PHILADELPHIA-Although the CRE experts who took the stage Thursday morning for the opening Dealmaker Power Panel at this year's RealShare Philadelphia were there to discuss the local market, they made it clear that the region serves as an unobstructed vantage point from which to survey the national landscape.
Moderator Phil Rosenfeldt, institutional real estate practice group leader with Blank Rome LLP, noted that as 2013 progresses, "a rising tide will lift all ships" even as some sectors continue to fare better than others.
Rosenfeldt set the stage with a summary of the macroeconomic picture. Nationwide, he noted, "The election is behind us, the fiscal cliff at best has been deferred and the economy, at least nationally, is improving slowly."
With that as a backdrop, Art Pasquarella, EVP and COO of Equus Capital Partners Ltd., noted, "We are more optimistic than we were a year ago, and a year ago we were more optimistic than we were 12 months prior to that."
Similarly, Bob Walters, executive managing director at CBRE, cited a pervasive sense of optimism in conversations he's had recently, in contrast to the "gloom and doom" of two or three years ago. He noted that multifamily and industrial in particular have reached pre-recessionary levels of activity. Office sales, too, have rebounded, although the doubling of volume in the sector has occurred from a low baseline.
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