Commercial Real Estate Resources for Savvy Corporations
For many of us, 2013 ended up closing with less than stellar results. Will 2014 be a better year? We share our perspective on why 2014 may be a better year for the commercial real estate market.
Demand for office space surged in the fourth quarter of 2012 posting the strongest quarter of demand for office space since pre-recession 2007. The job numbers have been healthy for quite some time but it wasn’t till the fourth quarter did we see the demand play out. Given the fiscal cliff scenario, the fear of a relapse into recession may be behind us. Asking rents rose 1% when compared to Q4 2011. While this is still a tenant’s market, vacancy is eroding. We estimate that we still need to decrease another 200 bsp before landlords can really push rents. The national rent growth is being pushed by a hand full of West Coast, tech-driven markets as well as the New York City market. Furthermore, we are seing companies functioning on less space per employee. That number has declined from 225sf to 176sf per person in 2012. We estimate that this could fall to as little as 151sf per person by 2017.
On Friday December 14th, Cassidy Turley released research examining the impending “fiscal cliff’s” impact on commercial real estate markets across the country. In this post, the fiscal cliff is defined and several scenarios are discussed. We also take our market research platform and discuss the impact to 30 different markets across the country. You can download the report by following the link or you can read the summary in this post. As always, let me know if you have any questions or comments.
Cassidy Turley’s Chief Economist Kevin Thorpe recently spoke on a company webcast. Mr. Thorpe covered Cassidy Turley’s perspective on the U.S. Economic & CRE Outlook. The presentation was titled, “A Big Fat Pause in the Recovery.” In this post, I summarize what was covered and provide a link for you to listen to the presentation.
You meet with your commercial real estate broker or talk on the phone and he gives you a market report for your area. Why? Isn’t it his job to know all those rent, vacancy and absorption numbers? Why should you care? The answers are important for your current and future business and may help you make business decisions aside from real estate.
With the volatility in the stock market last week, many of us are wondering what’s next. I’ve been writing about the increase in jobs in the economy and the venture capital boom as fundamentals pointing toward a slow but steady climb out of the recession. What should we do then with the downgrade of our U.S. credit rating and wild stock market activity last week? Should we hunker down and stop spending altogether or continue to move forward making business decisions as wisely as we can?
Our Office, Industrial and R&D reports for the second quarter are now all available. We are seeing healthy trends in…