Ingram's May 2023

“Could be worse . . .” The storm that has beseiged office and retail has battered commercial realty nationwide, but broker/execs say things overall are bearable in Kansas City.

by Dennis Boone

locales of Fairfield County and Hart ford, Conn., the 26.8 percent in New York’s Westchester County, the 26.3 percent in Columbus, the 26 percent in Houston, the 24.6 percent rate in Minneapolis—it’s a fairly dismal list on a national scale. One thing all of those locations have in common is that they are well above the national office vacancy rate of 18.2 percent, itself up from 16.4 percent in the final quarter of 2021. “There’s a strange combination of things affecting office markets” na tionally, says Bucky Brooks of Copa ken Brooks. “Specific to office, that market is not going away, but it’s changing. Tenants are trying to get

Remember the grave-robbing scene from Young Frankenstein? The good doctor remarks on the filthy task, and Igor puts an optimistic spin on it: “Could be worse.” “How?” “Could be raining.” (Lightning flashes, downpour begins.) If you’re in commercial real es tate sales and brokerage today, you just have to hope that no one suggests things could be worse. Consider: On the retail side of things, the Kansas City region’s last retail outlet bearing the storied brand of the Sears, Roebuck & Co. legacy—a Sears Home & Life store in Overland Park—threw in the towel just this

month by starting a liquidation sale. On the office side, leasing activi ty continued to slow nationwide, ac cording to Jones Lang Lasalle, with vacancy rates rising and the specter of defaults arising with coming debt maturities. Leasing volume recorded a third straight quarter of slumping demand—down nearly 10 percent from the final quarter of 2020, while leasing activity was also 10.7 percent lower than the final quarter of 2022. Not the cheeriest of news, but as Igor might have said, it could be worse. How? Well, a 20.8 percent market vacancy rate here is no pic nic, but it’s better than the 29.9 and 25.4 percent rates in the Connecticut

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Ingrams.com

May 2023