LOS ANGELES—The commercial real estate market is looking very bright, according to the industry's leaders at Allen Matkins annual View From the Top conference. The conference included keynote speeches from Michael Von Konynenburg, president of Eastdil Secured, John B. Kilroy, president of Kilroy Realty, and Victor J. Coleman, chairman of the board, president and CEO of Hudson Pacific Properties, as well as panel discussions with developers and investment sales experts. Overall, all the experts remained bullish on the market, expecting the up cycle to ride out for the next few years.

“We had these three very optimistic views from these three top real estate guys who are all very different,” Tony Natsis, an Allen Matkins attorney, the event's master of ceremonies and the moderator of the two panels, tells GlobeSt.com about the keynote speakers. “Mike VK was ridiculously optimistic about real estate, especially in the major product lines like office and industrial. He said, 'I don't know if this is going to end any time soon.' John Kilroy had a similar view, but focused more on the demand from the new generation of users, and Victor focused on both demand and economics. Although they all had different perspectives, they all came to the same conclusion.”

The outlook was so positive, in fact, that Natsis neglected to ask his staple “Where will we be next year” question because the answer was already so clear. “I didn't ask that question because, according to this group, next year is irrelevant. This up cycle has two, three, four, five years left,” he says.

In addition to the rosy-colored view, there were other elements at the conference that illustrated the strength of the market, namely the inclusion of a development and value-add panel, something rarely seen at the View From the Top event. “I never have a development panel or a value-add panel at this conference because it hasn't happened a lot in this cycle; but this year, we had a whole panel of those guys who are doing ground-up development deals,” Natsis explains. “You know that you are in a really robust part of the cycle when development, rehab and other stuff that is a little riskier is happening.” The developers were focusing on major West Coast markers, from Seattle to San Francisco to Los Angeles for development opportunities.

When it came to the investment sales panel, Natsis, who moderated the panel, asked about the parallel between this up cycle and the up cycle in 2007. With prices and rents escalating and the increasing availability of equity and debt, the question was more than valid. Their response: leverage. “People are not borrowing nearly as much and it isn't available to borrow nearly as much,” says Natsis about the panel's response.