Commercial real estate recovery
Commercial real estate is experiencing a rebound “more quickly than analysts expected,” according to columnist Paul Davidson who also notes that troubled loans are dropping, occupancy is on the rise and in the biggest markets, office building sales are “surging.”
With improvement in the commercial real estate sector comes a slight sigh of relief from lenders after years of defaulted construction loans to the tune of $181 billion in February according to Real Capital Analytics. The good news comes in the form of this number sliding, having dropped $7 billion in the last six months.
CoStar Group reports retail vacancies at 7.2%, industrial at 10% and offices at 13%. With little to no ground breaking in recent years, major metro areas are seeing a rise in purchases of well occupied office buildings.
Commercial real estate is performing well in Canadian metro areas as well, but the sector that will drag down all the others is mall vacancies which just hit a ten year high. Firms like Grubb & Ellis who are at risk of being delisted from the NYSE may rise in number until the overall commercial real estate experiences loosened (or possible) lending.
