Category Archives: MarketStats

Curb Your Enthusiasm

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"I learned that IHOP is not the place to order fish" - Larry David

Uh oh. I just read the latest Cushman & Wakefield US office market report and I think we got a little ahead of ourselves in calling the real estate depression of the last five years completely over. So, apparently, did landlords who are trying to float major increases in asking rents. I’m a positive guy, and I’m positive that landlords have unrealistic pricing expectations in some US markets as they attempt to score rate increases. The industry’s prognosticators (including yours truly) forecasted that a swing back to a landlord-favored market was under way.  After almost five years of beating on [...]

A Face For Radio

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It was an honor and an all around neat experience to participate in Michael Bull’s Commercial Real Estate Radio show last week (link is at the bottom of this post). Michael assembled a panel of David Tennery, principal of Regent Partners, John Davidson, principal of   Parmenter Realty Partners, and yours truly. Ryan Severino, senior economist for REIS, dialed in by phone from New York. While my fellow panelists are all knowledgeable real estate thought-leaders, the clear consensus was that the entire panel had faces built for radio. The mechanics of radio broadcasting are fascinating. I’ve never been in a [...]

Git-R-Done; Time To Move Those Deals Forward

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Disney's acclaimed Pixar unit recently released Cars 2 with “co-stars” race-car Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) and tow-truck Mater (voiced by Larry the Cable Guy). In the movie, the characters head to Europe and Japan to compete in the World Grand Prix, but of course get side tracked with all manner of problems, including international espionage. While the new movie is a hit, we like the original Cars movie better as it's seemingly innocent humor is classic and truly funny. Our favorite character, Mater, resembles an International Harvester mining "boom-truck" from the 1950’s. The vehicle that is the inspiration for his [...]

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

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By Ken Ashley (ATLANTA) February 14th, 2011 No, we are not talking about your sweetheart on this Valentines day. Instead we are covering that other significant relationship in your life; your landlord. When tenants evaluated market opportunities over the past 18-24 months, most decided to remain in place. This behavior is described by real estate brokers and landlords as “blend and extend” because tenants usually have unexpired term that they fold into the new extended term. Landlords made blend and extends easy because they were terrified to lose paying customers. Tenants were complicit and all too happy to stay because they were scared [...]

Will It Blend?

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By Ken Ashley ATLANTA (November 8th, 2010) In one of the most successful viral marketing campaigns online to date, kitchen blender manufacturer Blentec has created a series of infomercials featuring founder Tom Dickson. The spots which run in a variety of forums have become an online phenomenon with over 120 million hits on YouTube. Dickson has blended golf balls, cell phones, iPads/iPhones, frozen chickens, Bic lighters  and any number of seemingly unblendable items in his device. During every episode, he places the improbable item in the blender and utters the now famous phrase “Will It Blend?” with the words “Don’t [...]

How Good Economic News Impacts CBD Office

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With employers hiring, manufacturers making things again, and consumers once again going to dinner, we appear to headed into better times for our economy. As we try to determine what this means for commercial real estate,  activity in the Central Business Districts (“CBD”) of America is a good indicator for the office market as a whole. Now we have some facts to impart about the impact of this nascent recovery on CBD office markets based on Cushman & Wakefield’s first quarter US report released April 28th (the summary report is included in this post). Leasing activity nationwide is up 30% compared [...]