roughly?” If they say “saved us a ton,” press for a range. Good references can ground the story: two weeks, three percent rent reduction, 12 basis points on the debt, four city meetings instead of seven. Round numbers are fine. Rounded stories are not.
Listen for the work you will actually receive
Consultants often sell with senior faces and deliver with junior hands. That is not a problem if the juniors are strong, the handoffs are clean, and the scope suits the team. It becomes a problem when the partner disappears after the pitch and the analyst learns on your dime. The reference call is your preview.
Ask who showed up to meetings and who wrote the deliverables. Did the senior voice attend critical negotiations? Who built the model or the pricing memos, and how many revisions were needed? You are not micromanaging. You are identifying the rhythm of how work moved through the team.
A landlord representative once impressed a client by attending every city session and lease meeting, then quietly subbed in a junior for critical economic modeling. The model missed a co-tenancy trigger that cost the tenant roughly $400,000 over the term. The reference told me, “We liked them, but we needed to see the same person who negotiated the headline terms reviewing the cash flow mechanics.” That sentence saved my client from a mismatch of strengths.
Use silence, not aggression
You will learn more by leaving space than by cross-examining. After a reference offers a positive sentiment, let it sit. People often fill silence with detail. “They ran an excellent process.” Pause. “Specifically, their weekly check-ins forced the GC to commit to dates. We avoided a two-week slip that killed another project I ran.” That extra sentence gives you leverage later when you negotiate the consultant’s cadence with your team.
If the reference dodges a question, do not bulldoze. Reframe. Instead of “Were they honest,” try “Tell me about a time when they brought you bad news. How quickly did they tell you, and what options did they propose on that same call.” You will hear tone and timing, not promises of integrity.
Take a forensic approach to “success”
Most consultant case studies hinge on outcomes the team cannot fully control. Entitlements hinge on politics. Lease deals hinge on markets and the counterparty’s motivations. Development budgets hinge on commodity prices and labor availability. A sophisticated reference check separates process quality from outcome luck.
Ask how the consultant measured success during the project, not just after. Did they define milestones, update decision trees, and flag emerging risks with leading indicators? For example, during a site search, did they put fall-back markets on deck in case a preferred municipality changed incentives? During a renovation budgeting process, did they create add-alternates and give the owner a clear plan B if bids came in hot? Process discipline shows up as weekly agendas, version control, redlined assumptions, and coherent “if X, then Y” decision paths.
When the outcome was favorable, ask what portion the reference attributes to the consultant’s efforts. If they say “60 percent us, 40 percent the consultant,” that is a healthy signal. Anyone who takes credit for 100 percent of a success in real estate has not been through a volatile cycle.
Check the uncomfortable corners
Every real estate consultant has a weak side. Some oversell speed and undercook details. Others write boots-on-the-ground reports that sing but drag in negotiation. Some cannot say the word “no” to stakeholders. References will rarely volunteer these edges unless you invite them.
Invite them. Say, “Everyone follow this link has a lane where they are exceptional and a lane where they are passable. Where would you ask someone to complement them if you hired them again.” Framed like that, even generous references will give you a useful gap. You are not shopping for flawless. You are shopping for a fit between their strengths and your needs.
One retail client loved a consultant’s landlord relationship network but said, “They needed our counsel to run the volume sensitivity analysis the way we like it.” That is not a fatal flaw. It is a pairing note. If you hire them, route the financial engineering through your internal team or retain a separate analyst.
Verify claims with light-touch documentation
You do not need a dossier to verify a resume. A few polite requests can screen for exaggeration without slowing the process. Ask for anonymized deliverables that match your scope: a sample diligence memo, a weekly update, a lease comparison, a budget variance log, or a city hearing summary. If the consultant hesitates because of confidentiality, that is fair. Ask them to redact names and numbers. You are looking for structure, clarity, and logic more than proprietary data.
When a consultant claims specialized experience, such as capitalizing tax credits or navigating a coastal commission approval, request one public filing. You can find most approvals and incentive agreements online. The goal is not to read every page. The goal is to make sure the person who will sit across from you has touched the real documents, not just the trophy photo.
Calibrate for market and cycle
A reference from a frothy year tells a different story than one from a tight credit cycle. Ask references to place their project in time. Deals that closed in 2019 did not face supply chain chaos, while those in 2021 might have relied on interest-only debt and cap rate compression. A consultant who thrived in rising markets might feel overconfident today, while a conservative one who slowed deals in 2020 may be the steady hand you want now.
It helps to ask a cycle question directly: “If you worked with them again in this market, what would you ask them to adjust from the approach they used with you.” This gives you a preview of how adaptable they are. A consultant who says “we do it the same way every time” alarms me unless the task is routine. Real estate rarely rewards rigidity.
Use counterparties carefully
Talking to the other side can be gold. It can also backfire. A landlord who felt hammered in a negotiation might downplay a tenant rep’s strengths. A city planner with a bruised ego might characterize a consultant as “difficult” when what they mean is “insisted on their client’s rights.” If you call a counterparty, be candid about what you are seeking: style, responsiveness, and accuracy in representations. Not loyalty to your side.
Listen for respect. “We disagreed, but they were straight about their numbers and kept their word on timing.” That sentence tells you more about future negotiations than a glowing client review.
Read between the lines on fees and scope
References will sometimes hesitate to talk about money. That is fine. You can still learn by asking how changes in scope got handled. Were there surprise invoices, or did the consultant put scope changes in writing before charging extra? When a mid-construction discovery required rework, did they create a menu of fee options and explain the trade-offs, or did they assume a blank check? References who describe clear change orders, crisp emails, and “no nickel-and-diming” are describing a professional.
Avoid the trap of asking for the cheapest consultant. Good references sometimes admit, “They were not the lowest bid, but they saved us weeks.” In real estate, time is a financial variable. A competent consultant who compresses one month in a twelve-month schedule can be cheaper than a bargain pick who drifts. Ask the reference what the consultant did that saved clock time and how much that time was worth to them.
Watch for the three classic red flags
Most reference checks end with kind words and safe stories. Pay attention when you hear any version of these:
- They always seemed to be catching up rather than leading the process. The senior person disappeared after kickoff, and deliverables came late or thin. When risk showed up, they sugarcoated it rather than quantifying it quickly.
Each one is recoverable with the right contract terms and oversight. But if you hear two of the three, think hard. Those patterns tend to repeat.
Put the pieces together with a simple score
You do not need a formal model, but you should crystallize your impressions. I use a five-factor lens after reference calls. Each gets a quick rating from weak to strong, with a sentence or two of evidence in plain words. That makes comparisons easier when your team debates favorites.
- Fit to scope. Do their best stories match your needs, or are you stretching? Process discipline. Did references describe structure, cadence, and clarity? Judgment under pressure. When things shifted, did they see around corners? Team delivery. Who did the work, and did the right people show up at the right time? Communication and integrity. Directness, responsiveness, and candor about bad news.
Write it down the same day you make the calls. Notes age quickly. The first version you write will capture tone that you will forget a week later.
Balance reference glow with quiet checks
References can be warm and still mislead. A glowing reference may owe the consultant a favor or simply like them as a person. Add two quiet checks that cost almost nothing.
Search for litigation in the relevant jurisdictions, including small claims or administrative actions. Many are mundane, but a pattern of payment disputes with vendors, or sanctions tied to misrepresentations, should prompt a conversation. Then, ask to speak with one more reference who does not come from their list. You can find them through public filings, LinkedIn, or mutual colleagues. A two-minute call that confirms “yes, they were fair, prepared, and did not play games” is a strong cross-check.
Have the courage to pass
A reference check sometimes yields a mixed bag. The consultant is brilliant with entitlements, a little loose with documentation, and prickly when pressed. If your internal team is documentation-strong and politics-light, the match may still work. But if your project needs delicate coalition-building, say thank you and move on. Passing is cheaper than managing a bad fit.
Clients get into trouble when they talk themselves into a hire because one reference described a heroic save that may never apply to their project. Your job is not to collect inspiring stories. It is to predict the next twelve months and choose the captain who can sail that water, not someone else’s ocean.
A brief script you can actually use
If you like structure, here is a compact script that holds together a twenty-minute call without sounding robotic. Use it as scaffolding. Build your own sentences.
- Quick context. “We are considering them for [scope]. Your project sounds similar in [ways].” Kickoff reality. “At the beginning, what did they do that made you breathe easier, and what took longer to click.” Specific pivot. “Name one decision they shaped materially. What changed because of their input.” Stress test. “Describe a bump in the road and how they handled the update, options, and tone.” Team visibility. “Who did the work day to day, and were you comfortable with the handoffs.” Scope and fees. “When scope shifted, how did they handle the conversation and the money.” Would you hire again. “What would you ask them to do differently next time for your project.”
That flow rarely fails. It respects the reference’s time and pulls on the threads you actually care about.
Close the loop with the consultant
After you run your references, circle back to the real estate consultant with what you learned, stripped of names. Give them a chance to address themes. You are not interrogating them; you are looking for alignment and self-awareness. A great sign is a consultant who says, “Yes, on that project we were stretched thin. For your work, here is how we will structure the team and weekly cadence so you do not feel that.” If they get defensive or dismissive, believe them. They just showed you how they will handle hard news on your project.
Ask them to memorialize team composition, meeting frequency, and a preliminary milestone plan in the engagement letter. Good consultants welcome clarity. Weak ones prefer fog. The contract is not just a legal document. It is a forecast of behavior.
The long memory of real estate
Real estate is a small industry masquerading as a big one. The good and the bad travel. People remember who called risk early, who showed up to ugly meetings, who told the truth when it hurt, and who took their victory lap with humility. A solid reference check is not about finding a superhero. It is about finding a partner whose habits match your project’s needs and whose wins are built on repeatable work rather than adrenaline.
When you treat references as living case studies rather than polite formalities, you will spot the consultant who fits. They are the ones whose past clients talk about calendars and models, not adjectives. They communicate early, they price fairly, they put the right person on the right hour, and when the market sneezes they arrive with tissues and a revised plan rather than a shrug. That is the voice you want in your ear when the next lease draft lands at midnight or the soil test comes back fussy. Your future self will thank you for dialing carefully today.