Commercial

Landlords Cut Commercial Rents

Commercial landlords are struggling to keep tenants and hold onto property in one of the toughest markets in decades.

Nationwide, effective office rents fell 8.5 percent in the third quarter compared with the same period in 2008, according to Reis Inc., and companies reduced office space drastically, vacating 19.6 million square feet, the equivalent of six Empire State Buildings, Reis calculated.

Victor Calanog, director of research at Reis, predicts that this drop in rents likely will spur a pickup in leasing activity over the next 12 months.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, A.D. Pruitt (10/28/2009)

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Elliott Robinson, JD – Associate Broker
Keller Williams Realty Metro Atlanta
315 West Ponce de Leon Ave., Ste. 100
Decatur, GA 30030
(404) 431-2117
Web: www.elliottyouragent.com
Blog – www.elliottonrealestate.com
Twitter – http://twitter.com/elliottrob

Commercial

10 Markets Where Building Is Booming

The building business—both commercial and residential—is a seeing a recovery in some markets, especially those where military, government, and energy jobs are driving demand.

Lake Charles, La., which leads the nation, is an anomaly—it’s recovering from hurricanes—but the other markets are largely driving by economic growth. For instance, building permits for apartments in Huntsville, Ala., near the expanding U.S. Space & Rocket Center, have jumped 400 percent so far in 2009.

Many of the contracts are going to smaller local builders, but some of the giants are getting back in the game as well. KB Home resumed construction in the Mid-Atlantic, including Washington D.C., after pulling back earlier this year.

The top 10 growth markets, based on building permits, are:

1. Lake Charles, La., 122.5 percent
2. Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas, 65.8 percent
3. Salt Lake City, 36.6 percent
4. Huntsville, Ala., 30 percent
5. Jacksonville, N.C., 28.6 percent
6. Augusta-Richmond County, Ga.-S.C., 21.6 percent
7. Fayetteville, N.C., 12.2 percent
8. Las Cruces, N.M., 11.6 percent
9. Auburn-Opelika, Ala., 11.3 percent
10. Little Rock-North Little Rock, Ark., 7.7 percent

Source: BusinessWeek, Prashant Gopal (09/18/2009)

——————–
Elliott Robinson, JD – Associate Broker
Keller Williams Realty Metro Atlanta
315 West Ponce de Leon Ave., Ste. 100
Decatur, GA 30030
o- (404) 564-5560
Blog – http://elliottonrealestate.com
Twitter – http://twitter.com/elliottrob

Commercial

Investors Wait for Commercial Opportunity

Investors looking to buy commercial properties on the cheap as the economy slams the commercial real estate industry have been disappointed so far.

Property values have declined on paper, but would-be buyers haven’t been able to walk off with offices, shopping centers, hotels, and warehouses at fire-sale prices, and very few properties are changing hands.

“Investors seem surprised at the lack of quality buying opportunities given the problems in the financial markets and the continued weakening of the industry’s fundamentals,” says Susan Smith, director of the real estate advisory practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Investors are expected to keep waiting because many properties purchased during 2006 and 2007 are over-leveraged and lenders will eventually be forced to foreclose and sell them at a discount.

Source: Los Angeles Times, Roger Vincent (09/15/09)

——————–
Elliott Robinson, JD – Associate Broker
Keller Williams Realty Metro Atlanta
315 West Ponce de Leon Ave., Ste. 100
Decatur, GA 30030
o- (404) 564-5560
Blog – http://elliottonrealestate.com
Twitter – http://twitter.com/elliottrob