Trends
Construction Costs on The Rise Again
May 20, 2008
Tweet Over the past several weeks, construction prices have climbed about 10% as the combination of a weak dollar and high crude oil prices filter their way through the economy. The weak dollar and global demand has caused base materials products to increase thereby causing an upswing in building material prices. High fuel prices further [...]
Read More >>Silverstone Properties Fails in its Bid to Rezone Property
May 12, 2008
Tweet After spending nearly two years working to entitle 7 acres of commercial property in West San Jose for housing, Silverstone Properties came up a vote short in the city council. The council voted this past week 6-5 against the rezoning of the property from its current office/industrial use to residential. The mayor and the [...]
Read More >>Startups Today, VC’s Tomorrow
April 10, 2008
Tweet We’re starting to see more reports of the credit crunch infecting Silicon Valley make the mainstreem press. IHT came out with an article the other day discussing how startups in Silicon Valley are beginning to feel the crunch. For the most part, landlords and brokers have remained fairly bullish on the prospects of Silicon Valley with [...]
Read More >>Not Even One Securitization Issuance Priced In January
February 12, 2008
Tweet NREI is reporting that in January, not a single CMBS was priced in a one-month period. This is the first time in the 20-years since CMBS product was introduced that this has happened. Also telling is that despite this lack of activity, some $37B in securitizations remain in the pipeline. In the face of this prices [...]
Read More >>San Francisco Office Space Leasing Slows
February 4, 2008
Tweet Faced with a possible downturn in the economy, tenants seeking space in San Francisco returned to the sidelines in the fourth quarter. 2007 saw a number of large deals take place including 200K for Google and 170K for O’Melveny & Myers. Rents also saw an uptick in 2007 overall, but that trend seemed to have stalled [...]
Read More >>Signs of Stress in Higher End Markets
January 13, 2008
Tweet Most of Silicon Valley has been unscathed by the sub-prime mess with bank-owned homes being a fairly uncommon site (with the exception of East San Jose). Lately however we have been finding more and more bank owned properties in more exclusive neighborhoods. For the past several years finding a bank-owned property in Los Gatos, Saratoga, Palo [...]
Read More >>High Speed Rail in San Jose
December 21, 2007
Tweet The California High Speed Rail Authority has voted to include San Jose on the San Francisco-to-Los Angeles High Speed Rail that it is planning. The 200MPH rail was voted to travel through San Jose’s Diridon station which at some point is slated to become a stop for VTA, CalTrain,AltaMont, and BART trains. The cost of [...]
Read More >>New Software Allows Mall Owners and Retailers To Analyze Foot Traffic
December 15, 2007
Tweet In the online world, software has enabled retailers to analyze visitors shopping patterns with a click of a mouse. In the brick and mortar world of retailing, developers, architects, and retailers each spend massive amounts of time and money designing projects and stores in ways which maximize foot traffic and stickiness, which for developers [...]
Read More >>Skyscrapers Redefined
November 19, 2007
Tweet China and the United Arab Emirates seem to be on the forefront of architecture these days. The UAE is benefiting from the high price of oil and is feverishly building out man made islands, swaths of high-rise residential towers, and large civic, entertainment, and retail projects across Dubai and Abu Dhabi. China on the [...]
Read More >>MIT’s Transaction Based Index Marks First Drop Since Q3 ’03
November 18, 2007
Tweet MIT’s Center for Commercial Real Estate publishes a quarterly report tracking the performance of commercial property investments. The data is derived from sales information provided by the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF). The third quarter of 2007 saw a 2.5% negative capital return for the properties sold in the NCREIF database. [...]
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