Election Caused 4Q Office Slowdown

Andrew Lustgarten is a corporate managing director at Savills Studley.

LOS ANGELES—The L.A. office market slowed at the end of the year, and the presidential election may have caused it, according to an office report from Savills Studley. In 4Q16, deal volume fell 20.3% from the previous quarter, and leases are taking longer to complete. While the first half of 2017 will show if this was a pause or a more significant softening of the market, Andrew Lustgarten, corporate managing director of Savills Studley, says that the election spurred the end-of-year slowdown.

“Leasing activity slowed Q4 due to the election of a new and controversial president that created uncertainty among tenants,” Lustgarten tells GlobeSt.com. “In addition, 2016 was already an extremely active year with more than 10 million square feet of leasing during the 2nd and 3rd quarters.  Significant large transactions that took place in prior quarters included Snapchat, ICM, Disney, Fandango, Warner Music, Oracle and Endemol.”