GlobeSt.com EXCLUSIVE: Southwest Office Sales Racing Toward Record

DALLAS-With midyear tallies chalking up record volumes, the Southwest’s major metros are on track to once again raise the bar for office building sales. Unlike years past, the 2005 sales to date have been core properties, with higher occupancies, more space and higher prices across the board.

John Alvarado, senior vice president of investment sales for Dallas-based Trammell Crow Co., says the pipeline through the end of the year “is almost equal to an entire year’s worth of production in the Southwest.” Each quarter, he collates sales data for buildings with more than 100,000 sf in TCC’s southwestern region, which takes in Dallas, Denver, Austin, Houston and New Orleans.

By midyear, the Southwest metros racked up $2.3 billion in sales or $1.1 billion more than in 2004 for the same period, according to Alvarado. Denver led the pack with $732 million in 12 sales. Dallas logged $727 million in 21 trades while Houston came in third with $331 million in 11 passes, but that doesn’t include the latest EOP hand-off. For that story, click here. In Austin, five properties sold for $264 million and New Orleans racked up $175 million with three sales. In all cases, volume and transaction totals are running higher than last year. Clearly, Chicago-based Equity Office Properties’ disposition is leaving a mark across the region, Alvarado says.