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Apartments weathered the increase in competition from for-rent houses and condominiums relatively well through most of 2008, However, rising jobs losses will push vacancy up more dramatically in 2009.During the fourth quarter, apartment vacancy rose 40 basis points to 6.6 percent, bringing the year-over-year increase to 90 basis points. Markets hit hardest by housing, such as Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas and most Florida markets, registered the greatest increases in vacancy over the past year. Markets that held up best were those in which construction was minimal owing to land constraints or generally weaker economic conditions. San Francisco and New York…

San Francisco’s apartment story has followed the same track for a number of years: Healthy demand exceeds the supply of rental stock. “It’s like other financial hubs, such as Los Angeles and New York, that have the best-paying jobs,” said James Devincenti, senior vice president of investments for Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services Inc. “San Francisco has a great climate, a great way of life. People want to live here.”Apartment buildings built before 1979 are rent controlled, so rents are mandated to rise at a rate of 60 percent of the consumer price index. That has translated to…

With office vacancy rates continuing to rise, a developer with an expertise in suburban build-to-suit and speculative office projects is likely to have trouble keeping busy. But The Alter Group has continued to develop by expanding its horizons.The company’s most recent redevelopment project is a luxury boutique condominium in Vail, Colo. The company was awarded a $30 million construction loan to add 16 units to the luxury Landmark Condominiums by building into the air rights and to build a new entrance and clock tower.Alter has diversified in recent years, building industrial space, medical offices and even a hotel in Downtown…

The office market lies in the path of a deepening recession, and market fundamentals are softening, though at a moderate pace. The rate of deterioration is more like an orderly retreat than a rout, at least so far.The vacancy rate ended 2008 at 14.8 percent, an increase of 50 basis points in the fourth quarter and 180 basis points for the year. During 2001, when the economy was last in recession—from March to November of that year—vacancy increased by an average of 140 basis points per quarter. Net absorption totaled negative 2.2 million square feet in the fourth quarter and…

With the commercial real estate market facing even more contraction in 2009 and beyond, how can companies devise an effective strategic focus for the future?In today’s industry, a key strategic component is the adoption of a technology-driven approach that builds long-lasting fundamental value.  Executed properly, this strategy can bolster companies in difficult times and set the stage for growth, profit and a competitive edge when conditions improve.Strategic focus areas for technology can incorporate:•    Operational efficiencies and services–including electronic transactions, data centralization and a business-wide management system–that reduce non-value-added actions and lower operational costs;•    Integrated, real-time business intelligence tools that enable…

It’s Top Ten season again. That means sustainable design metrics have been tracked across the country and will be submitted soon for this year’s green project awards. One metric, the Environmental Protection Agency’s energy performance rating, is the key measure of commercial projects’ energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Portfolio Manager is the tool of choice for operating projects, and also serves as the energy metric for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Existing Buildings designation. It allows users to track multiple energy and water meters for a facility. The system benchmarks monthly utility data against past performance and…

I first spoke about energy conservation in data centers at a conference in the spring of 2001. It was a disaster. Nobody cared. Energy was cheap, and reliability trumped everything. Eight years later, the “green data center” is the hot topic.In many parts of the country, electric rates have double or tripled. The costs to own and operate data centers are hitting the bottom lines of companies in a big way. Most companies are taking steps to reduce their data centers’ energy use.There are several avenues to take to reduce energy consumption in a data center: hardware, software and the…

In difficult economic times, allocating budgets grows even more challenging. But tough times also have a way of producing smart shifts. A case in point: Commercial real estate dollars committed to online marketing hit an all-time high in 2008, both in dollar terms and as a share of overall marketing budgets, according to media research and consulting firm Borrell Associates Inc.Online spending is expected to rise 17 percent in 2009, according to Borrell, as the industry continues its move online. Fish where the fish are, the proverb says. And, increasingly, prospective buyers and tenants for commercial real estate are more…

Q: My company is consolidating its office space and I will be selling or subleasing some space. What should I take into consideration on the technology side?A: Office space consolidation is a great idea, regardless of the economy. When dealing with subleasing or selling the space, however, there are a few issues you should take into consideration regarding the physical and logical segregation of your IT infrastructure.Regarding your business, consider the following: Have you conducted an IT assets audit? A network security audit? We recommend performing an IT assets/network security audit annually and whenever major changes occur–office moves, consolidations, prior…

The problem with filing cabinets is, they are just not portable. People, however, are extremely mobile. In a service- and information-based economy, businesspeople need information to travel with them.Thus, TractManager Inc. developed and manages PropertyTract, a superpowered virtual filing cabinet. Clients store their files on PropertyTract servers under lock and key–or rather, username and password. Pivotal to the product’s usefulness, however, are TractManager’s patents for key-word searching and electronic tables of contents.Here is how it works: A new client provides TractManager with a pile of documents. The software company scans them and builds a database to the user’s needs. The…