The execs made their remarks on a panel at a Friday conference organized by the Beverly Hills-based Real Estate Conference Group. GlobeSt.com and two of its sister print publications, the national Real Estate Forum and LA-based Real Estate Southern California, were media sponsors of the event.
"Real estate markets are healthy, but we won't see as much growth as in 2000," said David L. Knowles, managing director of Merrill Lynch Investment Banking, as he addressed an audience of about 1,000 professionals from across the nation. The other panel members agreed that there will be a definite slowdown in commercial real estate over the coming months, with the office sector being one of the hardest hit market segments.
Some product types and markets will fare better than others, the panelists said. For example, most agreed that apartment property in Southern California, where vacancies have already dropped to record lows of about 2% in Orange and San Diego counties, will continue to outperform the overall real estate market and prices will keep rising. "Multifamily has a lot of liquidity and many deals," said Jerrold Barag, CEO of Lend Lease Real Estate.
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