The bad-news portion of the forecast was delivered by keynoter Robert E. Rubin, treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and currently director and chairman of Citigroup's executive committee. The more upbeat portion of the program was laid out by John Powers, CBRE's New York co-chair, tri-state region.
Rubin, for his part, characterized the current investment landscape as marked by "especial complexity and especial uncertainty" for investors. Leading the downward spiral for the macro-economic picture is a national deficit that could hit $10 trillion within the decade and continue to escalate from there.
"The economy should be okay for the next year, but investors are deeply worried about the long range," Rubin said. The quandary is whether to sit on the sidelines and miss out on current opportunity or dive in for short-term gains and "suffer severely" downstream.
Powers is clearly diving in, or at least wading in, as he paints a relatively rosy picture for the near-term real estate market in Manhattan. Jobs are expected to continue their slow return, and January leasing activity was up, by 13%, in fact more than the five-year monthly average of 1.2 million sf. But absorption didn't keep pace, falling in January to negative 1.3 million sf.
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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.
