Market Data

Regional Outlook(24)

NATIONAL

WEST

Austin, Texas, received the top score in Portfolio.com/bizjournals’s “small-business vitality” ranking of the top 100 U.S. metros. Austin has added more small businesses than any other metro in the country and expanded its job base by 15.6 percent between 2004 and 2009. The Texas capital saw a 19.5 percent gain in population between 2003 and 2008, nearly four times the national population increase average.

SOUTH

South Florida Multifamily Update

• 45 South Florida multifamily assets traded last year, a 48 percent increase over 2008.
• 60 percent were traditional class B assets bought by private equity groups as long-term holds seeking cap rates of 7.25 percent to 8 percent with leveraged returns in the mid-teens.
• 40 percent were fractured condominium assets bought by foreign equity with a three- to five-year hold period targeting a 20 percent to 25 percent all-cash IRR.
  Source: CBRE

EAST

N.J. Industrial Construction

• 216,000 sf Under construction
• 126,000 sf Preleased
• 41.7% New-construction vacancy
  Source: Cushman & Wakefield

Feds Drive D.C. Markets
Through the General Services Administration, the federal government is one of the biggest office space users in the metropolitan D.C. area. Financial regulation, healthcare reform, energy policy, and defense spending are the crucial areas that will drive increased GSA space use throughout the region and the U.S.

SOUTH

A foreign investor paid $26 million for a 93 percent stake in Atlanta’s famed Greenbriar Mall, saving it from foreclosure. One of the city’s first enclosed malls, Greenbriar also was the first mall to feature a Chick-fil-A restaurant, an early proponent of the food court concept.

MIDWEST

"10% to 15% of the [Chicago] suburban office market today can be classified as "zombie buildings" – meaning the owners don’t have money to fund tenant build-outs or leasing commissions."

Chicago Suburban Office Blocked
Plummeting office-using employment has pushed suburban Chicago’s large blocks of available office space to its highest level in 10 years, according to Studley. As of 4Q09, 91 blocks of 50,000 sf or more were available, a total of more than 10.7 million sf. And tenants are ready to move: Class A leasing jumped 41.8 percent over the previous quarter, filling 429,601 sf.