The dentists paid owner Fred G. Owles $4.08 per sf for the parcel, which will be developed into professional offices. Brokers such as Edward P. Rogner, a senior vice president of Realty Capital/TCN Worldwide who represented Owles, tell GlobeSt.com they are seeing more small businesses and professional groups starting to buy existing buildings or vacant land to build their own offices rather than lease completed space.
The trend has been growing, "especially in the last several months," Rogner's colleague Austin Caruso Jr., also a senior vice president, tells GlobeSt.com. "In this entire year, we have seen a tremendous amount of activity, both with small and large users looking for their own buildings."
When buildings aren't available, "they are buying land" to build their offices, Caruso adds. "Current activity seems to be at a two-year high and unless there is a serious blip in the economy, we see it continuing well into next year."
Thomas E. Hankins, another Realty Capital senior vice president, tells GlobeSt.com: "The trend is a function of the current market--that is, low interest rates or available eclectic financing vehicles; the shift of investment dollars away from the stock market, which has been an ongoing trend since the tech crash a few years ago; available vacant properties, as opposed to tenanted investment properties, relative to current vacancy rates in the high teens; and the desire to build wealth through their own occupancy."
Hankins adds, however, "the attributes of owning versus leasing need to be carefully weighted on an individual basis, considering liquidity; after-tax returns or losses; the company's ultimate exist strategy; near and long-term needs of the company to expand or contract their space needs; property type and size; and the return on the real estate versus reinvestment in the company's core business."
In a transaction that didn't fall in the buy-rather-than-lease category, Hankins and Caruso negotiated for Roberson Enterprises Inc. in the sale of a 21,500-sf climate-controlled building at 680 W. Main St., Lake Helen, FL, Volusia County. Lake Helen Partners LLC, represented by Advantage Realty Inc., paid $1.6 million, or $73.49 per sf for the two-story, 9.5-acre property near Interstate 4.
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