WHAT LIES AHEAD IN 2013

 

Rental rates across the country continue at historic lows and landlords continue to offer attractive concessions packages to attract or retain an office user’s tenancy.  Will these advantages for tenants continue to prevail in 2013? Across the country, the office sector has shown signs of improvement in 2012. Our expectation is this will continue incrementally and unevenly throughout 2013.  In other words, the recovery is expected  to move at a snail’s pace and may even deteriorate in 2013. The impending Fiscal Cliff and tax climate  continue to present headwinds.  Deloitte echoes this sentiment in their recent Commercial Real Estate Outlook report saying,

“the impact of European uncertainty on U.S. capital markets may act as a damper.  While average rents are likely to grow, a more robust recovery is not expected to begin until 2015.”

What does that mean for occupiers of office space?   Landlords are still hungry for your business.  The ball is in your court.

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JOBLESS CLAIMS – EXPECTATION 380K PRINT AT 412K

Jobless claims also a miss….

In the week ending April 9, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 412,000, an increase of 27,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 385,000. The 4-week moving average was 395,750, an increase of 5,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 390,250.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.9 percent for the week ending April 2, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.0 percent. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending April 2 was 3,680,000, a decrease of 58,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,738,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,728,750, a decrease of 20,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,749,500. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 443,503 in the week ending April 9, an increase of 89,686 from the previous week. There were 514,136 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.
Jobs drive office space absorption….

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A MISS ON RETAIL SALES

This isn’t good

“The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for March, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $389.3 billion, an increase of 0.4 percent (±0.5%)* from the previous month, and 7.1 percent (±0.7%) above March 2010. Total sales for the January through March 2011 period were up 8.1 percent (±0.5%) from the same period a year ago. The January to February 2011 percent change was revised from +1.0 percent (±0.5%) to +1.1 percent (±0.2%).”

“Gasoline stations sales were up 16.7 percent (±1.7%) from March 2010.”

This confirms that the economy in Q1 slowed down materially toward the end, and was certainly not as had been predicted early in 2011.

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