Real Estate Investor Up Close

The Federal Reserve released its quarterly summary of economic projections last week, reducing its forecast of GDP and raising its forecast of the unemployment rate in 2011 and 2012. In doing so, the Fed acknowledged what many private economists have been saying for several months – that the pace of the recovery has slowed this year. The Fed's previous GDP forecast range of 3.1 to 3.3 percent for 2011 was reduced to a range of 2.7 to 2.9 percent, and the previous unemployment range of 8.4 to 8.7 percent for the fourth quarter of 2011 was raised to a range of 8.6 to 8.9 percent. Forecasts for 2012 were downgraded as well. While acknowledging the recent spike in inflation, the Fed believes that inflation will remain at or below its target range of 1.5 to 2.0 percent through at least 2013. Fed Chairman Bernanke said in his press conference last week that temporary factors such as high oil prices and supply chain disruptions related to the disasters in Japan are depressing output, but

The following is a 45 minutes Webinar I produced for a client on the state of the commercial real estate market in North America, including a specific focus on the San Francisco Bay area investment, office, industrial and retail markets. http://www.rgfinancial.org/webinars4.php Please call or email me with any questions.

Regional Spotlight - Grubb & Ellis Insider Edition 137 6/16/2011 Turning Expertise into Opportunity through Industry Involvement -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Hinkins of the Walnut Creek office has been named a RICS Fellow by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the highest designation available from the organization. Fellows begin with an MRICS, the requirements of which include education, experience, ethical standards and an evaluation in order to join. Those who qualify for the FRICS designation stand out as leaders in the field and can point to specific achievements during their careers. Mark, who joined Grubb & Ellis in 2001, specializes in representing private capital investors in the acquisition and disposition of office, retail, industrial and medical office buildings in the San Francisco East Bay and North Bay. He has held both regional and national board positions with RICS USA, and remains very inv

A local family is pitching two adjacent San Francisco office buildings as value-added plays. The buildings, at 221 Main Street and 101 Howard Street in the South Financial District, encompass 453,000 square feet. Their value is estimated at about $190 mil¬lion, or $419/sf. Investors can bid on either or both. CAC Group is marketing them for the Booth family. While the average occupancy rate is 96%, the owner is playing up the fact that leases on 70% of the space roll over within four years. That is expected to appeal to value-added investors because rising demand for San Francisco office space is driv¬ing up rents. In fact, local pros said that properties delivered empty or nearly vacant are fetch¬ing premiums because they can capitalize on the growing demand for large blocks of space by expanding technology companies. Asking rents for Class-A office space in San Francisco are $41.71/ sf, up 12.3% from a year ago, ac¬cording to Jones Lang LaSalle. The building at 221 Main Street has 36

If you missed my presentation last week on the commercial real estate markets in the US and the San Francisco Bay area, here is a quick summary; The San Francisco Greater Bay area economy, despite its housing bubble burst, dot-com bubble burst and massive job losses, will be one of the first markets to show recovery (coastal markets fair better than inland locations in a downturn), and the Port of LA and Port of Oakland are power houses for the manufacturing & warehouse/distribution sectors with exports to China (nǐ hǎo) now exceeding imports. The semi-conductor sector is doing amazingly well, as is the energy sector, and of course social media, Twitter, Linked-in, and this sector includes 'App' / Application developers (think "Angry Birds"), are expanding their office footprints significantly in the San Francisco office market by leasing over 200,000 SF in the last few months, in preparation of increasing their labor force in the next 12-24 months. Copies of my p

Tomorrow I present a webinar "The 2011 Mid-Year Commercial Real Estate Update" to San Francisco Bay area investors.

Stand and Deliver Economists have been saying for several months that the labor market is due to break out of its slow-growth trajectory, and for several months they had been wrong as the monthly employment reports from the Labor Department fell short of expectations. Other indicators pointed to stronger growth, which gave the optimists – including the stock market – an excuse to shrug off the disappointing employment data. But lurking in the shadows was a fear that job growth could stay weak because regulations and taxes discouraged employers from hiring at the same time that the recession had taught them how to keep profits high with smaller headcounts. Finally we got a report that lived up to expectations. The Labor Department announced this morning that employers added 192,000 net new payroll jobs in February comprised of 222,000 private sector jobs and a loss of 30,000 state and local government jobs. This was the strongest report since May 2010 when temporary hiring for the 2010

Grubb & Ellis’ annual forecast encompasses so much more than local market data. Click the link below to visit the forecast website to download an analysis of the national commercial real estate landscape, focus on specific property types in your markets of interest, or select various markets to build a custom report to suit your needs. http://www.grubb-ellis.com/forecast2011/index.html