Office Investment Sales Stay Strong

ORLANDO-Vacancies or not, REITs and institutional investors remain confident the area’s 30-million-sf office market is recovering and continue to place their funds in strategically located properties, according to a first-quarter analysis by the local office of CB Richard Ellis Inc.

Despite an overall vacancy level of 15.6%, investors purchased five properties totaling 839,096 sf for an aggregate $99.3 million or $118.37 per sf. That per-sf price topped the 2003 mark of $104.37 per sf but didn’t reach the average $121.89 per-sf price logged in 2002.

“Although most of the Orlando submarkets are experiencing double-digit vacancies, investors for the right property profile are pricing through the weak fundamentals of the market,” says Ronald J. Rogg, CBRE’s first vice president of office and industrial investment properties.