'Real Market Improvement Several Years Away'

OAKLAND, CA-Despite slowing job losses in the second half of the year more office jobs will be lost and vacancy will climb as the year wears on, further lowering market rents. Factor in an increasing number of distressed debt sales in 2010 and 2011 as rental revenues continue to decline and short-term loan extensions mature, and it appears that office market fundamentals will continue to suffer well beyond the official end of the recession.

That according to Susan Persin and Matt Anderson, co-owners of Foresight Analytics, an Oakland-based national advisory firm providing real estate market analysis and projections for investors, lenders, and developers. The duo has decades of experience in real estate market analysis; capital markets research; modeling and forecasting; and special project work for REIT IPOs, large property sales and strategic planning. The prediction is laid out in a summary of their mid-year office report and forecast.

It’s certainly possible there could be a quick recovery, Persin tells GlobeSt.com, but with more than one million office jobs lost year-to-date and the year-end total expected to top 1.5 million, it’s not at all likely because a quick recovery would require real job growth, not just a lessening of the job losses, for businesses to need more space, thereby lowering vacancy and stabilizing rents. As is, most requirements being fulfilled are resulting in no net absorption or negative net absorption and lower rental revenues, which won’t stop the red ink from bleeding onto the page.