HOW ARE THINGS LOOKING?

HOW ARE THINGS LOOKING?

Customers always ask me, “How do things look?” Here’s one way to answer. In this roughly one square mile grid of Broadway/Rosecrans, there are about 120 buildings of decent size. I count 25 that have availability. Perhaps not the entire buildings are on the market, but enough to depict this picture. That’s about 20% of the buildings with significant availability. I’m working on a lease in Chatsworth and there is even more yellow. This is a pretty consistent picture throughout Los Angeles. In contrast, there have been times when there is no yellow.

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NEW GARDENA OFFICE

NEW GARDENA OFFICE

We recently opened a new office on Gardena Boulevard – 1204 W. Gardena Boulevard, Unit A, Gardena, California, 90247.   We are between the Chamber of Commerce and Guilianno’s. This is an ideal location that puts us close to many of our longstanding customers. 

With this office we continue our strategy that focuses on large industrial and infill land throughout Los Angeles. Now with the Gardena, we can easily handle many of the local assignments.

Please stop by.

USER MARKET SHOWS SIGNS OF NORMALIZING

USER MARKET SHOWS SIGNS OF NORMALIZING

The biggest surprise this year is how many buildings have been bought up at fairly high prices. We are not out of the doldrums, but there is a scarcity of property for sale. Many buildings that have been sitting around for years are now subject to competitive bidding. Brokers are out looking for “off-market” deals – not for speculative investors, but for Users. While pricing is not at the highest levels, they are in a lofty range and somewhat removed from an otherwise weak leasing market.
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Winter 2011 – Positives, Negatives, Quality and Change

Winter 2011 – Positives, Negatives, Quality and Change

A few years into the Los Angeles commercial real estate recession and some things are clear. Good deals are limited. Distress never hit the street. There’s an evident turn around but most people aren’t recovered. And the smart money is still cautious – for instance, no vacancy risk.

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KLEIN NEWS FALL 2010

KLEIN NEWS FALL 2010

Activity Is Up, But Far From Celebratory

With the year of fear behind us and summer doldrums over, should we expect an increase of activity? Compared to the past two years of bad news, yes, activity is up. Many businesses that were paralyzed with fear are now investigating opportunities in the property market. Private companies are looking for space just in time to replace the waning influence of government stimulus. For instance, businesses that can access low interest rates are in a particularly enviable position. The evidence is demonstrated by a few stellar deals that were purchased by a few brave souls who struck when no one else could. Now that the great fear has receded, we are left with a bad market instead of a catastrophic one. Buyers and Tenants are coming out of their shell to see if they can find bargains and re-launch business plans.
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INTRODUCING MAPP 1.0

INTRODUCING MAPP 1.0

 
Over the summer we created a commercial real estate mapping application that combines the important commercial real estate information  for Los Angeles County in one place. It is designed to help buyers, tenants, developers, and investors get a spatial view of the real estate commitment they are about to make. We call this map application MAPP 1.0.
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Tenants Are the New Opportunity Buyers

Tenants Are the New Opportunity Buyers

Tenant decision making has radically changed since the Great Recession. The combination of low interest rates and falling prices mean that mortgage payments are the same as or less than rent. This has been a fairly rare occurrence over my 30-year career. Tenants with established histories are finding some great bargains. Even companies that may have difficulty obtaining loans and lack large down payments can team with sophisticated investors to solve many financing hurdles.

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The Port Strategy Fallacy – It’s the Deal That Counts.

The Port Strategy Fallacy – It’s the Deal That Counts.

Both brokers and investors tout the strengths of investing in markets with a vibrant harbor and airport. This has been a pronounced strategy from at least 1997 when container imports began increasing beyond incremental growth. Many institutional investors have dubbed this the Gateway Strategy. But grand proclamations like these normally lead to increased competition amongst buyers and lower returns. If history is any lesson, the money was made by the first round Buyers who purchased these distribution buildings at distress. It was the following group who used port dynamics to justify their high purchases and are now sitting with vacant and poorly leased properties at rents vastly below proforma. In retrospect, it was the deal strategy that made investors money. Being located by the port was secondary.
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SIOR Spring Conference Brings More Optimism

SIOR Spring Conference Brings More Optimism

We finished our semi-annual meeting in Orlando, Florida. The general sentiment is we have reached the bottom of the cycle. Although by what measurement? Recent sales and leases have indicated a low point. However, when other leases expire, those buildings will still need to discover their own downward level. Visually, think of dominoes falling down over a lengthy period of time. The current signals are more a psychological target rather than one of momentum. Monitoring rent tends will validate when we are at the beginning of a new upward trajectory.

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