"As in past years, the preponderance of anchored shopping closings will occur over the last three and four months of the year," the broker tells GlobeSt.com. "The number of transactions over the past 18 months has been staggering."

Michalak attributes the rush of investment sales activity to "the continued low cost of capital." He says "owners are taking advantage of the elevated pricing."

However, "when those owners try to find replacement product, those same sellers have to compete for product at reduced cap rates and elevated prices," Michalak adds. "If they are long-term holders, many have refinanced, pulled cash out and reduced annual debt service." He calls that scenario "a real win-win situation." But "the risk is that the anchor terms continue to burn off."

The broker says the main reason for the annual year-end sprint by owners to close deals is that "the hold/sell decision cycle typically" is based on new company budgets for the upcoming year, especially for institutional owners. For example, he says "next year's budgets are generally completed during the September through early November timeline. Therefore, decisions to sell are made in the fourth quarter and the abundance of the product offerings, for the upcoming year, go to market during the first quarter."

This year, however, "seems to be atypical, to a certain extent, in that the number of offerings have compounded over the past few months and will result in numerous first-quarter, 2004 closings.