Williams Murdoch Announces Upstate New York Affiliate:

June 3 rd , 2004. New York, NY:

Williams Murdoch, Inc. has signed an affiliation with Research & Valuation Consultants of Rochester, NY, to broaden and improve its delivery of real estate valuation services through New York and the Mid-Atlantic States, and into the Midwest.

For Steve Williams, Chairman of Williams Murdoch, the affiliation typifies his company's approach to managed expansion: “Our business growth –both international and domestic- has to be assignment-driven, and our agreement with Research & Valuation Consultants is an excellent example of this. We first came across this company while seeking local support for a development analysis in the Rochester area, and having worked together successfully on that project, went on to joint-venture a series of multi-state assignments. This affiliation is, therefore, our formal recognition of a valuable relationship that sprang out of pre-existing demand for our combined services.”

For Luzette Eaves, Principal of Research & Valuation Consultants, the affiliation with Williams Murdoch expands her company's potential client base and service-platform: “By teaming up with Williams Murdoch, we can continue to improve services to our existing clients, at the same time acquiring a broader range of assignments from a more diverse group of service-users. While resource-sharing adds depth to our business, co-marketing adds breadth.”

Alastair Murdoch, President of Williams Murdoch, added “Research & Valuation Consultants is a proven, valuable partner, and fits well into our network of affiliates. Our Rochester and Manhattan locations combine to provide balanced coverage through our own highly diverse home state of New York, plus the demonstrated ability to deliver in neighboring Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states.”

For more details on the services provided by Williams Murdoch, Inc. and its network of affiliates in New York City, Raleigh, Boston, Rochester, Hamburg and Hong Kong, please contact Alastair Murdoch on (212) 867-4778 or via e-mail at amurdoch@williamsmurdoch.com.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Williams Murdoch is delighted to announce a new joint-venture agreement with Birch/REA Partners, Inc. Based in Boston, MA, Birch/REA is a boutique real estate consultancy and Credit Tenant Lease specialist that has advised on more than 5,000 properties nationwide, and on transactions worth more than $10 billion in recent years.

Our new partners share our commitment to providing first class advisory services, blending professionalism and entrepreneurialism to produce innovative, effective solutions. Together with Birch/REA in Boston and our sister-firm Williams Appraisers in Raleigh, NC, Williams Murdoch is ideally positioned to serve its clients across local, national and international markets.

To learn more about our new affiliation and the ways in which our range of customizable consulting, advisory and valuation services can support our clients' real estate decision-making, please take a look at our new partners' website at http://www.birchrea.com/ and contact Alastair Murdoch in Williams Murdoch's New York office.

INDUSTRY VETERANS THINK GLOBALLY

The following report, written by Michelle Napoli, first appeared on GlobeSt.com, January 22, 2004, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the copyright owner, GlobeSt.com LLC

NEW YORK CITY-“What does it mean to be an internationalist in real estate?” asked David Scribner Jr., president of Scribner & Partners, moderating a FIABCI-USA New York Council seminar last night at the New York Helmsley Hotel.

An appraiser would have to conduct property valuations in enough countries before truly being considered international, continued Scribner, whose firm offers real estate counseling and economist expertise. “But the minute you move money into another country, you immediately become international.” And that is happening more and more, he added; in Europe alone, for example, cross border real estate transactions in 2002 were five times than just five years earlier. "You have money moving all over the place. It moves quickly--faster than you can think about it."

The seminar, “International Real Estate--Working with Foreign Banks and Investors,” gave its audience a taste of what is happening in the commercial real estate industry around the globe.

Even if you're a US real estate executive who doesn't work on overseas projects, you need real knowledge of the international real estate market to give your clients the best advice, suggested one of the evening's panelists, Alexander G. Hesterberg, managing director of real estate valuation for Deutsche Bank. “You can't possibly know the value of real estate anywhere, in any major city, without knowing what's going on globally,” he said.

So what is happening globally? As another panelist, Cushman & Wakefield's EVP of international operations, John R. Coppedge III, noted, open- and closed-end German funds are by far the most active of overseas investors in the US. And in Europe, German and US investors are dominating, accounting for about 50%, or a total of approximately 10 billion Euros, of European real estate investments in 2003. The French market beat out the UK in terms of attracting foreign capital for the first time last year, he said, while Spain, Italy and Belgium, and to a lesser extent, Sweden and Central Europe, also proved attractive markets for investors.

But the next real “hot bed” for international real estate investment is Moscow, said Coppedge. Along with the risks that Russia represents, it can also offer sweet rewards--15 to 20%, compared to typical returns of 4 to 7% in major European markets. Moscow "is a market today that, as far as Europe is concerned, everybody's talking about.”

China is another location where the opportunities are “unfathomable,” Coppedge continued. Rockefeller Group International, Cushman & Wakefield's parent company, is preparing to launch a big development project in Shanghai's CBD, making it one of very, very few foreign entities to gain a presence in that city's property market. “There's a lot of interest in China. You're dealing with a Communist country, you're dealing with a country where you can't own land,” Coppedge noted, adding: “I believe it is really the wave of the futureand I think it's sustainable.”

The evening's other featured panelist, Alastair J. Murdoch, principal in real estate valuation services firm Williams Murdoch Inc., spoke about a number of international valuation organization and initiatives. Global standardization in this arena is important, Murdoch said, “so that we can provide consistency and transparency for international clients.”