WASHINGTON, DC-REITs accounted for 40% of all investment sales activity in the Washington DC area in 2010, according to a new analysis by CB Richard Ellis--making them the largest buying group. Whether or not they can match that record in 2011 will be determined by who else starts competing for DC area commercial real estate assets, William E. Kaye, executive vice president of CBRE’s investment sales group, tells GlobeSt.com.
“There is an enormous amount of capital competing in our market and that will step up as the year goes on. REITs are going to find themselves competing more against pension funds and other institutional investors," Kaye says.
By any measure, the Washington, DC commercial real estate market is among the most robust in the nation. CBRE also reports that by yearend, total net absorption reached 4.3 million square feet, an all-time record high. In addition, vacancy rates fell below 10% to 9.8%, more than two percentage points from the five-year peak of 12% that the market saw in the first quarter of 2010. This was the second-largest decline in the vacancy rate of any market across the country behind Manhattan.
On the investment sales side, there was a nearly 175% increase in overall transaction value, with 53 sales closed representing a total volume of $4.8 billion. Over 55% of the transaction volume was in the downtown DC markets, with Northern Virginia having 42% of the activity and Maryland just 3% of the total volume.
© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to asset-and-logo-licensing@alm.com. For more inforrmation visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
