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Who knew that biotech players would be the ones to lead a boom in one of the most historic areas in the country? Despite being home to Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., just outside of Boston, has also harbored a wasteland of empty lots where factories once were located but that haven’t ever been fully developed since.
A new National Association of Realtors (NAR) report is crediting sluggish job creation and a lack of loan availability for slow CRE recovery. The NAR study noted that, in particular, vacancy rates in the office sector are expected to fall from an estimated 16.1 percent in the third quarter of this year to 15.6 percent in the third quarter of 2013. The study has more bad news for the retail sector, predicting vacancy rates at shopping centers and malls will decline from 10.9 percent in the third quarter of this year to only 10.7 percent in the third quarter of next year.
Shopping mall owner and manager Glimcher Realty Trust has come up with a tenant-mix formula that’s outsmarting the Internet competition that has been threatening the success of its retail properties. Glimcher’s malls are increasingly renting to businesses that provide services and products that can’t be bought online.
New findings show much-needed improvement in the nation’s real estate markets. As the CRE market continues to rebound in a lackluster economy, industry executives say multifamily development will continue to grow. However, they remain focused on initiatives that increase operational efficiency and reduce costs, according to a recent survey by the audit, tax, and advisory firm KPMG LLP.
While the commercial real estate market showed signs of recovery in 2011, credit tightened in the past year for small businesses, according to a National Association of Realtors (NAR) survey. NAR reported that 474 commercial real estate agents credited a lack of capital for soured deals on properties for less than $2 million.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is putting a damper on the U.S.'s largest provider of commercial real estate information services, breaking up what CoStar Group had hoped to be a lucrative combination of its services after acquiring LoopNet for $860 million. Although CoStar and LoopNet will continue to operate as a combined firm, it must sell LoopNet's ownership interest in Xceligent—a significant provider of U.S. commercial real estate information—under a proposed FTC order settling charges that the acquisition would be anticompetitive.
In the largest sale of its kind to date, CWCapital Asset Management LLC is offering $345 million of distressed real estate debt, mainly from retail properties and office buildings, to investors. Responding to demand from commercial real estate investors, the firm, which specializes in troubled commercial mortgages, aims to resolve problem real estate contained in securities by selling a portfolio including properties from the East Coast to the West Coast. The special servicer is selling the debt at an opportune time, as investors are ready to take advantage of defaults.
As the international financial crisis that had a significant impact on commercial real estate construction in the United Arab Emirates capital, Abu Dhabi, subsides, some stalled projects are in motion again. The emirates' executive council has announced that, among many notable commercial buildings, a new terminal at the international airport, several premium-quality Grade A commercial buildings, and museum projects tied to the Louvre and Guggenheim, are coming to fruition. The Abu Dhabi International Airport terminal is set to open in 2016.
The Charleston, S.C., commercial real estate market is rebounding in some sectors and experiencing a shakier recovery in others, according to first-quarter reports by Grubb and Ellis WRS. Industrial space vacancies declined to 9.5 percent, the lowest levels since 2007. However, office and retail space saw vacancies increase over the first quarter, with downtown Charleston maintaining the lowest vacancy rates and relatively high rental rates—around $30 per square foot.
A U.S. Federal Reserve Beige Book report on the second district of New York (which includes New York City, Westchester and Fairfield counties, Rochester, and other metro areas in upstate New York) showed that commercial real estate markets remained steady in the first quarter of 2012—demonstrating increased loan demand and the most widespread declines in delinquency rates in several years, particularly in the New York City office market, where rents continue to rise.
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