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Mix-Ansicht- Wie war das mit dem US-Immobolienmarkt? - XERXES, 04.02.2002, 09:29
- Re: Wie war das mit dem US-Immobolienmarkt? - Emerald, 04.02.2002, 11:33
Wie war das mit dem US-Immobolienmarkt?
Rise in office building vacancies
in U.S. was steepest ever in 2001
Apartment, retail sectors also declined faster than expected
By Dean Starkman
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Jan. 31 — U.S. office buildings last year experienced the sharpest jump in vacancies ever recorded, according to two new surveys, while the apartment and retail sectors also deteriorated faster than even pessimists predicted.
COMMERCIAL REAL estate is expected to stabilize this year, with vacancies peaking near or not far above historical averages. Still, the size and speed of the deterioration surprised analysts, who were taken off guard by the severity with which U.S. corporations cut back on their real-estate needs.
“It’s new territory for us,” said John Lutzius, an analyst with Green Street Advisors, a Newport Beach, Calif., real-estate research firm.
Office-building vacancies jumped to 13.5 percent in the fourth quarter in the nation’s 72 largest markets from 8.3 percent a year ago, according to a new survey by Torto Wheaton Research, a Boston-based real-estate research firm. The increase of 5.2 percentage points tops the previous-worst jump on record, in 1983, when office vacancies climbed 4.2 percentage points to 13.3 percent during a severe recession and at the end of a building glut.
Torto Wheaton predicts office-vacancy rates will peak at 14.2 percent, not too far above the historical average rate for office vacancies of roughly 12 percent.
Other commercial sectors are showing significant, though less severe, deterioration. Vacancies in retail strip and power centers climbed to 6.8 percent at year-end from 5.9 percent a year earlier, according to Reis Inc., a New York research firm. Reis forecasts that retail vacancies will peak at 7.1 percent later this year. Retail vacancies averaged 9.4 percent during the industry’s worst period, 1991 to 1995, Reis says.
Apartment vacancies hit 4.8 percent at year end, from 3 percent a year earlier, according to Reis, which forecasts a peak this year of 5.6 percent. Apartment vacancies averaged 5.3 percent from 1991 to 1995.
The problems in commercial real estate are in sharp contrast to new and pre-existing home sales, which continued at a record pace last year. Ian Shepherdson, an economist with High Frequency Economics, in Valhalla, N.Y., says home sales have been buoyed by low interest rates and relatively stable personal incomes, while the commercial market has been devastated by the general corporate retrenchment.
Of the three commercial-property sectors, office is considered the most commodity-like, the most sensitive to the general pace of economic growth, and thus the most volatile. The office-building volatility was also caused in part by unusually fierce demand in 2000, when technology and other companies leased much more space than they needed. Last year, they put it back on the market as sublet space in record amounts. In the most extreme case, the vacancy rate in San Jose, Calif., jumped to 14.5 percent at year end — of which 5.6 percent is space available for sublet — after ending 2000 at an unheard-of low 1.2 percent, according to Torto Wheaton.
The new surveys also confirm earlier expectations about big vacancy spikes in certain office markets, including Chicago; Oakland, Calif.; northern New Jersey; Seattle and Boston. The biggest jumps occurred in tech-heavy Austin, Texas, which had vacancies of 19 percent at year end, up from 5 percent a year earlier, and San Francisco, at 16.5 percent, up from 4.1 percent, Torto Wheaton says.
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