When is the best time to order due diligence?
The timing of "when to order" physical due diligence services is often overlooked. When is the proper time within a real estate transaction or site development to complete the appropriate due diligence? Most real estate professionals understand that the primary purpose of environmental due diligence may be to satisfy various criteria relative to regulatory liability. However, a certain advantage to conducting this due diligence near the beginning of the transaction is the ability to use the conclusions of various reports (ESA, PCA, Hazardous Material Inspections, etc.) in making a business decision as to whether a specific site is a viable option. For example, if an ESA report concludes that a specific parcel was formerly a gasoline station, then that client may decide that the risk and possible costs associated with further evaluation and cleanup are too great. Making this decision early in the process allows the client to pursue alternative sites while still achieving the goals of a development or expansion schedule.
Check out Partner's "The Science of Real Estate" blog at globest.com/blogs/buildingsciences
How do you see retail net lease shaping up in the next year?
New opportunity comes in a lot of different forms. We're doing more sale leaseback than we've ever done. Even though the new development pipeline has slowed down, we continue to secure a lot of opportunity from merchant developers. Probably the biggest yellow flag for everyone continues to be the economy. When there is very limited employment growth, you just don't see people loosening the purse strings as they otherwise would. You don't see as many new store openings. Until you see employment gains, you won't see a significant uptick in the net lease space or in commercial real estate as a whole. But even though there is limited supply, there is incredible demand. There are so many passive investors that are looking to real estate and want to own something where they can get their feet wet. What else would you own besides a triple-net-leased household name in the retail space? If there is a bright spot in commercial real estate, it's in the netlease sector in the retail space.
Stan Johson Company is a GlobeSt.com Retail Net Lease Thought Leader.
What is technology's greatest impact on the industry?
Mobility is a growing force, as is the acceptance of Cloud-based offerings. ARGUS is focused on both; our Leasing Management and the ARGUS Knowledge Vault solutions have some mobile capabilities that are expanding. While Mobility and the Cloud also figure prominently into our plans for several new solutions launching this summer, they are just different ways of delivering solutions. ARGUS is focused on developing solutions to our clients' business issues which, when distilled down, are improving efficiency and transparency in response to the growing regulatory and investor requirements, and firms' desire to better manage risk and perform strategic analysis. Our current and coming solutions address those issues. While some talk about "integrated solutions" to address the complexity of industry's technology requirements, ARGUS has taken what we call an eco-system approach. The idea is to focus on our core strengths and partner with other best-in-class technology and data providers to deliver an optimized, flexible, global solution.
ARGUS Software is a GlobeSt.com Retail Technology Thought Leader.
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