A well-seasoned crowd of about 300 commercial real estate professionals--mostly all upbeat--attended the first RealShare conference produced by Real Estate Media Inc. and GlobeSt.com. Dallas was first out of the gate. RealShare New Jersey is slated for Oct. 3 at the Sheraton Woodbridge and RealShare New York, Oct. 9 at the Roosevelt Hotel. Real Estate Media is the parent organization of GlobeSt.com, Real Estate Forum and Real Estate New Jersey.

Yesterday's magnifying glass was aimed at the Big D more so than its rival city, Fort Worth. The cause undoubtedly due to an office vacancy that has spread the perception that Dallas is down for the count.

Not so, said RealShare Dallas participants. In fact, Dallas is on the radar screen as a good place to buy product of all kind and a possible landing ground for some key corporate relocations that has scouting parties out in the marketplace. Economics expert Dr. Ray Perryman of the Perryman Group in Waco, TX believes Dallas will win some of the bids. The tried-and-true attributes of being a corporate-friendly state with middle of the country positioning and no state income tax will once again be the magnets for expansions and relocations.

In essence, the city fundamentally is poised to grow despite current office vacancy issues. "None of the politicians want to say Texas had a recession," Perryman told the crowd. He's not even sure it could be labeled as such since there might not have been a drop in output although jobs were cut from one end of the state to the other. It was "a bad year," he admitted, "by our standards." And that's the key to the perception of what's happening in Dallas because what is standard here has been the creation of 100,000 new jobs per year. Those days certainly are gone for now, but the hard times of 2002 still managed to rack up 40,000 new jobs for North Texas. Perryman predicted it will get even better in six to nine months in Dallas and Austin.

Some of that job growth could be gleaned from trade missions taking off from Austin, much like they did to sell the state in the late 1980s when Perryman participated. The junkets don't produce immediate results, he said, but they do establish contacts that ultimately will "make things happen."

As Real Estate Forum editor-in-chief Michael Desiato observed in the Town Hall meeting, "In the near-term, it's not looking good around town." He was referring to a Deutsche Bank-generated observation, which labeled the Dallas outlook as cloudy. It was a comment that drew winces from the panel--John C. Goff, vice chairman and CEO of Crescent Real Estate Equities Co.; R. Dary Stone, president of Cousins Texas; Todd L. Platt, CEO of Hillwood Investments; Herbert D. Weitzman, CEO of the Weitzman Group and Cencor Realty Services; and Mark Gibson, executive managing director of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP.

"I'm not quite sure that business is as bad as others are portraying it or it's just that it's not as good as it has been in other years," Platt said, echoing sentiments of the others that today's conditions are simply temporary setbacks.

Gibson was quick to point out that only Washington, DC drew favorable comments from Deutsche Bank. In reality, Dallas closings are up as real estate basks in its stronghold on investment capital. "There's no other attractive alternative," Gibson said.

Office, as expected, got slammed while industrial, multifamily and retail cornered more compliments than criticism. "Virtually every institution wants to be in the industrial market in Dallas today," said Ted Klinck, head of capital transactions for Lend Lease Real Estate Investments. Private, pension fund and foreign capital, he said, "at unprecedented levels are flowing into the metroplex today."

That could be, said Evan W. Stone, managing director of Eastdil and a RealShare panel moderator, because "Dallas happens to be downright cheap in some respects" when the per sf costs are stacked up against similar metro markets.

At the end of the day, the consensus was real estate has been legitimized as an asset class. "In most parts of the country, good product is selling," said John Kerin, first senior vice president and managing director for Marcus & Millichap.

It might not be a fundamental shift that's going to last for the long term, but for now, it's here and it's real. "At some point, it will flow back out," Klinck said. "It's a bubble, but it's a great bubble right now for sellers."

Dallas' big leader, multifamily, is now trading above assessed values for class B and C properties, attracting upward of a dozen offers in most cases. Even class A players such as Palladium USA International Inc. are shifting toward repositioning opportunities, with an appetite for existing infill properties, said Spencer Stuart Jr., Palladium USA's president.

Retail is caught in an economic dichotomy, but is holding its own despite the fallout from some big name big boxes and consumer spending cuts. "Retailers haven't stopped expanding," Weitzman said. Even better, those who are prospering have an "attitude" about gaining market share. "They are aggressively taking some sites," he said.

In the Texas circuit, the basic perceptions are Houston has the energy; Austin has the capitol; San Antonio has the Alamo; and Dallas has the real estate, a market driver that attracts high-rolling, risk-taking entrepreneurs willing to go the distance to do the deal. The market movers, the legends of Dallas, told their survival stories of the past and their strategies for now.

Would they bank on Dallas right now? Craig Hall, chairman and CEO of Hall Financial Group, said "yes. It's a fabulous market. It depends on where and what, but it's a great place to invest, particularly in difficult times.

Instant Insights /

GlobeSt.com EXCLUSIVE: RealShare Speakers Insist Dallas' Difficult Days Won't Last

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