No Signs of Recession in Top US Real Estate Markets
BOSTON, Jan. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Despite the recent reports of an impending recession, top real estate markets in the US continue to post strong growth. While there has been substantial building in many major US markets, particularly in the suburban areas, absorption has been strong enough to keep up with the new supply being delivered to the market.
``Growth in the real estate markets, as evidenced by the absorption of space, has been very strong nationally, with many major markets posting 5% to 7%, and in one case, 10% expansion,'' said Ross Moore, Vice President and National Director of Research for Colliers International, a global commercial real estate firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. ``If there is a recession coming, the real estate markets don't show any signs of it yet,'' he added....
biz.yahoo.com
REITs Soar in 2000, Dot.coms Bested
Lesley Hensell, Realty Times Columnist
After much controversy, bad reporting and misleading information, a winner has been declared for 2000.
No, this does not describe the battle for the White House. Instead, it accurately depicts the confusing and ? in many cases ? disheartening environment for investors big and small, especially as 2000 came to a close. But one thing is for sure: as the year ended, the equity real estate investment trust (REIT) sector could claim victory, not only on its own merit but also in comparison to other indices on Wall Street.
After a couple of years of what could only be described as investor euphoria, the public equity markets came to a grinding halt last year. Some investors relatively new to Wall Street were shocked by their first market downturn, which saw the S&P 500 with a negative total return of more than 9 percent on the year.
Even more disheartening was a loss of nearly 40 percent on the year for the NASDAQ Composite Index, while even the hearty Russell 2000 decreased by 3 percent.
But over this same period, equity REITs experienced an annual total return of more than 26 percent.
At the beginning of 2000, few predicted such a rebound. Many REITs, in fact, were considering or already undertaking stock repurchase programs to boost their lagging share prices. Returns in the industry were negative in both 1998 and 1999, giving little encouragement that REITs would offer reasonable returns, even in a booming real estate market environment.
But in 2000, the dynamics of Wall Street shifted dramatically. Technology-heavy and large-cap indices turned negative, in sharp contrast to their impressive returns of prior years. This pushed investors to re-evaluate their portfolios, resulting in a move toward companies "more appropriately characterized by value, income and predictable cash flow," said Michael Grupe, vice president for research with the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT).
According to NAREIT, the lodging sector posted a total return of 46 percent in 2000, while the office and apartment sectors gained about 35 percent each. The industrial, regional mall, diversified and health care sectors all registered total returns in the range of 25 percent to 30 percent.
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