2002 Market Forecast: Cloudy, Showers Likely, Chance of Sun Late

PORTLAND-Sustainable growth in the commercial real estate market here will not occur until the end of 2002 or early 2003, predicts Bradford H. Fletcher, Grubb & Ellis executive vice president and Portland managing director, in the company’s just released 2002 Real Estate Forecast on the office, industrial and investment markets.

“We will see a very different real estate market in 2002,” says Fletcher. “While the results for the year will be choppy, the long-term outlook is positive and Portland market fundamentals remain strong. We expect that we will turn the corner on this recession by the third quarter of 2002 and return to sustainable growth sometime at the end of the year or early next year.”

The waning months of 2001 presented a drastically different office market than the commercial real estate community has experienced here in several years, says Grubb & Ellis’ Research Director Patricia Raicht. “Landlords were left in a state of shock and economic uncertainty left tenants immobilized,” she says, predicting that in 2002: