Archive for category Real Estate Updates

The amount of occupied U.S. office space increased for the first time in nearly three years during the fourth quarter of 2010 as more companies that had been postponing real-estate decisions got back into the leasing market.

Average office rents also rose by 0.2%, to $22.09 per square foot, registering their first uptick since the second quarter of 2008, according to property-research firm Reis Inc. While the 79 metropolitan areas tracked by Reis vary greatly, the national trend means that in many regions the balance of power is shifting to landlords from tenants.

The office market has been hard hit by job losses. From January 2008 to September 2010, businesses vacated 137.8 million square feet of office space—more than the inventory in Chicago’s central business district. In the final three months of 2010, however, occupied office space in the U.S. grew by 2.5 million square feet.

Read more in The Wall Street Journal Online Edition

Scott, who has promised to rid the state of “job-killing” regulations, named Billy Buzzett, a land-use lawyer who has worked for one of the largest developers in Florida, to lead the state Department of Community Affairs, the state’s top agency for regulating developers.

Scott has also indicated his support for diminishing the role of the DCA by merging it into several other agencies, including the Department of Transportation.

At the Department of Environmental Protection, the state’s top environmental agency, involved in issues including restoration of the Everglades and oil drilling, Scott tapped Herschel Vinyard, a lawyer and executive with a Jacksonville ship-building company. Vinyard has previously represented businesses in environmental cases.

The appointments, which drew praise from some business groups like the Florida Chamber of Commerce, are an indication that the new administration may be ready to significantly scale back growth-management and environmental regulations, such as laws requiring developers to pay for new roads or requiring major developments to go through a regional-impact review.

Growth control advocate Dan Lobeck calls Buzzett’s pick to lead DCA a “radical” choice, arguing that a developer should not be in charge of development regulations.

“If there every was a case of the fox guarding the hen house, this is it,” Lobeck said. “This is a full-scale abandonment of growth management in Florida.”

Read the full story on heraldtribune.com

Through the first 10 months of the year, the owners of commercial property took in $452 million in lease payments, a shade above the $450 million they collected during the same period in 2009.

That may not sound exciting, but consider that landlord revenues during the same period were down in most Florida counties, including 9 percent in Manatee, 13 percent in Collier, 5 percent in Charlotte, 2 percent in Pinellas, 4 percent in Palm Beach and 2 percent each in Broward, Orange and Lee.

Statewide, landlord revenues fell 1 percent through October to $23.8 billion.

The struggles of landlords are turning into bargains for tenants, said Stan Rutstein, a commercial real estate agent for Re/Max Alliance Group in Bradenton.

The increase in landlord revenues in Sarasota County was recorded despite falling rental rates, suggesting that landlords are accepting what they can get rather than have their property stand vacant.

“I tell all my landlords, I say to them it’s very simple, I don’t have a lot of customers on the bus,” Rutstein said. “If we don’t take this customer, I don’t know when the next is coming.”

The only major counties where landlords reported increased revenue were Brevard, 5 percent; Volusia, 2 percent; Miami-Dade, 2 percent; and Hillsborough and Duval, 1 percent each.

While reporting dismal results for the first two quarters of 2010, Manatee County landlords scored their first improved quarter in two years. Landlord revenues were down 16 percent in the first quarter and 11 percent in the second quarter, but rose 1 percent in the third quarter.

Read the full story on heraldtribune.com