How the Middle East impacts America
With the rising tensions in the Middle East, energy companies with an overseas presence are moving employees back to America due to safety concerns, most notably to areas like Houston, Texas.
“With the unrest in the Middle East, we’ve had some clients pulling their people out of Oman, Yemen and Libya. It’s just a dangerous world right now,” said Charles Gordon, executive vice president of CB Richard Ellis in Houston to the Houston Real Estate Observer.
Other reasons for an improving office market sector
There is little speculation as to how long employee safety will factor into energy companies’ plans but resolution overall doesn’t appear to be immediate.
Office markets are also improving along the Gulf coast as drilling has resumed, opening new offices and reoccupying old, and CBRE Houston has said it is reworking its office vacancy projections for downtown Houston revising a formerly projected 16% vacancy rate.
“We’re optimistic that things won’t get as bad as we predicted,” Gordon said. “We are revising those numbers based on a lot of deals that are happening right now.”
