~TIME FOR REAL ESTATE INVESTMENTS~
It is not the time to feel bad about your home’s decrease in value since your 2006 appraisal, or the fact that your 401k account you plan to draw on in 12 years is down 34%. It’s time to make make the right real property investments.
Monday, November 3, 2008
ULI ranks Seattle top among real estate markets
Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) - Denver Business Journal
The Urban Land Institute named Seattle its top U.S. real estate market to watch next year, in its Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2009 report released
Oct. 21.
The report is based on the insights and predictions of real estate experts nationwide. According to the report, “Seattle boasts its ‘corporate giants,’ but
the market braces for rising downtown office vacancies; now at 10 percent. Tepid job growth will flatten rental rates. Housing demand drops and prices
will slip, but stay above national averages. Interviewees rate the market a strong ‘buy’ for apartments, and the ‘number-one buy’ among industrials is
the Puget Sound ports.”
The top five markets named in the 2009 ULI report after Seattle were San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York and Los Angeles.
Other top 10 markets were Denver, Houston, Boston, Dallas and Chicago.
The 30-year-old Emerging Trends report is the oldest industry outlook for real estate and land use in the nation, according to the ULI. The land group
collaborates with accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP on the study, and polls more than 600 real estate experts across the country. Those
experts include investors, developers, lenders, brokers and consultants.
Experts cited in the 2009 Emerging Trends report expect the country’s real estate and financial markets to hit bottom next year.
Those markets are expected to flounder for much of 2010, with ongoing declines in property values, more foreclosures and “a limping economy that
will continue to crimp property cash flows,” the report said. Real estate values could drop 15 percent to 20 percent from their mid-2007 peak.
“Only when property financing gets restructured will pricing recorrect, so we can find the floor, and this transition could wipe out companies and
people,” one respondent said in the report.
Those interviewed for the ULI report generally believe financial institutions will continue to be pressured to move bad loans off their balance sheets,
and will do that via auctions. Investors will be discouraged until that “bloodletting” ends, the report said. When investors start buying again, cash and
buyers with low leverage will be “king,” banks will impose tougher lending guidelines and commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) will be
popular again in a more regulated form.
One silver lining for the real estate market, according to the report, is that smart investors will be able to capitalize on the inevitable economic recovery,
which could come as early as 2010. “Money will be made on riding markets back to recovery and releasing properties, not on … financing structures,”
the report said.
Based in Washington, D.C., the ULI is a nonprofit group that advocates for responsible land use, and to create and sustain “thriving” communities
worldwide.
