Here are six trends you can count on between now and the New Year:

Unemployment will jump above 7%, heading for 8% or higher. The Wall Street chaos bleeds into all businesses. What company plans to expand in this environment? Check that -- what business doesn't consider tightening its belt and laying off at least a few folks?

It will be a gloomy Christmas for retailers: Higher unemployment and all that belt-tightening portend a very lean year in the stores. Well we predicted that one back in May. But the Grinch came early in the guise of this credit market collapse.

By the end of the year the economists will finally agree we're in recession. I guess that's when the numbers finally scream out the reality that has been pretty evident for most of 2008 or a bunch of them lose their jobs and they get the message.

The New York condo/coop market finally hits the skids. Last week's carnage finally bursts one of the last housing balloons in the country.

Office vacancies have no where to go but up everywhere -- note all that belt tightening discussed above. There is no way the office markets come out of this unscathed. Hope your buildings don't have any financial tenants.

Commercial property markets will start to record significant value losses, finally catching up with all the other asset classes. I just hope the Fed and Treasury Secretary have recognized the potential commercial market distress in their $700 billion bailout.

Welcome to Fall--now isn't that appropriate.

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Jonathan D. Miller

A marketing communication strategist who turned to real estate analysis, Jonathan D. Miller is a foremost interpreter of 21st citistate futures – cities and suburbs alike – seen through the lens of lifestyles and market realities. For more than 20 years (1992-2013), Miller authored Emerging Trends in Real Estate, the leading commercial real estate industry outlook report, published annually by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute (ULI). He has lectures frequently on trends in real estate, including the future of America's major 24-hour urban centers and sprawling suburbs. He also has been author of ULI’s annual forecasts on infrastructure and its What’s Next? series of forecasts. On a weekly basis, he writes the Trendczar blog for GlobeStreet.com, the real estate news website. Outside his published forecasting work, Miller is a prominent communications/institutional investor-marketing strategist and partner in Miller Ryan LLC, helping corporate clients develop and execute branding and communications programs. He led the re-branding of GMAC Commercial Mortgage to Capmark Financial Group Inc. and he was part of the management team that helped build Equitable Real Estate Investment Management, Inc. (subsequently Lend Lease Real Estate Investments, Inc.) into the leading real estate advisor to pension funds and other real institutional investors. He joined the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S. in 1981, moving to Equitable Real Estate in 1984 as head of Corporate/Marketing Communications. In the 1980's he managed relations for several of the country's most prominent real estate developments including New York's Trump Tower and the Equitable Center. Earlier in his career, Miller was a reporter for Gannett Newspapers. He is a member of the Citistates Group and a board member of NYC Outward Bound Schools and the Center for Employment Opportunities.