NEW YORK CITY-In examining the Bloomberg administration’s $68.7million preliminary budget for 2013 and long-range financial planfor 2016, an analysis released by the New York CityIndependent Budget Office shows that the five boroughswill demonstrate stronger gains in employment than in income,resulting in a mixed picture for commercial real estate. Accordingto the report, IBOprojects that the city will gain 435,000 jobs over the next fiveyears, despite continued weakness in Wall Street revenues, salariesand tax collections for the city.

Kenneth J. McCarthy, senior economist andsenior managing director of research at Cushman &Wakefield, tells GlobeSt.com that while job growth willdepend on the pace of the overall recovery, office vacancy rateswill continue to trend lower and rents will trend higher inManhattan. As of year-end 2011, C&W reported that Manhattan’soverall office vacancy was 9.1%, down from 10.5% in 2010 – a signof positive growth.

“New York City right now has one of the lowest vacancy rates inthe country,” McCarthy says. “To see healthy job growth in anenvironment with already low vacancy rates, new construction isstarting come into the pipeline, but not to be delivered for a fewyears is pretty positive for the market. Overall these numberssuggest that the market should continue to do well.”