Each Wednesday, The Wrap presents a compilation of recent noteworthy commercial real estate stories from a variety of publications. Below are links to five stories that caught our eyes in recent days.
- Commercial Property Values Now 14 Percent Above 2007 Peak: Report by Eliot Brown of the Wall Street Journal.
Key excerpt:
“Real estate research firm Green Street Advisors reported Tuesday that commercial property values in March were 11 percent above March 2014, and unchanged from February. In all, values have now risen 87 percent since they bottomed out in 2009, and more than 14 percent from the prior peak in 2007, according to Green Street’s index.”
- Store-within-a-Store: Brick-and-Mortar's 'Godfather Strategy' by Daphne Howland of Retail Dive.
Key excerpt:
“But stores-within-stores aren’t just boutique areas; rather, they're controlled by the brands themselves. That sets them apart in even more than look and feel. Their employees are not employees of the store, so rather than sharing all that much of the store’s culture, they bring with them the outlook — and expertise — of their own brand.”
- National Vacancy Declines in 1Q as New Completions Fall by Les Shaver of Multifamily Executive.
Key excerpt:
“‘Although weak first quarters for completions has become a bit of a norm in recent years as seasonality has returned to the market, it is a bit surprising this year because of the large pipeline of projects slated to come online in 2015, including many new units that were supposed to be completed last year but were delayed until this year,’ [Ryan Severino] said in written remarks about the data.”
- Most U.S. Office Markets Firmly in Recovery, Expansion Mode by Robert Carr of National Real Estate Investor.
Key excerpt:
“To round out the PwC rankings, there are only seven markets out of the 57 included that are classified as still being in a ‘recession’ mode, including Cincinnati, San Jose, Calif., Ventura, Calif., Albuquerque, N.M., Newark, Houston and Washington, D.C. These markets have low demand for space combined with a lot of supply, and continue to display other negative market dynamics. Another seven markets are in the ‘contraction’ phase, characterized by too much supply and a reversal of recovery. These markets include Honolulu, Riverside, Calif., Austin, Texas, Fort Worth, Texas, Nashville, Tenn., Seattle, and most surprisingly, San Francisco.”
- Economy Watch: Middling Employment Numbers Keep Interest Rates Low Longer by Dees Stribling of Commercial Property Executive.
Key excerpt:
“The March jobs numbers also offered mixed news about the business sectors that tend to use commercial space. For example, employment in professional and business services trended up in March by 40,000 positions. Not a bad showing for a single month, but growth in this sector, which uses office space, averaged 34,000 jobs per month in the first quarter of 2015, below the average monthly gain of 59,000 in 2014. Employment in warehousing and manufacturing, which reflect patterns in industrial space usage, didn’t change much in March.”