Economy Remains in Stagnation Status Until Elections are Over

LOS ANGELES-The room was filled to the brim with more than 6500 attendees at ULI’s Fall Meeting, where Hessam Nadji, managing director of research services, Marcus and Millichap, outlined progress in the commercial real estate markets in what was a generally optimistic assessment of the industry’s prospects. Although Nadji started with the negative, pointing out that the economy is still in “stagnation status until elections are over,” he said that there have been significant improvements. “We have lived through major events. It’s no wonder we are dealing with what are dealing with,” Nadji said.

 “The last two months were a big test of whether companies were going to panic and lay off, but we have passed a number of critical tests since the downgrade,” Nadji said, a sentiment echoed in his recent Streetsmart blog on GlobeSt.com. “If I had a magic wand, I would fix the short term and then take care of the long term and not try to do both at the same time.”