Oddly enough, when asked if they've noticed a decline in sales and leasing, 88.5% of respondents said no while a paltry 11.5% admitted to it. A classic case of false bravado? Perhaps.
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"That's strange," observes Jacques Gordon, international director of investment strategy and research for LaSalle Investment Management in Chicago. "False bravado might be the only explanation, unless a bulk of the respondents were from areas like New York City, which didn't experience that severe a decline. But from a researcher's perspective, the statistics all clearly show a huge drop-off in leasing and a substantial drop-off in sales."
Respondents took a more realistic view when enumerating the other causes of the slump, and 12% of the survey's participants blamed job cutbacks and the inability of corporate America to implement real estate growth strategies. As many respondents blamed real estate pricing. This, presumably, is a reference to budgetary constraints more than inflexibility on the part of the brokerage community. (In fact, a prior Quick Survey revealed that brokers are more than willing to negotiate and that concessions were on the rise. Click on: Quick Survey: Concessions Are Back )
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John Salustri
John Salustri has covered the commercial real estate industry for nearly 25 years. He was the founding editor of GlobeSt.com, and is a four-time recipient of the Excellence in Journalism award from the National Association of Real Estate Editors.
