NoVa Can Ride Out Market Woes

TYSONS CORNER, VA-What a difference a year makes. This time last year at the RealShare Northern Virginia event, both panelists and attendees were enthusiastic about both the submarket and national market. That, clearly, has changed–but both panelists as well as many of the 300 or so attendees at Tuesday’s conference are optimistic that Northern Virginia’s strengths will see the submarket through what is largely expected to be a rocky few quarters.

For starters, said Mark Levy, VP and market officer for ProLogis, the subprime crisis has been overblown in the media. The lending situation is bad, he acknowledged–but not to the pervasive extent that it has been portrayed. “I am more concerned about the perception of the situation than its reality,” he said during the keynote panel discussion.

“People don’t know what to believe,” Herb Mansinne, managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle, also a panelist, said. “I think a lot of us are getting psychological whiplash following events.”